Product Description
Ingrid Hoffman Simply Delicioso by T-fal YS2H4064 Express Stainless Steel Dishwasher Safe 7.4-Quart Pressure Cooker, Silver
| List Price: | $169.99 |
| Price: |
$70.62 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details |
| as of Mon, 18 Mar 2013 04:35:40 GMT ***Remember, deals price on this item for sale just for limited time*** | |
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #7123 in Kitchen & Housewares
- Size: Small
- Color: Silver
- Brand: T-fal
- Model: YS2H4064
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 11.42" h x 21.85" w x 17.91" l, 9.92 pounds
Features
- Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging
- Professional stainless steel construction
- Steam basket and stand included
- Lid with adjustable pressure control
- Recipe book included
- Dishwasher safe, limited lifetime warranty
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
By Fillmoe
I've used pressure cookers about 45 years, progressing from Mom's old Presto (remember food sprayed onto the ceiling?) to the modern, safe timesavers available from many manufacturers today. I own three and have demonstrated several different brands in retail housewares departments. This 7.4 quart cooker is probably the largest most home cooks will ever need. It will hold enough bones and vegetables to make a few quarts of stock, which can then be boiled down and frozen for later use. It fits nicely on the large burner of a home stove and has a helper handle to make carrying easier. The control is a little different from some others: The user can specify a lower (7 lb psi) or higher (12 lb psi) pressure depending upon the food to be cooked. Some brands require raising or lowering the heat so that a visible gauge sits at the appropriate line; the T-fal method is easier and requires less watching. The available pressure is lower than some other cookers, but this is not a flaw; it simply adds a slight bit of cooking time. The cooker has a heavy aluminum bottom encased in stainless steel, like many quality pots. The incuded steamer basket sits on a separate wire trivet. This provides a trivet that could hold a different pan if making, for example, a steamed pudding.
A couple of features are slightly disappointing, but not dealbreakers. This cooker requires a minimum of 8.5 ounces of liquid to bring up proper pressure. This could be more liquid than is desired in some finished recipes and must be boiled down after the food is cooked. My other large pressure cooker requires 1/2 cup. Finally, the included recipes are, except for a few provided by Ingrid Hoffman, very 1950s vintage. There are several recipes for pressure cooking fish and seafood. Forget them. The temperatures inside a pressure cooker are too high, and the times required for bringing the cooker to pressure and releasing the pressure add to the cooking time, guaranteeing an overcooked result. I recommend the cookbooks by Lorna J. Sass.
33 of 35 people found the following review helpful.
By Boilermate
The Package
One of the Product Features for this item is, "Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging." What this means is they take the box containing the pressure cooker off the shelf, slap a mailing label on it, and stick it in the mail. My box came looking like they played football with it, but the contents were fine. If yours comes this way and the pot is dented DO NOT use it. Exchange it. Note: I only mention the packaging because it is listed as a "feature" in the product description.
The Pressure Cooker
There is little to distinguish this pressure cooker from most of the others on the market, and that's not a bad thing. It has heavy stainless steel construction with a thick disc bottom which is induction capable. The handle is comfortable and the helper handle is conveniently placed. As with many other units, a steamer basket and trivet are provided. Though I would never buy cookware on style, I must say the maroon plastic bits on this unit are nice looking.
I compared this cooker with my Fagor UCook which I have had for four years. Like the T-Fal, the Fagor is dual pressure. Unlike the Fagor, which is 8/15 psi, the T-Fal is 7/12 psi. Most pressure cooker recipes are written for 15 psi cookers, so in theory the T-Fal should take a bit longer to cook things. In reality, not so much.
The lid on the Fagor locks automatically when you rotate it into place. The T-Fal lid must be locked manually. I thought this would be a safety concern, allowing the pot to operate with the lid unlocked. I discovered, however, the pot will not pressurize with the lid unlocked. When there is pressure in the pot, a small pin pops up to let you know. On the Fagor, this pin is a contrasting yellow and extends above the surrounding plastic so it is easily seen. On my T-Fal this pin is the same color as all the other plastic bits, and even when the pot is under pressure this pin is below the surface of the surrounding parts. You really have to look for it.
