Seitan and Rainbow Chard with Green Garlic, Steamed Purple Potato, Corn-off-the-Cob with Jerk Seasoning (No Added Fat)

My daughter and I visited the local farmer's market today and came home with a few items, including a huge (well over 4' tall!) green garlic stalk. My wife was out and I knew that it would be a while till she and I could eat and my daughter was hungry, so I made a simple dinner of red beans, arugula, baby bok choy, and whole wheat English muffin pizzas for my daughter. That allowed me to properly spice tonight's meal just for my wife and me.

I continue to be excited about the ease, versatility, and power of my new Instant Pot electronic cooker, and used it first to prepare a potato (I loved the fingerlings I prepared a few Tuesdays ago) and then make a main course with rainbow chard that I had purchased yesterday.

Chopped greens like chard take 3-6 minutes to cook in the Instant Pot under high pressure. I have been thinking of experimenting with pressure cooked seitan in and of itself, and will do that soon. For today, I thought it would nicely accompany the chard. Here is what I did.


Ingredients

• 8 ounces seitan cut into roughly 1" x 1/2" strips
• Bunch of rainbow chard, stems removed and cut into approximately 1/4" slices and leaves hand torn into roughly 1/2" squares
• About a 4" length of green garlic, cut into 1/2" slices. If using regular garlic, try 1 or 2 teaspoons of chopped garlic
• Vegan bouillon cube
• 1t ginger, finely diced
• (Optional) 2t jalapeno, sliced into 1/4" pieces
• 1/2 cup water
• 2T onion chopped to 1/4" cubes
• 1/2 salt (or to taste)

Process

1. I put all the ingredients except the salt and onion into the Instant Pot. I had already made the potatoes (see below), but started with fresh water, and not the water that had steamed the potato (the water had discolored, as to be expected).
2. I closed the pot and set it up to cook on high pressure for 6m.
3. About 10m after the pot was done, I carefully let out the remaining pressure, opened the pot, mixed in the salt and onion, and served.

I also tried cooking a medium sized purple potato in the Instant Pot. I found a recipe that called for steaming 12-15m, but the potatoes were smaller than Russet potatoes, so I used an 11m steam time. I put 2 cups of water in the Instant Pot, put in the steamer insert, and put the washed potatoes on top of the steamer. I closed the pot, selected the steam mode, and dropped the time to 11m. The machine did a combination of steaming and pressure cooking; about 10m after it was done, I slowly released the steam and opened the pot.

I roasted two ears of corn on the flame of my gas burner, stripped the kernels, and added a little lemon juice and jerk seasoning. Cilantro flowers completed the presentation.

Results

The potato was good, though it could have been a bit softer. My wife and I enjoyed it, but I'd add on another minute or two next time, and stick with the 12-15m range for medium or large potatoes. As for the corn, how could fresh corn not be good?

We enjoyed the main course! I was impressed with the texture and flavor of the whole dish. The seitan was softened, as I would expect it would be in pressure cooking. The dish could have used a bit more jalapeno and just a tad more fresh onion, and could have been even more nutritive by including perhaps another green like kale - but it was also just fine as is.
 

Ideas for the future

I definitely want to work with seitan in the pressure cooker, perhaps trying to come up with a version of one of my signature dishes, jerk seitan. It's so easy to integrate greens with the Instant Pot that I should continue to experiment with a variety of greens.