Towel cookery

[watervole]

 My daughter phoned last night. She was greatly amused and knew that we would love to hear what our granddaughter was doing.

Oswin has a little toy kitchen and she was playing at cookery.  She'd made her meal, put it into a pan to cook, and then put a towel on top of the pan.

She got that from us.  We actually do use towels when cooking some meals.  They're a simplified version of hay box cookery.  

When making something like a casserole, get it all in, simmer it for several mins, then turn off the heat and wrap a thick fluffy towel over the top. Wrap it like a turban (or any shape that uses all the towel and makes sure that no heat escapes).  If it's an electric cooker, be very careful that the towel does not touch the element (you don't want to set it on fire and electric hobs can stay hot for some time - be sure the casserole dish/pan is covering the hot part completely)

You can keep something cooking merrily for half an hour or more this way.  If you need a longer cook, just remove the towel, bring back to simmer for a minute or two and then turn off the heat and put the towel back on.

There are several great advantages to this trick.

Firstly, you cannot burn the food.  If you're not exactly sure when your meal needs to be ready, you can keep it lovely and hot without needing to stir it.  (the heat is coming from within, rather than from below, so the food will not stick to the bottom and burn)

Secondly, you use less electricity and cooking uses a lot of energy.

It's dead easy to do.  Even a three year old can remember!

Comments

[oreouk]

Cool!

[igenlode]

Ah yes -- I used to do that to save gas on a camping stove :-)
Bring the stew to the boil, then switch off the flame, remove the pot, wrap it all up in a towel/mat/jumper and leave it to finish cooking on its own. It never occurred to me to do it while leaving the pot on top of a 'proper' cooker...

[kotturinn]

I'd not thought of doing this on a regular basis either. Must start practicing.

[apel]

My mother used to do something similar with milk rice. She'd put all the ingredients into the pot, get it to a nice boil and then literally put the pot to bed. :-) She wrapped it in the duvet and put pillows around. Milk rice is traditionally served on Christmas Eve in Sweden. By doing it this way, nobody had to stand over the pot while it cooked and keep stirring to prevent the milk from burning. Very practical! Although I'm sure some people would have opinions about germs. :-P

Anyway, these days I use an insulated slow cooker. They don't seem to be as popular in the UK as here in the US, though. They're pretty energy efficient.

[watervole]

Rice is an ideal thing to cook with a towel.

I can see a rice pudding (probably the same as what you call milk rice) working just as well.

If the lid fits well, and it comes to the boil first, then I see little risk of germs. (though I could be wrong, as some air must get sucked in as the temperature falls)

[suenicorn]

My mother tells me that her own mother used to bake challah for Sabbath. Well, she started it, anyway, in those days people used to take the loaf to a public bakery, which had proper bread baking ovens. You'd hand it over, take a number and come back for it.

But she says my nan used to have a quicker way to make it rise. You'd wrap something over it(these days, cling film, not sure what they used then), then put a cushion over that and out in the sun while you got on with something else. I've only made challah once, because it takes too long and I only had time to do it on the weekend, which misses the point, but I do use it for bread. It works.

[watervole]

That's quite a popular way to make bread rise, though, like you, I wonder what they did before cling film...

I suppose they either put it in the sun or close to a fire (or just had to wait longer)

[suenicorn]

This WAS before cling film. Now I think of it, Mum said something about a tea towel.

[watervole]

Now you mention it, I remember my mum doing that.