6 Qt. Aluminum Pressure Cooker

Pressure cooking is the process of cooking food in a sealed vessel (known as a pressure cooker) that does not permit air or liquids to escape below a pre-set pressure. Pressure cooking allows food to be cooked with greater humidity and higher temperatures than possible with conventional boiling orsteaming methods. In an ordinary non-pressurised cooking vessel, the boiling point of water is 100 °C(212 °F) at standard pressure; the temperature of food is limited by the boiling point of water because excess heat causes boiling water to vaporize into steam. In a sealed pressure cooker, the boiling point of water increases as the pressure rises, resulting in superheated water. At a pressure of 15 psi (103 kPa) above atmospheric pressure, water in a pressure cooker can reach a temperature of up to 121 °C(250 °F).