The safety valve comes out for easy cleaning, but requires a bit of fiddling to get it in and out. The Fagor's goes in and out smoothly.
The food I prepared in this pressure cooker came out just fine...the same as with my other ones.
Recipe Booklet
While it comes with over 50 included recipes, only 5 are Ingrid Hoffman's secret recipes.
Celebrity Endorsed
With few exceptions, celebrity endorsed products tend to have a short shelf life, making parts hard to come by in the future. J&R already appears to be closing out the line. Also, part of the price of the unit goes back to the celebrity, so it is not as good a value as a non-endorsed brand.
I don't know who Ingrid Hoffman is. So much for being impressed with her endorsement.
Bottom Line
There isn't anything that really sets this pressure cooker apart from any other one on the market today. It cooks as well as any other and has the same basic features. Overall, though, I would not recommend you or anyone else buy this brand. Why?
- Warranty. While the pot is warranted for 10 years, the rest of the parts are only one. Even a Presto for about half the price is fully warranted for five. Others in this price range are 10 or more.
- Warranty service. T-fal doesn't list this or any other pressure cooker on its Web site, so I wonder about service and the availability of parts.
- Replacement Parts. T-fal recommends replacing the gasket yearly. I was unable to find anyone on line who carries replacement parts for this unit.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
By I Do The Speed Limit
Yes, I got out a lot of my favorite "S" words for this product. I have nothing bad to say about this pressure cooker:
The steps to set the pressure, close the lid, and bring it to pressure couldn't be easier; nor could unlocking and later on cleaning the pot. There are many safe and gentle steam release points to prevent steam from building up in the pot. The large size works for large and small cooking jobs. Its looks are very pleasing to the eye. And a very important point for some of us--and becoming more important as time goes by--the pot works with all heat sources, including a tough one to find--induction. This is NOT your mother's or grandmother's pressure cooker--no more rattling gauges and spitting steam and hot water. Ingenuity and modern engineering have been hard at work in the realm of pressure cooking and this particular appliance is a dream to use.
YOU CAN STOP READING HERE if you want to: The above basically sums it up. For those of you who have time to read more, below are some particulars to help you make a choice. I've also added an "Update" at the bottom regarding research I did on psi ratings:
Besides being perfectly suitable for gas, coil and solid-plate electric cook tops, this baby works on INDUCTION, CERAMIC, GLASS and HALOGEN cook tops. This pot's ability to recognize the magnetic field that makes induction cook tops work, well, that earns a gold star from me! I also use natural gas burners, and since that is a more common cooking technique, that was the heat source I used to first test this pot. I was amazed at the great heat-conductivity of this pot--quick conductivity is very important to me. I am used to quality cookware that gives me a QUICK HEAT RESPONSE in the pan. When I use a pan that is a bit slow to come up to temp, it is glaringly obvious to me. This pot heats up quick! And that is a plus in a pressure cooker, because your food doesn't start cooking properly until that steam builds up adequately.
When I saw that there were three smaller size pots in this line, I was a bit concerned that this pot would be too large to cook a smaller meal--I shouldn't have been concerned. To me, when looking at the pictures on this product page, this pot looks bigger that it does in real life. In fact, I'm not sure what those smaller pots are good for except side dishes, in-the-shell-eggs, and dinner for one or two. This pressure cooker--the largest in the line--DOES IT ALL. And to prove that statement, I bought the largest whole fryer chicken I could find in the bin at the supermarket. It was around five pounds before I took out the "innards". I browned it in the pressure cooker with a light olive oil. I was able to flip it onto all four sides. (Okay, its little tail was pressed against the wall and I had to tie the legs tightly together.) I added 1 ¾ cup broth, sprinkled the top with chopped rosemary and thyme, tucked in three carrots and a quartered onion and closed the lid. After bringing it up to pressure, I cooked it on high pressure for 30 minutes and then let it come off pressure naturally. The time charts I've seen for whole chicken stop at around 4 pounds. So this was a real test, and I estimated 6 minutes per pound, without adding in the weight of the veggies and broth. The breast could not have been cooked better; the leg meat (legs were up in the pot) had started to pull away from the knuckle, but the thigh joint was cooked dead-on. The chicken meat was great--very juicy, and the enhanced broth made a fantastic gravy. (Of course, it's not a beautiful roast chicken with a crisp skin, but it was still luscious.)
