Fagor Splendid 6-Quart Pressure Cooker

Warranty is useless
We bought this pressure cooker from Macy's. The body and handles are still in very good condition after about 1 year of moderate use. However, the red/purple-ish lock on the upper handle began to deform by the heat from the cooker (it is shielded from the stove burner by the lower handle), making the open and lock operation harder and harder, until finally the plastic piece is stuck to the open position rendering the pot thing useless. Fagor's warranty does not cover this. I was instructed to place an order for the upper handle assembly which costs over 1/3 of the price of the entire thing. I can't see how the problem is not caused by a defect in the material, or why one should continue spend money on the company's product.

A Quicker Cooker, only bigger
1. Cooking with a pressure cooker

Think of a pressure cooker as a crock pot on steroids. The increased pressure inside the sealed vessel results in an elevated boiling point, producing a higher cooking temperature for faster cooking. The standard pressure for these cookers is 15 psi, raising the boiling point from 212f to 250f. Current design features considerably improve the safety of these pots over WWII vintage kitchen bombs.

Pressure cookers are perfect for pot roasts, stews, soups, stocks and long-simmering sauces, reducing cooking times by as much as seventy percent. Beans cook faster in a pressure cooker, although their soaking time is unaffected. Rice will cook faster, too, although the convenience of a dedicated rice cooker is beyond dispute.

Some pressure cookers let users select a second, lower pressure setting (8 psi, bp @ 215f), which yields considerably less accelerated cooking. Why slow down a high-speed cooker? Because some foods, like...

Risotto in 6 minutes? No way!
My mom uses a pressure cooker. It's an old, beat-up thing made out of who-knows-what in an ugly brown color and the jiggly thing on top. It must be older than me. But the stew that comes out of it is amazing. So I think I want my own pressure cooker and added this one to our wedding registry. One of our guests (no doubt a pressure cooker fan) bought it for us. In fact, it was the very first gift snatched off our Amazon.com registry! Then it went into the closet. That was last year and I am embarrassed to admit it. We just bought a new house, and inspired by all the extra cabinet space I dug out the Fagor. Risotto in 6 minutes? No way! I have to try it. They aren't kidding. You can make a butternut squash risotto in 6 minutes. That's right...a hard-as-a-rock winter squash that comes out as if you'd been roasting it for an hour. It was the best risotto we ever had. The prep time took twice as long as the cook time and consists mainly of cutting up your veggies and/or...

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