ot pots

Feb 13, 2021 78 Replies

Engineers often like to cook. These pots are wonderful



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The heavy aluminum is basically isothermal. The nonstick surface is the best I've seen. The sharp edges are perfect for breaking eggs.



The square pan with the ridges makes cool pancakes, with a linear array of scorch marks.



We got a set, red, as a gift. Mo decided that it made the rest of the kitchen look ratty, so we had the cabinets refinished, the walls tiled, and everything painted. Cost about $5K.


John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc The best designs are necessarily accidental.

All I can say is if they are made in China/Asia you might want to have them tested for rare/toxic metals/plastics in the finish.

These days we only buy products made in North America and Europe as my wife and I figure those food safety standards meet our needs. With the preference being Europe - they have the strictest standards.

John :-#(#

snipped-for-privacy@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

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I like these:

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For years my mother in-law bought me an All-Clad pot for xmas. (nice mom-in-law.) SS interior, handles and lid. attached to aluminum body ~1/4" thick. My favorite is the 3 gallon (24 qts) one. like this,

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id-12-quart.html But the outside is black anodized aluminum, not SS. I use it for all slow cooked stuff. The secret to my meat sauce is slow cooking 4-5 lbs of 80/20 ground beef, (which goes on sale for ~$2-3/ lb once a month or so.)

1.) let beef warm on counter top for a few hours. a.) While warming take about 1/2 a bulb of garlic. (Say one or two cloves per pound.) peel, then mash on wooden chopping board, mince a bit maybe, and mix in with warming G. beef. 2.) get out 3-gal pot, set on stove, high, and when heated add ~1 tablespoon of bacon fat (or other oil) 'season pan'. 3.) reduce heat and add meat.. some sizzle but mix around. the goal is to slow cook the meat in it's own fat, but not to let it get anywhere near to boiling. This takes like ~ all day, so it's good to be home doing other stuff. 4.) after slow cooking for a few hours I find there is hardly any excess fat or water. So most times I don't pour anything off. (If by mischance there was some boiling, then I find it best to scoop off excess fat and wat er.) 5.) add all the other stuff... (mostly I'd make this into a pasta meat sauc e or chili. The great thing about chili is you can add whatever older veggies a re in the frig. Broccoli in chili is no problem for me.

Wow, excuse the long cooking post. GH

The brats are coming to dinner tomorrow, so the plan is a giant pot of beans and rice. That takes a full day to do, but the actual contact time is minimal. Got some new pork+duck sausage to try, along with the anduille.

Some prople enjoy the process of cooling. I don't. I just want the result.

Various places on the web warn that ss, aluminum, copper, nanoparticles in ceramics, PTFE, heavy metals in cast iron, you-name-it are all toxic. Cook with a stick over a fire, or eat everything raw.

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc The best designs are necessarily accidental.

Julia Child once tested a gold frypan; it worked wonderfully, but was only on loan... $5k is in the ballpark for such:

Three gallons is *12* quarts. I use a 16 quart pan for making Marinara/Bolognese sauces.

The downside of such large pots is you end up with a significant temperature gradient from bottom to top.

I use a long handled "ladle" (of sorts) and routinely drag the warmer materials up from the bottom of the pan towards the top so "less warm" materials are more directly exposed to the heat. The heat, of course, is set very low lest it burn the materials on the bottom of the pan.

I keep a lid on the pan to trap as much heat in the upper layers as possible. At each stirring, I shake the condensate off of the inside surface of the lid to ensure moisure is removed from the otherwise closed process.

I also have a "paddle" (more like an oar for a canoe!) that I use to agitate the mixture to ensure consistency of flavor, throughout.

Letting something sit at room temperature for long periods of time is an invitation for "nasties" to start reproducing in it.

Cooling large volumes also poses a challenge. At the end of the day (I cook sauce for 12-16 hours), I move the sauce into small containers. These are placed into an ice bath in the kitchen sink to rapidly cool them to room temperature (I think guidance suggests this be done in ~2 hours or less to inhibit bacterial growth).

