Dividing up a saucepan?

dandy-candy

I was looking at a recipe page in a WW2 magazine, and it had a way of fuel saving by putting 3 jars in a saucepan of water - one jar had a meat stew in, the other one veg, and the 3rd with a rolypoly pudding. This way you could cook the lot all at the same time with only one hob on.
Has anyone tried doing this before? I've had puddings in the oven at the same time as the main meal but never tried saucepan sharing! I would love to know if it works well.

Pink.

Hi dandycandy,

I haven't tried it in one saucepan, but regularly use a tiered steamer which does the same sort of thing.

Pink

pyrorus

dandy-candy wrote: »

I was looking at a recipe page in a WW2 magazine, and it had a way of fuel saving by putting 3 jars in a saucepan of water - one jar had a meat stew in, the other one veg, and the 3rd with a rolypoly pudding. This way you could cook the lot all at the same time with only one hob on.
Has anyone tried doing this before? I've had puddings in the oven at the same time as the main meal but never tried saucepan sharing! I would love to know if it works well.

I've not tried it but I can't see it being too efficient or working from a simple maths point of view.

If you put the three separate jars into properly sized pans and cook each separately, you would only require energy to heat up the three jars contents, therefore, the energy would be less and just spread over the three hobs.

If you put all three jars into one large pot of water, you would need quite a large pot, the average piece of meat would need a saucepan to itself. you then need to heat up the same as just doing the three separately but also a large quantity of water, simple maths would say that to heat up more you need more energy, therefore, it cannot be energy saving.

Another issue is the time factor, usually when you cook food in boiling water it to give the food a lower constant cooking temperature, ie melting chocolate etc. if your cooking a piece of meat in a pot in water, the cooler temperature (max 100 degrees) would take hours and therefore use more energy.

Finally from a simple cooking point of view foods need different temperatures to cook, a joint may need nearly 200 degrees where a pudding will cook in 80 degrees, so you will find some foods under cooked and other over cooked.

I will say though although the "jars" concept will not work, one I do use regularly is the meat thats boil in the bag/microwave. I usually just throw these bags in the water with the veggies and cook in one pot, but I do that more on a less to wash basis. These work as the food in the bags have usually already been cooked by the manufacturer and just need reheating.

valk_scot

You can get pressure cookers with three optional dividers in the base, usually one solid sided and two with holes. Meat & two veg? Even if you didn't want to use the pressure lid it would work on the seperation system. Big heavy pan though to heat up. But if you DID use it as a pressure cooker you're be reducing overall cooking time too which would be energy saving.

You can often find pressure cookers in charity shops, though check the gasket ring isn't perished.

Justamum

You can buy divided saucepans http://www.renwoods.com/4-Way-Divided-Saucepan-8quot/Product1_20054_-1_79190_11552

I should imagine they are ideal for a single person.

peb

I think it is just the jars which would cause the problem - a divided saucepan would worl. Like Pink I use a tiered steamer so often only need one light of the hob.

I also will use just the oven to roast veg and cook meat, last night in the oven I had chicken cooking, leftover vegetables to which I had added tomatoes (tinned) and topped with the left over mash and then on bottom shelf reheated an apple pie!

mi_jardin

My Nan has a set of pans that are "triangular" in shape. The three of them sit together on one ring. I'd love to find some like that, maybe have a look on ebay.

MATH

A steamer pan on top of a regular saucepan is another way of 2doubling up". Likewise, you can put a pyrex bowl into a slo-cooker and cook two different dishes at once. ie casseroled potatoes in the pyrex dish and stew around the outside of it.