Cook with Just a Kettle
The next time you're in a hotel with a kettle in it, you don't have to eat in their crummy, overpriced restaurant any more or make yourself sick with burgers and dinner kebabs. With just a kettle, plate, knife, and fork you can cook an astonishing variety of delicious and nutritious meals.
Contents
Steps
Boiling the can in the kettle
- Get a large electric kettle, preferably with a hidden element but, as they are expensive. It is alright if you have to manage with the conventional type.
- Boil cans of soup, ready meals, tins of meat and vegetables. In fact, you can boil almost anything in a can. Don't listen to urban legends; they won't explode.
- Understand that all canned food is routinely sterilized in an oven immediately after being sealed. But sometimes when you open the can, some of the liquid may occasionally spurt out and can be messy, so cover the can over with a cloth when opening. They are sterile because canned food was originally invented for British soldiers in the Boer War and was meant to be eaten straight from the can.
- Place the can in the kettle first, cover it with water, and bring it to a boil. You could boil the water first and then place the can in, but you need to be sure that the insertion of the can will not cause the boiled water to overflow. You may prefer to put the can into the cold water first and bring it to boil along with the water.
- Once the kettle has come to the boil, switch it off. You will find that the label on the can will be coming off and if it is, it is a good idea to take the can out and remove the label completely.
- Wait 10 minutes before switching it on again. Bring it to the boil once more, switch it off and give another 5-10 minutes before opening the can, the contents of which it is guaranteed will be piping hot.
- Try using the remaining water to make instant mashed potatoes, but there is no reason why you shouldn't cook boil-in-the-bag rice, pasta, or fresh vegetables in there as well. Of course, while you are waiting for the vegetables to cook, the can is cooling, but the canned food is usually still warm.
- Understand that you can accomplish a lot with just one kettle. You can boil milk in a glass jar, for instance. Sometimes the jar might break if the glass is thick, but that usually only happens if you plunge the cold jar straight into boiling water. This happens with thick glass, if the outside experiences more heat expansion than the inside. But if it is allowed to heat gradually, then it will heat up evenly. You can cook good scrambled eggs in a jar as well, and boiled eggs can be put straight into the kettle.
- Consider purchasing an insulated container of the type sold in Asian shops to keep rice warm. You can use that to keep food warm, and even finish partly cooked food in it.
Kettle and container
- Boil water. Use the kettle the way it is meant to be used, especially for kettles with narrow top openings.
- Place the can in any container that won't melt from boiling water. The container should be at least twice as big as the can.
- With a bigger pot, you can do several cans, at once.
- Add hot water to the container, around the can. Leave at least 1/2" of the can exposed, so you can pick it out. Cover to keep more heat in, if you like.
- Wait several minutes.
- Remove the can. The can will be hot, but not 'boiling' hot.
- Open the can and serve, or eat from the can. You can't mess this up. If you forget, just repeat. It's still sealed in the can. Like the kettle, the pot or other container won't be 'dirty'.
- Rinse and dry and put it away.
Tips
- If you have a drip coffee maker, fill the carafe with the can in it, then pour the water into the reservoir, put the can and carafe in, and start the machine up. Let it sit on its hot plate a few minutes after it finishes making its 'coffee', to let it heat evenly, turn it off, and same deal.