[Relying on your refrigerator for this will just increase the temperatures of the contents of the refrigerator]

Once at room temperature, I transfer to the *bottom* of the freezer chest (out in garage) to further chill them. I think they have to be "cold" within another two hours, "to be safe".

I remove the covers (which were loosely fitted) and dry any condensate (now ice!) from their undersides before sealing. Then, let them freeze solid, overnight.

Ah, we have different thresholds for garlic! I use "heads" as my unit of measure. :> And "cups" for other spices added to the sauce. (for Bolgnese sauce, you have to go really heavy on the spices as the meat dulls the flavor)

[But, I refuse to add pigs' feet! And *no one* adds sugar!!]

.

Clearly John Larkin is not an engineer,

n ceramics, PTFE, heavy metals in cast iron, you-name-it are all toxic.

The same kind of places that tell you that anthropogenic global warming isn 't happening and wouldn't be something to worry about if it were.

John Larkin isn't a discriminating reader.

Eating everything raw isn't really an option.

Suzana Herculano-Houzel has pointed out that the human brain is a big as yo u'd expect in a primate of our size, but it consumes more energy per day th an a primate of our size can collect and digest in a day, so we had to inve nt cooking to let us digest all the food we need fast enough to have enough free time left to collect it.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney

Here's the BBC ruining egg fried rice. It's three ingredients - egg, fry, and rice:

Food engineers are critics too - so you don't wash the rice?

Adding MSG to that will make it even better. MSG is the king of flavor.

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Huh, got some good bean and rice recipe? (I was sorting out the pantry and found I bought large quantities of beans and rice about 1 year ago... I just made chili, but used canned beans.

I like the cooking and eating.

Well copper can be bad.. a heavy metal I think. I don't worry much about the other stuff. I like the SS lined pot and my cast iron skillet.

George H.

Rog is great, but he's all wrong about fried rice.

I do like the idea of cooking the rice in chicken broth.

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc The best designs are necessarily accidental.

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Yeah a little bit of umami is great. I've never added msg, but some soy sa uce or anchovies or fish paste can add a nice underneath layer.

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(I didn't know it is in tomatoes)

George H.

nly on loan...

original:

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and the followup

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I use a mix of Camellia brand red beans and Red Mill dried borlottis. I have a giant batch upstairs that's just done soaking.

Soak beans overnight in warm, salted water. Pour off the water.

Add a lot of home-made chicken broth. Fry off some bacon and sausages, mostly drain, add. You can't have too much meat; I've tried. Cajun anduille is about right. Smoked ham hocks can be good too.

Add chopped onions (a lot) and celery. You can sautee some chopped bell pepper, if you like. Bay leaves now.

Simmer all that for 2-3 hours, but don't let the beans turn to mush.

Season with Bell's, tarragon, and (very last, after the heat is off) a lot of garlic. Heat damages garlic.

We just scored from Bernal Bakery, in the rain.

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This is a couple who bake in various popup kitchens and sell from their front yard. This is in a part of town that needs a Range Rover and four sherpa guides to reach. The blue tent is a lady and some kids selling Girl Scout cookies to people waiting.

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc The best designs are necessarily accidental.

+1 to the sticky buns, -1 to the icing (or is that cream cheese? -1 either way) ;)

My Valentine is making me some nice roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. (I got her some flowers yesterday, so spousal brownie points all round.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC / Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 http://electrooptical.net http://hobbs-eo.com

Cream cheese icing. We are clearly different species. You are the strange alien.

I'm cooking beans and a banana cream pie. Romantic!

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc The best designs are necessarily accidental.

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Oh boy that bread looks nice and crusty.

Lots of eggs, so I made a cheese souffle. George H.

He's right about the rice! If the rice is wet you f***ed up

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