After dinner, we cleaned the pot up and tested something I had seen online (and was very excited about): Eggs-in-the-shell in the pressure cooker! Yes, it works! Yes, they peel easier! So, be assured, if you buy the large size pot, you'll be able to accomplish both small and large dishes. This one comes with a steamer basket, too.
If you buy a smaller size, you won't be making any chickens, that's for sure. Be aware you cannot totally fill up a pressure cooker: This one you can fill two-thirds full, so the capacity stated is deceiving. Knock one-third off the capacity stated and that's your real "capacity".
Other observations: The color of the handles is a bit deceiving in the pictures on this product page. The color is actually closer to a warm brown than a burnt orange. Bottom line, the color is not glaring--it does not "pop" out at you. The handles are a nice design--they come together fairly closely so that the top and bottom together are easy to grip. On other styles of cookers the two handles kind of curve away from each other making it a bigger grab. The weight of the pot, lid and handles together is very well balanced.
The over-50-recipe cook book, containing "bonus" recipes by Ingrid Hoffmann, is one of the nicest-looking and well-put-together group of recipes made for an appliance that I've seen in quite a while. It has full-color pictures for each recipe and it's cover is somewhere between soft and hard. Nice little book, although "includes bonus recipes" by Hoffmann actually means that four of the fifty were developed by her.... But, the recipes cover all necessary groups: Soups, pastas, grains, beans, veggies, meat, poultry, fish and seafood, and desserts. What's missing is a very detailed chart of cooking times for the different types of food and different weights. T-fal also missed a good opportunity to give us helpful hints. I guess they expect us to use the internet for support. And the support is out there: Just do a search for "pressure cooking web sites" and you might become overwhelmed.
UPDATE--CONSIDERING PSI RATINGS: I did some research on psi ratings and this is what I learned: The standard psi rating in America was set in 1917 and has not been re-evaluated since then. It was standardized when pressure cookers were scary unsafe. Engineered pressure valves have evolved since 1917--for the better. Safety is now most important, with simplicity and ease-of-use important too.
If you buy one of 'Miss Vickies'" pressure cooking books, be aware that she advocates (and I believe is sponsored by) Fagor which still uses the 1917 psi standard. "Miss Vickie" is an "expert" in pressure cooking and you can buy her cook books (and Fagor products) here at Amazon. "Miss Vickies'" recipes use 15 psi for her recipes. Her books have gotten some mixed reviews and personally I've not yet decided whether her cook books are suited for me or not. I've checked out many pressure cooking web sites, but "Miss Vickies" seems to be the most popular. I've never been one to follow the crowd, and I've found some other interesting sites and cook books.
One psi equals 3 degrees, so the difference between 12 psi and 15 psi is 9 degrees: The standard rating cooks at 250 deegrees and 12 psi cooks at 241 degrees. Whether this makes a difference time-wise, I don't know. What I do know, is that it will take longer for a cooker to come off pressure naturally at psi 15 than at psi 12. I think it all balances out at the end. After I've thought all this through, (and talked it through with some process engineers) I've decided that--because I am a very safety-minded girl--I'm all for a little lower psi that cooks in the same amount of time (when you include coming off pressure). If your recipe calls for an immediate release of pressure, then I'm all for cooking a minute longer to minimize the burst of burning steam that occurs when you release the pressure valve. Besides all that, the recipe I used for my whole chicken was for 15 psi and it turned out just fine using 12 psi.
If you've gotten to this paragraph, I must say thanks for taking the time to read my review; I guess I'm really enthused about this cooker. I'm also real happy that I finally "bit the bullet" and overcame my anxiety of cooking under pressure. This pot is a pleasure to use.
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