Aika ML100a electronic pressure cooker, 爱家, broken after only 1.5 years. Made in China
I have seen a couple of these Chinese made Aika ML100a electric pressure cookers on the side of the road, discarded. They have obviously malfunctioned in someway and are now garbage. I decided to pick one up and rip it apart.
This Aika pressure cooker was probably a response to the popular “Instant Pot”. The Chinese is 爱家, aijia, “love family”. The name Aika is also not Japanese.
Pressure cooked pork ribs, Toronto, Canada. Photo by Don Tai
Meat, always seems to be on Little Weed’s mind. As parents we know this, so when NoFrills offered pork ribs for $1.99/lb there was no question we would be going home with a sizable hunk of pig. But how to cook it, Eschewing the usual 3 hr bake time, the pressure cooker did it in 25 minutes, followed by a sauce glaze and 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven. It came out great.
Old it is, but made of metal and therefore still serviceable. Our Presto 6 quart pressure cooker model 126002 is over 20 years old and works well for cutting cooking time down for tough cuts of meat. We needed a new gasket, or what they call a “sealing ring”. Tried as I might, no stores in Toronto, Canada carry it that I could find, so I had to order online at…Home Hardware, a store I rarely even consider.
Presto pressure cooker, model 126002, still good after 20+ years. Photo by Don Tai
Slightly more expensive, is pork butt, but it looks pretty similar to pork picnic roast. Shopping at Chinese stores does not make the topic clearer. What is the difference? After some research the pork butt is pork front shoulder at the top of the leg, while the pork picnic roast is the rest of the leg, below the butt.
Yes, I am not a butcher, not even close, but you need to know about meat in order to cook and feed your family properly. Butt, is an old German word for the widest part of an animal. In the case of a pig, the widest part is the front shoulders, and such the front shoulders are called pork butt. How picnic became the name for all the meat further down I don’t know.
