Patent ID: 7322280

Claim:
A household appliance for cooking under pressure, the appliance comprising: a cooking bowl and a lid for fitting and locking on the bowl to form a substantially leaktight cooking enclosure; means for locking and unlocking the lid relative to the bowl; pressure regulator means arranged to maintain a relative pressure inside the enclosure at a predetermined value that is substantially constant and referred to as the cooking pressure, said regulator means being designed for the cooking pressure to lie substantially in the range of 45 kPa to 30 kPa; activatable and deactivatable decompression means arranged, when activated, to allow the relative pressure that exists inside the enclosure to drop from the cooking pressure to at least a second value that is lower; and opening safety means responsive to the relative pressure that exists inside the enclosure and mounted to move between a low position in which the opening safety means allows the lid to be locked and unlocked relative to the bowl, and a high position in which the opening safety means co-operates with the means for locking and unlocking to prevent the lid from being unlocked relative to the bowl; wherein the opening safety means is designed to move down towards the low position from the high position when the relative pressure inside the enclosure reaches the second value, the second value lying substantially in the range of 1 kPa to 4 kPa.