By Kate Krader, Bloomberg
April 27, 2018
In the cookbook world, you need just need two words for a surefirebest seller: “Instant Pot.”
The pressure cooker-styledevice, specifically the six-quart, seven-in-onemodel, hasdominated the world of home cookingsince Amazon.com Inc.featured it during Prime Day in 2016. In November, CNBC reported that 5 million Instant Pots had been sold in a three-year period.
Two of the top 10cookbooks in 2017 were devoted to the appliance, according toPublishers Weekly.Melissa Clark’sDinner in an Instant(Clarkson Potter, $13.93) has sold150,000 copiessince its October release;the New York Times columnist estimates that her latest hit outsoldher previous 39 cookbooks,combined.
Mention the appliance to chefsand you’re most likely to draw a blank stare.
“What’s an Instant Pot?” asksAlex Stupak, chef and co-owner of Empellón in New York.
Officially, the device shouldn’t be in professional kitchens at all. “Our current products are designed and certified for household use only,”YiQin, vice president of product management at Instant Pot in Ottawa, Ontario, told Bloomberg by email.
One obvious reason the appliance hasn’t been embraced by the restaurant community is scale. The largest Instant Pot holds 8 quarts—a drop in the (stock) pot for most restaurants.
One of the few professional chefs who admitsto having an Instant Pot in his restaurant is Jonny Hunter of the Madison, Wisc.-based Underground Food Collective. In fact, he has five. Hunter is a fan of the compressed cook times and precision that the device offers.
“Traditionally, it takes about 40 days to make black garlic,” he says, referring to the intensely sticky Asian flavoring.“I can do it in sixhours.”
Most dishes can’t be sped up so rapidly by the Instant Pot, but Hunter argues that even modest time savings will add up for a busy cook. Take hard-boiled eggs, for example:“It takes you eightminutes in an Instant Pot; the regular way takes 12 minutes,” he says.“Chefs say, ‘Who cares about that difference?’ But I save fourminutes each time, and they’re perfectly cooked.”
Garrison Price, of New York’s il Buco Alimentari, routinely does 250 covers a night, yethe still finds the low-yielding appliance usefulfor makinggoat-milk yogurt. He serves it as anaccompaniment to leg of lamb with wild watercress and anchovies, as well as spice-roasted spring carrots with green almonds. Making yogurt the traditional way is “tricky,” Price says. “You don’t have to baby sit yogurt you’re making in an Instant Pot.”
Pricebelieves chefs don’t use the Instant Pot because of the message they associate with it. “I thinkit’s the infomercial-ness,” he says.
In Houston, James Beard award-winning chef Chris Shepherdis experimenting with an Instant Pot to create batches of pho “dressing” for a carpacciodish athis upcoming80-seat restaurant, UB Preserv.“I got the idea from my manicurist; she’s a big Instant Pot fan,” saysShepherd. He first used one at a previous restaurant when he ran out ofKorean-braised goat and dumplings. “My cook said:‘We should bust out thatInstant Pot we have in storage.’ We had more goat ready in 45 minutes.”
At the Latin restaurant Público in St. Louis, Mike Randolph cooks almost everything on an open hearth. Yet his Instant Pot has been used to produce items ranging from vegan chorizo stock to dulce de leche. Randolph agrees that a drawback for some chefs is perception. “There’s a hesitation in having a brand name like that in your kitchen. A lot of chefs want to keep things more traditional, with a stovetop,” says Randolph.
Why indeed doesn’t Instant Pot create a bigger model for professionals? The company appears to have already asked thesame question.“We are looking into all opportunities to expand the electric pressure multi-cooker market. Currently, we don’t have a commercial offering. But nothing is impossible,” saidQin by email.
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
This article was written by Kate Krader from Bloomberg and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to [emailprotected].
