How Do You Cook In A Thermal Cooker In 4 Easy Steps
How Do You Cook In A Thermal Cooker?
A thermal cooker comes with a lot of advantages. It offers ease of convenience in both terms of time and money. While many tend to stray from it as it is still new in the market, we can only see that the trend is going up as more people get to know about it. So, how do you cook in a thermal cooker?
If you think of it as a thermal flask, you put food inside the thermal cooker instead of only water. It is not complicated and you don’t need special recipes for it to work. You just need to know the fundamentals of how it functions and you’re pretty much good with other recipes. Here’s step by step on how do you cook in a thermal cooker:
1. Slice and dice your ingredients
Chop your ingredients into shape just as how you would normally when cooking. The inner pot has limited space, so if you want to put larger ingredients in, be sure it is at the right size.
If you’re working with frozen ingredients, let it thaw first. Be it frozen peas or chicken cubes, it needs to be defrosted well.
This has to be done properly. Else, the heat will drop quickly after the transition, causing the whole food in the pot to be poorly cooked.
2. Bring your dish to a full boil
The thermal cooker needs to have steam for the cooking process to happen. Hence, most of the recipes that work with thermal cookers require some form of liquid.
So, it’s either soup or stew.
Once your ingredients hit boiling point, lower the flame and let it boil further for about another 5 minutes.
When you’re boiling, be sure to put the lid on. This will trap the hot air in. Contrarily, putting on the lid later will push a gust of cool air into the pot which brings down the temperature.
We want to keep the heat in as much as possible for the best cooking effect.
3. Transfer the inner pot into the outer container of the thermal cooker.
After the food is boiling for a while, it’s now the time for the transition or transfer of the inner pot to the outer container of the thermal cooker.
Place the container near to you without anything obstructing the path. You will have to hold the handle with a piece of cloth as insulation and lift it into the container.
Do it carefully as it can be heavy. Close the lid instantly after transfer.
4. Leave it to cook
Close the lid and lock it in place. The thermal cooking process will begin. Do allow at least 2 hours for the thermal cooker to cook.
Do not open the lid until the time is up. Curiosity is not your friend in this case. Trust the process and let your thermal cooker do its job.
Tips to cook in a thermal cooker
Here are some tips that will help you master the skill to cook with a thermal cooker:
a) Fill the pot fuller
The amount of ingredients that you put into the inner pot of the thermal cooker affects how long the heat is retained in it. The fuller the pot, the better.
Having more mass of ingredients in the pot means that there will be lesser air. Hence, this helps to retain temperature better.
Even so, it is not advisable to fill the pot all the way to the lid. In most cases, the thermal cooker should not be filled exceeding 80% of the inner pot.
b) Defrost all the frozen food
If you’re using any form of frozen food, do make sure that they thaw properly before putting it into the inner pot to boil.
The food must be completely hot before the transfer happens. Having incompletely defrosted ingredients will bring down the temperature quicker. This will hamper the thermal cooking process.
c) Make sure the ingredients are in full boil before the transition
When you’re boiling the ingredients with the lid on, make sure it reaches boiling point. Let it boil for a little bit longer before the transition.
This will help the ingredients to get hot further. If you believe there are ingredients that are not fully defrosted, boil longer.
d) Speed of transition
Once the pot has reached a boiling point for some time, get ready for the transfer. Hold the handle with a cloth and lift it into the outer container of the thermal cooker.
Do it swiftly and carefully to minimize heat loss. Immediately close the lid after that.
e) Don’t open the lid
We all know how much we love looking at how our ingredients are doing. Some of us might have the itch to check it out as well.
Well, don’t.
Opening the lid unnecessary will cause the heat to escape fast. This will reduce the heat in the container and risk undercooking your food.
Patience is a virtue. Give it a little bit of time to do the cooking process and you will reap the deliciously cooked food as a reward in the end.
What not to do with your thermal cooker
Do not put your outer container of the thermal cooker to cook.
Only the inner pot is designed for cooking purposes. You can put it on the stovetop or induction cooker. Do read the instruction manual to know what kind of cooking device is compatible with the inner pot of your thermal cooker.
The outer container can be made out of plastic and stainless steel which will get damaged or melt on your stove. It is designed to retain heat, not withstand fire.
Not all outer containers of your thermal cooker can be washed.
Some thermal cooker has a foam layer technology that is used to insulate heat. This foam tends to expand when exposed to moisture.
In this case, washing the container is not a good idea. Because when it does expand, the thermal cooker will be damaged and won’t be usable. Worse is that this will not be covered by most manufacturers’ warranty.
The only part that is safe for water washing is the inner pot. You can clean it like any other regular stainless steel pot.
To clean the outer container of the thermal cooker, wipe it with a damp cloth. This is sufficient.
There’s often a confusion going around that a thermal cooker works the same as a slow cooker. The truth is that they are different. Read more on our blog!
