How to stop the pressure cooker from clogging up when cooking lentils

I've seen Lagostina pressure cooker recipe booklets from the 1930's that contain pressure cooker pasta recipes. So it's been done for a while.

I make pressure cooker pasta in sauce at least twice a week - we cook all of our short pasta this way so I came up with a technique to address some of these problems.

1) the pasta pieces are sticking together and to the bottom of the pot because there is not enough water (or cooking liquid like stock). The pasta is absorbing all of the cooking liquid before the cooking time is finished.

2) since you're using less water in pressure cooking pasta, the starch will not leach out into the big pot of boiling water and then be thrown down the drain through the strainer. So this extra starch remains and creates a more chewy "al dente" texture.

My technique uses low pressure, water to cover the pasta and half the recommended cooking time on the package. If your pressure cooker only has one pressure (and its the oldy-kind like the one pictured with Davide Scabin) then you only have to pay attention to the cooking time - those pressure cookers already operate at "low pressure."

Here are all the details of my pressure cooker pasta technique.

All of my online pressure cooker pasta recipes.

The biggest difference I know between stovetop and electric pressure cookers is that the electric ones take much longer to release pressure after cooking. The ones I've seen/compared take roughly twice as long (10-15 minutes for stovetop, 20-25 for electric). Biggest reason I can think of is that you can move the normal pressure cooker away from the hot stove, but you can't move the electric one away from its heating element.

As a result, I would adjust the cooking times down by 10 minutes or so to compensate.

In regards to the high/low heat, the main advantage of electric pressure cookers is that they are more energy efficient, and are designed to distribute heat well. You shouldn't need to worry about heat variance--get it up to the pressure you need and start the timer.