Electric pressure cookers hit it big in American home kitchens a few years back because, along with the perceived lower risk of dinner on the ceiling, they cook food fast. Something like beef stew, which takes all day in a slow cooker, needs as little as 25 minutes under pressure. With an extra hit of power, Instant Pot's new six-quart Max[1] promises to take that speed and turn it up to 11, getting dinner to the table even faster.
Could it? I wondered. And what's 11 mean, anyway?
Like many other electric “multicookers,” the Max has several functions beyond pressure cooking including browning, slow cooking, steaming, rice-cooking, and yogurt-making. Like a few fancier models, it can cook sous vide, though due to the size of the cooking pot, that's of pretty limited utility. The big difference is that until now, electric models struggled to achieve 15 psi when pressure cooking, the way old-school stovetop pressure cookers could. Without that extra bit of pressure, electric pressure cookers couldn't get quite as hot, and recipes took a little while longer than they did in stovetop models.
Now with 1,100 watts (compared with Instant Pot's traditional 1,000 watts), the Max says, “No more!” It hits 15psi and gets dinner cooked an estimated 10 to 15 percent faster. It’s caught up to your grandma's stovetop pressure cooker! It’s not as big a deal as the hype preceding the Max, but it's a nice, solid step forward. For now, it’s only available in a standard 6-quart size and you’ll pay a premium—$200—for the improvements.
Now if only they could have boosted its searing capability. Searing is an electric pressure cooker's weak spot, especially considering how many pressure-cook and slow-cook recipes use browning as...