3 types of ingredients you should never use in ‘kettle cooking’

Kettle cooking, is a relatively new technique in our house.

Basically it involves pouring boiling water over food in a small container, covering and standing for a few minutes. Then digging in.

It’s quick. It’s super easy to clean up after. Just your eating container and utensils. And it’s delicious.

3 types of ingredients you should never use in kettle cooking

A good rule of thumb is to only use ingredients you’d be happy to eat raw….

1. Raw meat & poultry
The heat is sufficient to warm things up but not enough to kill harmful bacteria in raw chicken or pork.

Fish that you’d be happy to eat raw can be used. But make sure it’s super fresh.

2. Uncooked pasta, legumes & grains
A no brainer really. If something normally takes hours or even 10 minutes of simmering to render it edible, it’s not going to be done in the few minutes you have for kettle cooking.

3. Uncooked starchy veg
Potatoes, sweet potato, parsnip, pumpkin, turnips and swedes all require much more heat energy than that supplied by rapidly cooling boiling water. Of course precooked veg will be delicious.

which foods work well in ‘kettle cooking’?

Basically anything that doesn’t require much heat to cook it.

I like to use a combination of the following:

1. a mix of fresh veg, chopped finely so they heat up quicker.

2. something more substantial like chickpeas, couscous, canned lentils or noodles, cooked chicken, canned tuna, salami or chorizo.

3. seasonings for the ‘soup’. Soy sauce is a fav. You could also try spices, bullion powder, stock cubes, curry powder, curry pastes, miso, ketchup, tomato paste, pesto.

don’t have a kettle?

You don’t actually need a kettle as such. It’s just about having a source of boiling water.

This could be boiling a pot on the stove. One of those continuous hot water thingys you often get in offices. Or even filling a thermos with hot water to take with you. (Wish I’d thought of that the bitter Winter I spent pruning vines in the Barossa Valley)

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