Magic Pot cooking again!

I've been having a ball with my magic pots!!!


Last week I made some spaghetti sauce.  Usually I would have to simmer the sauce over low fire for a couple of hours.  This time, I tried using the Magic pot!  The results were amazing as always!


This was the sauce before going into the Magic pot!

This was the sauce after 6 hours in the Magic pot.  It tasted even better than cooking over the gas top!

See the delicious Bolognese sauce below!!!

More "Magic" cooking!

I used my Thermal "magic" pot to cook "Ham Yee Chee Yoke Farn" (pork slices, salted fish and rice).

Last night, I washed one and a half cups of brown rice and left to soak overnight. This morning I drain dry the rice. When I was ready to cook the rice at 3pm, I set it to boil in 2 cups of water over a medium fire (after it came to a boil) for 15 minutes.

In another pan, I fried some garlic, marinated pork (soy sauce, dark sauce and pepper), salted fish and some chopped carrot bits. When done, I added some freshly cut spring onions and a quarter cup of water. Add pepper and soy sauce to taste. Go light with the soy sauce if you are using salted fish! Once that is done, transfer all the meat and sauce into the pot of boiling brown rice (after cooking on the stove for 15 minutes).

I had dinner at 6.45pm and ta dah... rice in a pot...all ready! The rice was tender and didn't taste like brown rice in its original flavor at all! Tasted very much like the regular "Ham Yee Chee Yoke Farn!".

The last picture below shows a bowl of soup which I used my 5lt "magic" pot to cook! Yummy!

Hijiki

Today, after a long time, I decided to cook Hijiki.


Perfect brown rice cooked in Thermal Magic pot!


This was my lunch today. Home cooked Hijiki, store bought Korean Kim Chi and brown rice topped with some toasted sesame seeds.


Close up on the Hijiki.
Note: I cooked the Hijiki minus the sugar and mirin for a healthier version by adding only shoyu and a dash of sesame seed oil.

Kim chi.


Consuming brown rice makes me feel good!

Onigiri to go

I made some Onigiri to go yesterday.



I was in a hurry and so I used the plastic molds to make the Onigiri. It's got a Salmon filling inside and sesame seeds and salt in the rice.


I cooked the Calrose rice in my large Thermal Magic Pot and it turned out perfect! I packed them in the Onigiri plastic wrappers I bought from Daiso.


Convenient stuff to bring around!

Cooking soup with my Thermal Magic Pot

I cooked pork bones soup on Tuesday. Very simply blanch the pork bones in a smaller pot of hot water and transfer into the insert pot.


The ingredients for today's soup!



I added Arrowroot, some dried oysters, dried scallops, some red dates and dried octopus.


Bring the pot of soup to a rolling boil and remove the scum.


About six hours later...


I removed the scum, brought it back to a rolling boil and added some salt to taste. Delicious hot soup.

Experimenting with my Thermal Magic Pots

Today, I experimented with my Thermal Magic Pots again! This morning I did a quick run to the supermarket to pick up some topside cubes. Most of what I needed was in my fridge, so when I got home mid morning, I began preparing to make a beef stew.

Usually, I would sear the beef over the stove or in the oven and cook the other vegetables a little before simmering the beef stew over the stove or in a crock pot for three to four hours. This time, I simply cut up the vegetables, like you see in the picture below.

Clockwise: cherry tomatoes, chopped celery, one potato, a box of button mushrooms, one carrot, one yellow onion and some herbs. On the side was a pack of beef topside.

I have very poor photography skills, neither can I figure out what to do with a camera other than make sure it's on auto and press the button as instructed. Sorry for the blur pictures which follow!

Fill 1/5 of the insert pot with water.

Add all the vegetables and beef cubes into the pot.

Bring to a rolling boil. Scoop away the scum.

Put the insert into the outer pot.

I left it for six hours. This was the result.

A closer look at the beef stew. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

I tried cooking brown rice using the Thermal Magic Pot. I had soaked the brown rice for 3 hours prior to cooking. After 3 hours, when the water came to a rolling boil, I allowed it to cook for 10 minutes on a simmer.

After two hours in the outer pot, the rice turned out "PERFECT!" I was completely surprised! I couldn't believe it! Brown rice is a tricky grain to cook but this is too good to be true!!!!

Look at the fluffy and not too wet brown rice!!! It was cooked through!

Aghhh!!! I don't know why the color of this picture turned out like this!!

Look at the beef, tender and delicious. All the vegetables weren't mushy and well cooked through! What a successful attempt! I LOVE THE THERMAL MAGIC POTS!!!!!

The beef stew was delicious and the brown rice was cooked beyond my expectations!

Thermal Magic cookers

My friend Emily introduced Thermal Magic cookers in her blog sometime last year. I was curious and asked that she help me purchase two pots.

Being first time user, I obviously didn't read enough how the pot worked to attempt continuous usage! What a waste!

I gave one pot to my mum which she uses to cook rice and I found use for mine, making yogurt! The yogurt is really easy to make in this pot and it turns out like magic! LOL!

Just fill the inner pot three quarter way with whatever type of milk you like and heat over the stove. Test the temperature over the back of your hand and if it feels warm then it's ready to add the yogurt "mother". Turn off the fire, stir in the "mother", close the lid and pop it into the outer pot and 'lock'. Leave for about 4-6 hours and you get deliciously smooth yogurt.

My mum gave me a 5L pot last year which was kept on my kitchen shelf. I had surfed the net about using the thermal pots and I didn't find very much encouraging information.

So, more than a year has passed and why all the sudden interest? I met a friend last week end and saw that she was using a 6L thermal pot. I was curious and asked her if it really worked?

She was a world of inspiration, recounting all the different methods and recipes which she had used the thermal pot. I was awed and my jaw dropped. To imagine that the thermal pot could actually do all that and save so much cooking gas? Seriously? I had to try it out!

I woke up the next morning and began preparing to cook a fish stock for dinner that night. I didn't know what to do so I just brought the water to boil in the inner 5L pot. I added the fish bones, two onions, some ginger, some ikan billis and freshly pounded white pepper. I allowed the water to come to a rolling boil for 5 minutes and popped the inner pot into the outer pot. Left it there for 6 hours before I opened it. Actually I was ready to bring the family out for dinner if this became an epic failure.

The result was a great surprise because after I scooped out the scum from the top, I tasted a clear and delicious soup! I was immediately sold to cooking soup in thermal pots!!!!

In my home, we drink soup every night at dinner. Regardless of whether it's a Chinese, Japanese or Western meal, we'd have miso soup or mushroom soup or something soup! When I boil soup a la Chinese then I usually boil the soup over a gas stove for at least 3 hours.

On the same day I tried cooking rice for lunch and so I washed one cup of rice and added one and a half cup of water, brought it to a rolling boil over the stove. Popped it into the outer pot and left it for 2-3 hours.

The rice turned out deliciously fluffy.

A closer look at the fluffy rice!

Since then, I've experimented with three different soups and each turned out surprisingly delicious. I've cooked chicken, ginger in sesame seed oil, soy sauce pork and more rice in the smaller pot and each time the dish turned out really nice!

I need to experiment more! *grinning happily*