It absolutely is. Biochemical reactions run exponentially faster as temperature increases. In most cooking, the limiting factor on cooking speed is that water (and, thus, any food that contains water) can't be heated beyond 100°C without boiling away, so the food never exceeds that temperature. Pressure cooking breaks that limit by using pressure to raise the boiling point.
Consider for example deep fried meat. You can deep fry a steak and achieve even higher temperatures but the the oil will not pervade it nearly as much as the liquids around that same piece of meat in a pressure cooker. Instead the deep fried meat can become tough because the moisture boils and the oil is not forced into to provide a replacement
Paraphrasing from memory:
"One of the best preserved secrets in haute-cuisine is that the best way to perfectly cook a steak/filet mignon is to deepfry it and then sear it in a pan at very high heat."
Haven't tried it, but I buy it. I would think the deepfrying is fast enough to avoid making the meat too dry. And I personally don't really find briney water oozing out of my steak to be all that sexy anyway.
That is the exact myth which is addressed by the article we're discussing.
The linked article’s author showed that counter top food savers aren’t effective, but I’d trust the university’s food science department when it comes to the broader use of pressure in general, specifically when used with heat as in a pressure cooker, which uses significantly more pressure.
I was just focused on heating being enough and not pressure and the only reason water gets to that point is pressure.
Though I wonder if you can get the same result of a pressure cooker by submerging meat in oil heated to 250 degrees Fahrenheit
What you want is to coat the meat with something that prevents water from escaping: usually a tempura batter.
The only parts of the meat that get above 212 are the surfaces in direct contact with the heat source.
I'm just saying that if you plunge it directly into oil at 180°C, that's what's going to happen.
Nobody does this for "cooking", but you can try to do it, as an experiment.
There's even a recipe for a chicken made in lava (actual volcano) and it doesn't go faster than a normal oven.
That's why one coats nuggets in batter for example; batter turns into a hull and traps the water, preventing it from escaping the meat; and the cooking is fast and thorough because of the high temperature.