Instant Pot Glory Stories.. Beef Pot Roast, New England Clam Chowder and Kalua Pig

Do you own an instant pot? It seems to be the rage for many of my foodie friends. Some have produced out of it atypical things like brownies, cheesecakes and yogurt. Others claim it's a kitchen life saver, and has gone as far as ditching their rice and slow cookers altogether. I've seen countless posts 'gramming restaurant-worthy results and pledging adoration since the beginning of pot's time. My husband bought one late last year on sale, so I have one now too. What's a busy momma' of three to do? Discover pot of course.... 

I've been away here, busy as always and still cooking up a storm... Returning to the swing of things, I'm baaaaack with three successful instant pot recipes to share. Yup, three all in one post. Ha, why not to make up for lost recipe recording time. It all started with my first ever pot recipe to end 2018. And I must admit I was pretty excited to get it going. It was a beef pot roast straight out of its manual with fabulous results. Then weeks later, having google eyed the New England Clam Chowder recipe, made that creamy deliciousness too. Recently, I got around to Nom Nom Paleo's Kalua Pig, a recipe my dear friend Richelle says hands-down was her absolute fave to cook in her beloved pot. Pretty incredible results in record speed simulating long braising in a much shorter time. Something I'm not used to as I've always been cooking, brewing and stewing from scratch for hours at a time. 

The lure for the pot roast came when I noticed I had on hand a bunch of vegetables and potatoes and pondered the meat to serve with. Recalling the recipe in the booklet, it was the perfect time to finally give the instant pot a shot. A four-pounder would usually take an hour and a half, so preparing this in less than an hour was pretty cool. Was it too good to be true? I had to find out...

Instant Pot Beef Pot Roast

I liked how the pot doubles up as a pan to sauté and sear. It heats up quickly and cooking in the pot is great for preventing oil splatter. The thing that made me super wary was the seal and venting spout during quick release. If you are not careful, you could get spit on from the emitting steam and wet vapour or worse. I did the recipe differently. I cooked the pot roast first, tented it in foil to rest and cooked the chopped vegetables and potatoes in the liquid for 10 minutes separately. I added zucchinis and mushrooms too. This worked out well, although I would pressure cook the latter two vegetables for only five minutes next time. Too soft.

Mesmerized when I lifted the lid- OMG escaped from my agaped lips.

The popular part of making this meal was reducing the pot juices and creating the luscious gravy.

Super tender and bang on flavourful! That's what you get when you pressure cook, locking in all the yumminess.

A winner dinner for my family!

Next Up- New England Clam Chowder which I am a super fan of. It has all the C elements of soup heaven in a bowl- creamy, clammy and chunky! The bacon gives it that divine smoky touch! A very straight forward recipe in the pot and one I can't wait to make again.

Having your mise en place (ingredients in its place) is crucial!

Bacon and onions sent off alarm bells in our senses! 

Adding the clam juice (yum) and table cream (instead of whipping cream)

Eyes-roll-back-of-head crazy deliciousness! Double thumbs up from the family.

A great casual chowder to complement a weeknight meal or as an elegant dinner prelude to entertain guests.

Instant Pot New England Clam Chowder

Veering off manual, my most recent pot creation was Kalua Pig, a recipe by Michelle Tam at Nom Nom Paleo. My food-loving friend says it was a must so it was a must I trust. An apparent 16-hours long simmering popular Hawaiian pork dish made in the instant pot in a mere freakin' 1-1/2 hours!!! Talk about impressive! It's also only a four ingredient recipe for smoky, fork-tender pig made easy with just bone-in pork shoulder, bacon, garlic and salt. One that you can set in the pot and forget it. I however, used a bone-in pork ham cut picked up on sale at the supermarket. The results were more of a shredded dry loin then succulent shreds you would get from pork shoulder, a note well-taken for next time. But not all was compromised. Leftovers were deliciously pan-fried to semi-crispy for a DIY sammies dinner.

Trimming off skin and extra fat in this five pounder.

Cloves of garlic embedded into tiny slits and pork rubbed generously all over with salt. Alaea Red Hawaiian Coarse Sea Salt or Magic Mushroom Powder is recommended by Michelle, but any fine salt will do.

Cutting the pork into three pieces for even cooking.

Bacon gets the sauté treatment before the pork pieces nestles in to soak in the smoky sauna.

90 minutes later- with its intoxicating perfume permeating the house... THIS!!!

Tongs made it easy for shredding. Since this cut was similar to a pork loin the shreds were more dry compared to fall-off-the-bone tender moist shoulder meat.

Michelle serves her kalua pig on top of cabbage wedges, she pressure cooks in the pork's pot juices for ten minutes. She says it's just like with traditional Hawaiian kalua pig plate lunches- so you can enjoy some veggies with your mountain of pork! It's so brilliant. I love the humble cabbage.

Nom Nom Paleo Kalua Pig

Our kalua pig was also served with roasted broccoli and mini potatoes with a side of tomato pepper relish for a perfect weeknight dinner. My kids loved the easy to eat flavourful shredded pork... 

So much so, I turned it into a creative leftovers meal with DIY customized kalua pig sammies!

Sauteing the shredded pork until semi-crispy!

This reminds me of my Best-Ever BBQ pulled beef in a slowcooker for a test kitchen's Calgary Stampede promo I worked on a decade ago, and one that I've made for my twins' birthday picnic to the delight of guests. The right beef roast makes tender moist shredded "pulled" beef sandwiches after a long simmering in a rich, BBQ sauce for hours. Talk nine and overnight. But with the help of the instant pot, that time is going to cut tremendously!!! Having now made kalua pig which feels like an instant compared to its usual 16 hours feat, nine hours has nothing on this lol. Looking forward to give my winner sandwich filling a whirl in the pot soon.

Go For It-- Choose your own toppings and condiments!

Loaded kaiser with spinach, sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes, onions and pickles.

Behemoth Kalua Pig Sammie

It's only been a couple and I have to say, I am happy to finally discover pot. It certainly has been fun, time-saving and an eye-opener- I am impressed! With a much busier schedule nowadays, maybe my willing hours-on-end cooking episodes are a thing of the past... No plans to replace my handy dandy rice cooker or my occasional slow cooker just yet. Although, I'm looking forward to test these very things to see how they would turn out and what else I could do in it. What about Korean spicy pork bone soup gamjatang? Vietnamese pho? 

What's your favourite thing to cook in your pot?