Book Review: American Instant Pot Great Recipes

Title: American Instant Pot Great Recipes Cookbook with Pictures 2024

Author: Olivia Graham

Quote: "Each chapter showcases iconic dishes from different states and cities."

How "iconic" these recipes are, the US reader may decide. They're not traditional. They are variations on traditional recipes, often lighter on fats and heavier on spices than most traditional US food was, all designed for use in the Instant Pot freestanding computer-enhanced pressure-cooker. Fair disclosure: I don't have such a thing, nor do I plan to get one, so I have no idea how these recipes will turn out. But they'd probably taste good if you start with good clean vegetables.

They are mostly meat dishes enhanced with a few vegetables. Actually the proportion of veg to meat runs higher than was traditional. Again, healthy if you can get clean veg. There are a few desserts and a few of the kind of main dishes that are designed to save washing dishes by tasting just like dessert so people don't want dessert afterward, though they might want something savory. There's a fair bit of what I'd call extravagance, like using maple syrup in baked beans, The amounts of spices used might be considered overbearing--taste and tell. I like spices, but if using more than one I'd use a sprinkle, not even a quarter-teaspoon, where some of these recipes use a half-teaspoon. Taste and decide for yourself. When used by the half-teaspoon spices have medicinal properties.

There are lots of possibilities for cooking "free" for just about anything you want to avoid--not so many if you want to avoid meat, but lots of dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free, corn-free, garlic-free and just about everything else. Nothing is salt-free, but it's easy to cook just about anything and ignore the salt. I don't like to buy "low-sodium" canned or preserved foods because they're either preserved with sugar, preserved with gruesome chemicals, or not preserved with anything at all and therefore likely to have deteriorated even before they were shelved in the store, but I do like to serve (and eat) fresh food prepared without salt; people really can add salt if they want it, and everyone can be happy, when the meal is freshly cooked.

One thing not to like is that this book promises beginning cooks that they will "find full-color pictures...so you can easily follow along and see exactly how your dish should look." The pictures all look very nice but some of them are obviously NOT even close to the recipes they accompany. There's a two-layer jello mold illustrated with a photo of a three-layer one, a pulled pork sandwich illustrated with a photo of baked breaded chicken. A good idea for beginning cooks is not to worry too much about plating anyway. If it tastes and smells good, whatever way you serve it will become the way your family think it's supposed to look. 

If you have an Instant Pot, please use the comment section to tell everyone how these recipes turned out. If you don't...most things that can be pressure-cooked can be cooked on the stove top, for two to four times the amount of time, but why? 

In any case, here is a recipe for each State and for several major cities in the United States, and if they're not what you remember a city or State by, they are at least pressure-cooked variations on things that have been served in the place indicated. Each recipe is designed to serve two people, minimizing leftovers. This cookbook is designed just for students or newlyweds who you know have already bought, or been given, Instant Pots.