Pressure cooking is the process of cooking food with the use of high pressure steam and water or a water-based liquid, inside a sealed vessel called a pressure cooker; the high pressure limits boiling and creates higher temperatures not possible at lower pressures which allow food to be cooked much faster than at normal pressure.

Denis Papin FRS was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the pressure cooker and of the steam engine.