Not just a pressure cooker

I wish I could be as productive in my free time as Robert Wang. Laid off from the very software company he had co-founded, he didn't loaf, but, rather, turned his attention toward a problem he had not formerly had time to consider: how to feed his family healthy meals, as opposed to fast food and carryout, even when he had little time to cook. Wang, a Ph.D. in computer science, got together with a couple of other telecom engineers and spent a year and a half and $300,000 in life savings working on the project.

Before it was all over, Wang and his colleagues had invented one of the most revolutionary cooking devices ever, so successful that it has become the top-selling item on Amazon, spawned a Facebook group with over a million followers, and achieved near cult status. More than a mere gadget, its credibility as a serious cooking appliance has been conferred by none other than Williams-Sonoma, which now stocks it on its shelves. It is the Instant Pot.

Wang, who now has three Instant Pots running on his kitchen counter at all times and another 20 in his basement, had wanted to call his invention the iPot before attorneys suggested that he might get into trouble with Apple. Yet it's not going too far to suggest that the Instant Pot is to the slow cooker what the iPhone is to the telephone. Just as Steve Jobs made phones smart, so too did Wang make the slow cooker (a genuinely "dumb" device) and more importantly the pressure cooker, intelligent.

The Instant Pot purports to combine the functions of a number of appliances, but it is fundamentally a pressure cooker, a device invented way back in 1679 by the French physicist Denis Papin. Seated upon a custom-built furnace, it impressed members of the British Royal Society, among them Isaac Newton, when he demonstrated it to them. Like my mother's, it occasionally exploded.

But when safely harnessed by technology, as it is in an Instant Pot, pressure can do amazing things to food. Tough cuts of meat become incredibly tender, risotto turns out extra creamy, beans don't turn to mush. In a word, the Instant Pot can make foods more succulent despite its timesaving and convenience features. This I have learned just recently, only after my son gave me one.

And if, like others, I sound like I have fallen in love with my Instant Pot I have a confession to make. For years I disdained owning such a device. Not that I couldn't fall in love with a cooking appliance. I'm still infatuated with my two stand mixers. Ditto my three food processors and my two high-speed blenders. But I snobbishly viewed an electronic pressure cooker as a mere convenience, not a real cooking tool. I was wrong.

So, with apologies to the late Freddie Mercury, cooking under pressure for me has given love one more chance.

Balsamic Beef Short Ribs

This recipe adapted from the official Instant Pot cookbook, may convince you that what the Instant Pot can do for short ribs might be reason enough to get one.

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 8 bone-in beef short ribs (3 1/2 pounds)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 6 smashed cloves of garlic
• 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 8 sprigs fresh thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 medium yellow onion, quartered
• 1 1/4 pounds whole baby potatoes
• 3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Season short ribs with salt and pepper. Heat oil in Instant Pot on saute setting. Brown short ribs in two batches and set aside. Add garlic to pot and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. Add tomatoes, vinegar, water, thyme, and bay leaves. Nestle short ribs and onion into sauce and put potatoes on top. Cancel saute setting and lock pot lid in place. Close pressure-release valve. Set pot to high pressure and set timer to 45 minutes. When ribs are finished cooking, use quick release method to depressurize pot, then open lid. Discard bay leaves and thyme sprigs, and serve, spooning sauce over ribs and vegetables. Sprinkle with parsley and lemon zest.