A little iron pot, a magic pot. Eternity in the kitchen

[Dedicated to all hostesses who do not have multicooker for one reason or another.]

Dedicated to all hostesses who do not have multicooker for one reason or another.


I have two such pots of 2.5 liters.
They have been living in the kitchen for 30 years. We did a nice job. Before slow cookers, and even more so before multicookers, I often cooked in them, according to their rules.
It is easy to cook in such pots, knowing a few tricky rules.

Cooking in open heat - gas, electric burner.
It is more profitable to use cast iron on gas, since it is possible to reduce the burner flame to the circumference of the bottom of the iron.
It is known from the school that the maximum t of the flame is at its top, so we try not to take out the tongues of flame behind the bottom of any pan in order to heat not the air around the pan, but directly the bottom. So the diameter of the bottom of the cast iron dictates the size of the flame. And it is best to cook on a low heat. The rounded sides of the cast iron accumulate heat well inside, and the narrower neck also prevents heat from dissipating.
We get cooking at low boiling, which is much tastier for soups, cereals, vegetables, milk.

For some time we lived with the stove. The stove was small, dacha, but with two burners. I had to live like this from April to October. These pots helped me out, there are no words. Electricity in the orchard was either there or there. Removing one or two rings on the stove burners, I adjusted the heating t.


And when the firewood burned out, I set up a * Russian stove * - moved the hot coals to the sides, and in the middle put cast iron pots - hot and warm food for the whole day. Often the stove was heated just after work, in the evening, so my pots of porridge, meat or dairy, or vegetable stew (a vegetable garden at hand), or pea soup-porridge in the stove, cooked on top, languished.

Before and after the stove, my young men worked on the gas stove and in the oven.
Porridge in a water bath - a light exercise every morning - a saucepan, a cast iron becomes a little bit into it, water is poured, put on the fire and heated, at this time milk with any cereal is filled into the iron, mixed, salt-sugar, put in a saucepan with already hot water, under the lid of a cast iron and an external saucepan, a small fire and an hour and a half, you don't have to look in. And 2 liters of steamed, not boiling porridge, more than for the whole family. Preheating the water in an external saucepan is not necessary, only to speed up the cooking process a little. You can heat the water right away with a cast iron with milk inserted, while I sort out the cereals, mine, you see, the liquids are not cold.
What is not a multicooker

In the oven, I think everyone knows how to cook in cast iron. the pots are ceramic, only larger. And vegetables with meat, no water. And again, porridge with meat. Just stewed meat, chicken. Milk porridge. Baked milk.
Slow cooker in action

I am not writing about something new. I am writing about the eternal. Cast iron dishes will still serve us.
The cast iron, of course, is not a multicooker, it will not turn off itself, it does not regulate the temperature, it does not beep about the end of cooking.
But the head of the hostess learns to think about the processes occurring when cooking food, without looking for the right button.
Cooking in pots taught me to take both slow cookers and slow cookers for granted. Which I am very happy about.


In this way, you can cook 2 dishes at the same time.
For example, boil mashed potatoes and at the same time bring milk almost to a boil, with which we will dilute the mashed potatoes.

what a gurney under the grip, to come up with it !! cast iron is too heavy

There is such a miracle in my kitchen, I cook rice 🌾 in the oven, or I carcass fish for several hours on canned food, I cover the folly

[alina]

alina, it's nice to know about another lover of these wonderful and convenient pots

[Irsha]

Irsha, :) unfortunately I have one, but on occasion I can buy more on the flea market

Irina, thanks for the interesting topic. in my winter, when we heat the stove in the summer house (we have gas cylinders, and the water in the bath is run through the house), two pots are constantly in use, I bought thirty years ago, then cast iron with a lid were in short supply, more often they were sold without lids. now I don’t remember how much I paid for them, but I heard a lecture from my mother-in-law, we still lived together then, but we wanted so much to have our own. I, too, first on the stove, and then I put it in the firebox, in the firebox I also bake bread on the residual heat. we have a combined stove, before, it used to heat the Russian stove, before bread, I always baked pancakes, then bread and certainly something delicious in the iron pot, beauty.

I have a cast iron pot, only a dousing one, I like to make meat in it.

at the flea market

why b \ y? in stores now there is a choice, such glorious pots of all displacement and with lids! if you take it from your hands, it would be nice to boil it in a soap-soda solution - completely into a bucket or a saucepan and let it boil, someone else's spirit and layers will boil down, then it will be easily cleaned, washed off

Added Sunday 01 May 2016 6:08 pm

here is the pea porridge, like from that stove pot, I tasted better and did not eat it, at home in a slow way it will also boil and melt, but there is no spirit of living coals
the peas decompose themselves to puree. and this is a completely different taste than the one broken by a blender, the aroma is awesome

it turned out thick, when ready, thinly chopped onions and fragrant sunflower oil into it, mix, stand - smell ...

[Irsha]

Irsha, new? Never paid attention

look in the dishes, they are Kukmar's, there are other manufacturers

cast iron is not very convenient, they are quite fragile, they cannot tolerate changes in t, but cast aluminum is eternal, and washed well

and most importantly - now you can buy with lids, before they sold without lids

This is the thing !!!!

what a gurney under the grip, to come up with it !!

the picture ran away, I'll insert another

[Irsha]

Irsha, IrinaThank you so much for the topic! Very helpful! I always had stoves, even a Russian one, but I did not cook in pots, but simply on the stove. I liked it very much, I adapted. The taste of the dishes is excellent.
But I have never cooked like this before. Although the husband said that his Kazakh friends' wives bake cakes right inside the oven (ordinary, not Russian). He brought me such cakes. Tasty!!!! I asked him how they did it, but he did not go into details.
And here in the subject everything is so clearly painted and shown. It remains to buy cast iron. But here they are sold in bazaars.
Thank you, Ira, for not letting you forget the time-tested methods of cooking!

cakes are baked right inside the oven (ordinary, not Russian).

I baked cakes - it was inside the stove, albeit in pans, also near the half-burnt wood that was pushed aside

I saw how the mother-in-law (her kingdom of heaven) baked pancakes in the oven in a huge frying pan, delicious pancakes

and while my husband was serving - Turkmenistan, Tajikistan - I also saw the baking of local flatbreads in tandoor ovens, I also learned about self-leavening dough there, there was a boy with such rye flatbread, even easier than with sourdough
I read about your sourdough bread with pleasure, until I did, somehow I will make up my mind

I baked cakes - it was inside the stove, albeit in pans, also near the half-burnt wood that was pushed aside

I just have everything for this. And grandmother's frying pan is old, and the stove. I will try. And, most likely, with sourdough.
And my husband promised me a tandoor for a long time. But I myself hung up. I say, when you have your permanent home, then you will do it.
I will remind him how we will settle down.

I read about your sourdough bread with pleasure, until I did, somehow I will make up my mind

This is the most delicious bread for me! And also on liquid yeast. It's worth a try, Irisha, it's worth it.