Most of the time when pressure cooking is discussed, we hear of the dangers of explosion because of the old fashioned cooker, especially one brand made by one company, but this week I went to the pressure cooker because of an explosion.
I wanted to try to cook a favorite of mine while I lived in Spain, Sopa de Ajo con Juevo (Garlic soup with egg)
I found an old recipe I like in “The Spanish Cookbook” by Barbara Norman
http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Cookbook-Barbara-Norman/dp/B000HFAQXO/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
One of the books I picked up in a $5 large bag of books at the lastest library sale here in Homosassa.
I thought I used an ovenproof dish to saute the garlic and then I could pop it in the oven, but I overheated it, and when I added the preheated beef broth, it exploded into hundreds of pieces, glass chunks, shards of glass, taking my garlic infused olive, my fried bread and all the broth with it and scattering the mess all across the stove and the kitchen floor. Luckily, nothing hit me. It did not fly high enough to do me any injury. However, it was a mess and a waste.
So, this morning I went to the Instapot pressure cooker.
I used the “saute” open lid mode to make the garlic infuse into the oil and fry the paper thin slices of bread.
In the same pot I added the broth and paprika, manually steamed the soup.
Then I expelled the steam, took off the cover, broke up the bread pieces (these are just a very few paperthin slices that fry up and collect the olive oil to better distribute the taste of it throughout the broth, and added three eggs to the hot broth and put the lid back on. The soup is so hot it easily cooks the egg. No over needed.
I've read that in Madrid the soup is often made with wisked egg, but I first had it in Avila and they put in the whole egg and let it cook, so I'm partial to that recipe. I put all three eggs in a small bowl and dumped and covered quickly. If a soft egg is desired with some runny yoke, eat all the egg in the first bowl. As the soup cools it continues to cook the egg.
I used a low sodium packaged broth although I love salt. Especially in the Swanson brand I've been getting broth in Chicken and beef that was too salty.
The recipe calls for saute of the garlic in whole cloves and for three. I used six and sliced them length wise. They were still easy to remove, and afterward proved a very tasty, crispy treat.
This was a very simple soup and without explosions quite easy to make.
