Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker For College Students – Mishry Reviews

Indian households are incomplete without a trustworthy pressure cooker that wakes up the entire family early on a Sunday! Whenever we step out of the country, people ask why do we love our cookers so much? Well, pressure cookers are convenient to use, cook food quickly and are easy to clean & maintain too. Who wants to patiently wait 30 minutes for a couple of potatoes to boil in a pot? Not us. We went looking for the best stainless steel pressure cooker for college students or those who are in the entry-level category. These would be best for students and hostelers, young working women and men, and even small families of 2-3 members.

We reviewed 3 most popular stainless steel pressure cooker for college students (2Litre or under) over weeks in our test kitchen. All of them were put to use repeatedly; from boiling potatoes to cooking chana dal and rice. After multiple cooking sessions, we can say that Hawkins Stainless Steel 2litre pressure cooker was the best performing entry-level cooker. Not only did it pressure cook the fastest, but the easy to handle design also makes it simple to operate for students and small families.

Mishry Top Pick: Best Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker for College Students

Stainless Steel Hawkins Contura Pressure Cooker is our best pick. Here’s why we picked Hawkin’s Pressure Cooker for College Students.

 

Why Stainless Steel Hawkins Contura Pressure Cooker is our top pick

 

Hawkins Contura Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker took the least amount of time to cook food. It was the quickest in our whistle test, across multiple cooking sessions. The first two whistles sometimes came within the first two minutes.

Easy to operate in comparison to the others as it has an inner lid.

Cooking of food and heat distribution was even in the Hawkins Contura Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker.

It has a capacity of 2 litres, and weighed 1.3 kilos. The whistle weighed 80 grams.

Our Review Process

To review the stainless steel pressure cookers, we picked out three easily available brands in a capacity of 2 liters. All the contenders were compatible with induction and gas stoves. Our process involved multiple cooing sessions using all pressure cookers in our review lab. We decided to check for two crucial things after every round of cooking; how quickly would each cooker reach a certain number of whistles, and how well would it cook the food after those many whistles. We noticed that all cookers eventually did the job of cooking/boiling the food equally well. Cookers are generally very sturdy and can take years and years of handling – we found all the brands we picked equally good in that department. So, eventually, it boiled down to (no pun intended!) how quick were these to pressure cook.

For those who have a shortage of time, want to quickly boil something before leaving for a class, or rush for work, 8-10 minutes extra every morning would make a lot of difference.

In the evenings too, if you are coming back from work and cooking for yourself, you don’t want to spend a minute extra waiting around for the cooker to whistle than you need too.

While pressure cookers already cook faster than pans and kadhais, if you could make the process even more efficient with the help of the right appliance, why wouldn’t you? And hence, this review.

Indian kitchens and pressure cookers have a love affair that refuses to die down even after years.

Who Is This Review For?

This review is for everyone who likes to cook food quickly without losing on the flavor and nutrients. If you are looking to change your pressure cooker and make a switch to a stainless steel one, this review will come in handy.

But more specifically, this review is meant for those who live alone; college students, people who live in hostels, or single men and women – basically those who need quick cooking in small amounts. These are also people who would value any extra time they get, hence a cooker that cooks well and quickest would certainly be a better buy for them.

A simple guide – How to clean stainless steel utensils

The Brands We Picked

Vinod Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker (Buy on Amazon)

Hawkins Stainless Steel Contura Pressure Cooker ( Buy on Amazon)

Prestige Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker

Brand Name	Weight	Whistle Weight	MRP (At the time of review)
Vinod	1.6 kilos	81 grams	Rs 2130/-
Hawkins	1.3 kilos	80 grams	Rs 2300/-
Prestige	1.17 kilos	71 grams	Rs 1725/-

These cookers could also be very handy for kitchens where a lot of fresh food is cooked, and you want one smaller-sized cooker that helps with a lot of prep work, like boiling potatoes, cooking veggies for broth, boiling peas for puris etc.

The Parameters

We selected our winner on the basis of four parameters.

1) The Whistle test

• Which whistle blew first
• The sharpness of the whistle sound

2) Time used to cook food

• Pressure cooking is used to cook food quickly.
• The main aim was to find which pressure cooker cooked food the fastest.

3) Ease of usability

• Inner lid Vs outer lid.
• The scale tilted towards which lid was the easiest to operate.
• The handles on the cookers and how easy were they to lift once filled with food.

4) Sturdiness 

• The sturdiness of the base is very important to cook food evenly.

The Testing Process

We conducted a small whistle test which determined which cooker has the quickest whistles and which one cooks the food the fastest.

Cooking of potatoes 

We put 4 medium-sized potatoes in each pressure cooker with an equal amount of water and 1/4th teaspoon of salt. We shut all of them after four whistles. After opening them, all the potatoes were undercooked in all the cookers. They were cooked for three more whistles. While all brands boiled the potatoes well, we found Hawkins cooked them the fastest, where the first two whistles came within the first two minutes.

Cooking of kaala channa 

We soaked kaala chana overnight. They were pressure-cooked with an equal amount of water and 1/4th teaspoon of salt. After eight whistles, we turned off the stoves. Hawkins won here too.

Cooking of channa dal 

We soaked channa dal for 20 minutes in warm water. The dal was pressure cooked with an equal amount of water and 1/4th teaspoon of salt and haldi. After four whistles, we turned off the stoves. The dal was cooked evenly. Hawkins won the whistle test here too.

We noticed that Hawkins and Vinod had very sharp-sounding whistles while Prestige had a very slow-releasing whistle sound. Apart from this we also considered other aspects like sturdiness and ease of usability.

Why Stainless Steel Cookware?

Pressure cookers are available in various sizes and materials, but stainless steel cookware is becoming the prime choice for more and more families. Why are people opting for stainless steel cookware? Why not aluminum, like old times? What are the factors that make stainless steel cookware better?

• Resistant to corrosion
• Appearance – Looks brand new even after years
• Durability – SS much more durable than aluminum
• No stains – Stainless steel does not react to acidic cooking
• Healthier – Even though it is much more expensive than aluminum cookware, it is a healthier option.

The Result Of Our Review

After cooking three varieties of vegetables, pulses and legumes in each pressure cooker, we came to the conclusion that Hawkins Contura Stainless Steel Pressure Cooker is the quickest to cook food and passed our ‘whistle’ test with flying colors every time.

 

* If you do agree with our review, please give it a thumbs up! And, tell us which one is your favorite from this list. If you don’t, please tell us why!

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* Our reviews are unbiased and all samples used during the reviews were paid for by us. Read our entire ethics statement here.

* No part of this review is sponsored by any brand. All expenses were borne by us.