Cook, Little Pot, Cook

Peach Salsa Chicken with Jasmine Rice

When I was a child, I never got tired of hearing about the magic pot, a fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm. If you knew the magic words, you would never be hungry. But it was equally important to remember the words to make it stop cooking. Too much porridge was as bad as too little.

If you don't have an Instant Pot, please bare with me while I share another IP recipe. (Adapt it for your slow cooker instead.) This is not a push to go order this "magic pot"—because as much as some IP users gush over the life-changing wonders of the small appliance, it's not a necessity in your kitchen. But if you will actually use it, it can be handy. I have enjoyed using mine. As I learn more about it, I'm liking it better.

I think having the word "instant" in the appliance name can give people unrealistic expectations. (FYI, it's a pressure cooker.) It still takes time to cook things. Over the weekend, I read a recipe for cooking oatmeal in the IP. The writer said it was one of her favorite things to do. She added that it saved no time, but it was the hands free part that she loved. She put the ingredients into the pot, set it cook and then headed to shower and dress for the day. When the oatmeal is done, the pot automatically switches to "keep warm" so that she can eat whenever she is ready. That's what appealed to her. You have to figure out what works for you.

I'm still on the lookout for tasty reliable recipes. This peach salsa chicken recipe is one of those. It came from my knitting friend Betsy who says it's one of their favorites. She has used her Instant Pot much more than I have, so I've been happy to get a few of her tried and true recipes. This one that cooks the chicken and the rice separately but in the same pot is pretty close to magic. (That's called pot-in-pot cooking.) Five minutes of prep and then in about 45 minutes, dinner is ready.

Yep, the recipe says cook for 15 minutes. But you need to allow time for the pot to come up to pressure and then more time for the pressure to go down so that you can take the lid off. So the actual time is much longer than 15 minutes. So it's truthfully more like 45 minutes. The good part is that you do nothing after you close the lid until it's done. This almost hands-free cooking method makes it another easy meal for another knitting day.

Here is Betsy's delicious recipe...with a little of my own tweaking.

PEACH SALSA CHICKEN with JASMINE RICE

4 thin-cut chicken cutlets
1 jar of peach salsa (or something similar)
1/2 cup water
1 small can pineapple tidbits in juice, drained

For the pot-in-pot rice:
1 cup jasmine rice
1 cup water

Pour about half the salsa into the pot. Add chicken cutlets on top, then pour the remaining salsa over the chicken. Put a cup of water in the jar and swish it around and pour that into the pot. Put rice and 1 cup water into a small oven-safe bowl (I've used pyrex and metal) and set bowl on top of chicken.

Place lid on Instant Pot, close and set it to SEAL. Set to MANUAL for 15 minutes. "Natural release" the pressure. Carefully take out the bowl of rice and set aside. Shred the chicken in the pot. Stir in the pineapple tidbits. Serve the chicken and sauce over the rice.


Betsy didn't add the pineapple, but after we had it the first time, I kept thinking that more fruit would be nice. I just stirred it in after cooking and that was fine. Next time I might even use the drained juice as part of the 1 cup of water.

Last time all I could find was a pineapple/peach salsa. This time my store only had peach/mango salsa. The slightly sweet fruity salsa is a pleasant change from the also-good taco flavored salsa chicken that I've made in the slow cooker many times. (If you don't have an IP, you can do this chicken and salsa in your slow cooker and then cook the rice separately. You don't need to mix extra water with the salsa if you cook it that way.)

This was my first "pot-in-pot" cooking. The first time I made this, I dug deep into my cabinets and found a 1-qt pyrex bowl that was the perfect size for pot-in-pot cooking. I set a trivet over the chicken (a trivet comes with the IP) and put the bowl on the it. Perfect rice. Then I got nervous about using pyrex under pressure although it worked fine. So I ordered a metal 1.5 qt bowl. It also worked well. But it was too tall when I set it on the trivet, so I did it like Betsy told me and set the bowl directly onto the chicken and salsa. Perfect rice again. Just be aware the when you do it this way, the bottom is sauce covered. I set mine on a paper plate when I took it out of the IP.

It's kind of amazing that you can cook the rice and the chicken at the same time in the SAME POT. But they cook separately. Now, that is close to magic. Jasmine rice is a nice sticky rice and it was perfectly cooked. I need to try more of Betsy's recipes.