Sunday, August 2, 2009

How to cook with the least energy?

I was introduced by my teacher, Jessie Cheong,
to a very lovely cooking device
a few years back, and
have since fallen in love with it!

This brilliant cooker which is generally called
the thermal (magic) cooker
was first invented by the Japanese,
to minimise
energy wastage (good for the environment!),
duration of attention and
hassles during cooking.

It basically uses
the principle of the thermal flask
to cook slowly without electricity.
The following is a schematic illustration
of the assembly of the cooker:



With advanced technology,
the outer pot of thermal cooker
insulates the heat at such a high efficiency
that the inner pot loses only 3-4C per hour.

So, when one put the stainless steel inner pot
on the stove to cook for 5-10min in order to
bring the temperature above 100C,
prior to locking it in the insulating outer pot,
the food within will retain >80C for many hours
and continue to cook over the incubation period.
(yes! food is cooked at temperature >80C).

With thermal cooker, my quality of life
improved so much.
Due to my hectic schedule,
I only need to spend 15min in the kitchen
before I go to bed at night (say 10pm),
to cook my millet-quinoa congee.
The next morning,
I will just bring the easy-to-carry
mini thermal cooker (1.5L) to work, and
have my warm home-made healthy lunch at 12pm ;)

For the sake of life quality and environment,
I always recommend this cooking device
to my friends and students.
It's available in most big departmental stores and
some health food shops.

Well wishes!
Kee Yew

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the information especially on the 1.5L Thermos Shuttle Chef thermal cooker. I haven't read any experiences using it before and it was good to read about it.

    I really like thermal cooking too and if you would like some additional recipes and information on thermal cooking look at this blog: http://thermalcooker.wordpress.com/category/thermal-cooking/

    ReplyDelete
  2. is this one made in Japan?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello,

    Thermos is a Japanese brand.
    The older versions were made in Japan, but now the latest version is made China.

    But I guess it's the technology + brand reputation that counts? =)

    Cheers,
    Kee Yew

    ReplyDelete

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