Regional Food

Thermal Cooker Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

February 8, 2017 by Kate Thompson Leave a Comment

I’ve been messing around with noodles in the thermal cooker and I haven’t had awesome luck. If you keep them in the thermal cooker for the entire cooking time, they get swollen and mushy. If you add them for the last 30 minutes of cooking time, they get soft but also kind of gluey because the liquid is no longer actually boiling. Putting noodles to cook in hot but not boiling water is apparently a no-go.

Since I knew I was doing a spaghetti sauce recipe today, I thought I’d give noodles another try. The trick here is to cook the sauce as listed below. When there are maybe twenty minutes left until dinner, bring water to boil in the small inner pot. Add your noodles and boil for a minute or two. Then insert the small inner pot into the cooker with your spaghetti sauce that’s already been cooking for hours. Seal the cooker and let the noodles cook for the amount of time the package directions specifies.

So, for my whole wheat spaghetti noodles, I let them cook for 14 total minutes, including the time they were boiling on the stove and the time they were sealed in the thermal cooker. The package said “Boil 12 minutes.”

Then, what’s the point of using the thermal cooker to cook noodles this way. For one thing, you save a little energy by not having to boil the noodles the whole time. It’s also a convenient way to take dinner on the go. As you’re leaving the house for baseball, put the noodles in and then dish them up on the field.

Now for the sauce. This is an amazing sauce that can be modified a hundred different ways. The basic recipe was taught to me by my Peruvian aunt who was living in Montreal. She taught me how to cook this, while speaking French and with no exact measurements. She just tossed things in the pot and I tried to write down approximate amounts.

I’ve been making this sauce for nearly twenty years now and it’s a little different every time. So, make it your own.

Thermal Cooker Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

1 medium onion, diced
1 lb. ground beef or turkey
1 TBSP minced garlic
1 TBSP parsley
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 28oz can diced or pureed tomatoes
1 14oz can tomato sauce
1 8oz can tomato paste
1 24oz jar marinara sauce
1 tsp liquid beef bouillon or one bouillon cube
2 tsp sugar
Fresh grated parmesan (optional)

Heat oil in skillet and toss in onions. Stir the onions for about 5 minutes until they are translucent and begin to turn golden. Add ground beef or turkey and stir and break into small pieces until most of the pink is gone. Drain most of the fat. Then add garlic and spices and stir for 30 seconds. Dump in tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, marinara, and bullion. Bring to a boil for 3 minutes. Stir in sugar. Place in the thermal cooker and seal. Let cook for 1-4 hours until you’re ready to eat. Serve over noodles or vegetables and top with parmesan cheese.

Thermal Cooker Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

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Ingredients

1 medium onion, diced
1 lb. ground beef or turkey
1 TBSP minced garlic
1 TBSP parsley
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 28oz can diced or pureed tomatoes
1 14oz can tomato sauce
1 8oz can tomato paste
1 24oz jar marinara sauce
1 tsp liquid beef bouillon or one bouillon cube
2 tsp sugar
Fresh grated parmesan (optional)

Instructions

Heat oil in skillet and toss in onions.

Stir the onions for about 5 minutes until they are translucent and begin to turn golden.

Add ground beef or turkey and stir and break into small pieces until most of the pink is gone.

Drain most of the fat.

Then add garlic and spices and stir for 30 seconds.

Dump in tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, marinara, and bullion.

Bring to a boil for 3 minutes.

Stir in sugar.

Place in the thermal cooker and seal.

Let cook for 1-4 hours until you’re ready to eat.

Serve over noodles or vegetables and top with parmesan cheese.

http://thermalcookerrecipes.com/thermal-cooker-spaghetti-meat-sauce/

Thermalcookerrecipes.com provides recipes as a resource and educational tool only, and makes no food safety guarantees. We are not liable for any failure to meet food safety standards that may arise in your thermal cooking. We make every effort to ensure that our recipes meet established food safety standards. But all thermal cookers are not created equal, and there are many variables at play resulting in the temperatures reached and maintained in your thermal cooker. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for your specific brand and model of thermal cooker, even if that means tailoring our recipes.

If you are in doubt, please consult the FDA page on foodborne illness for safe cooking temperatures and other safety tips. And use a food thermometer to ensure that your food has been cooked and stored at a safe temperature.

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Indian Lemon Cilantro Chicken and Yellow Rice

October 6, 2016 by Kate Thompson 2 Comments

Everything delicious I know about Indian food, I learned from Madhur Jaffrey.

She is a goddess. This recipe is based on two recipes from her Indian Cooking book, Lemony Chicken with Fresh Coriander and Aromatic Yellow Rice.

Anyone I’ve ever made these for loves them and they turned out amazing in the thermal cooker.

You start by browning chicken chunks in your large pot with some oil. When they’re lightly browned but not cooked through, add your minced garlic, jalapeno, ginger paste, and spices.

Cook them for a minute until the spices are nice and fragrant.

Then add your liquids. Bring everything to a boil. When it’s boiling hard, to the point that it can’t be stirred down, let it continue to boil for three minutes. Then place the large pot in the cooker, cover and seal.

Yellow Rice

If you are make yellow rice as well in the upper pot (both recipes are included in this post.), start water boiling as the chicken finishes browning. Add rice and spices to the boiling water and boil for three minutes as well.

Nest the smaller rice pot inside the larger chicken pot.

Cover.

Seal.

Let cook.

This should be ready in 2 hours but can continue to cook for up to 8, depending on how heat efficient your personal thermal cooker is.

Indian Lemon Cilantro Chicken and Yellow Rice

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Ingredients

4 1-inch cubes fresh ginger peeled and coarsley chopped
8 Tbsp plus 2 Cups water
6 Tbsp vegetable oil
4 chicken breast halves, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 heaping Tbsp minced garlic
5 bunches fresh cilantro
1/2-1 fresh jalapeno
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
4 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp salt, or to taste
1/4 cup lemon juice
Rice Ingredients
2 1/2 cups rice
4 cups water
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp turmeric
3-4 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
3 bay leaves
3 Tbsp butter, cut into small pats (optional)

Instructions

Blend ginger and 8 Tbsp water in an electric blender or food processor.

Heat the oil over medium heat in your large thermal cooker pot.

Add chopped chicken pieces and lightly brown.

Add garlic, ginger paste, jalapeno, and dry spices to pot with chicken and stir for 1 minute.

Add 2 cups water, fresh cilantro, and lemon juice.

Bring to a boil.

When the liquid is boiling so hard it cannot be stirred down, set a timer for three minutes and boil while stirring frequently.

Remove pot from heat, put a lid on it, and seal it in your thermal cooker.

Remove and serve over rice after 2-8 hours in the cooker, depending on how long your cooker will safely keep it warm.

If you're making rice, boil water.

Add rice and spices and boil hard for 3 minutes.

Place rice pot nested inside chicken pot.

Cover with lid, seal in thermal cooker, and let cook for 2-8 hours.

When ready to serve, fluff rice with fork and mix butter into the rice.

http://thermalcookerrecipes.com/indian-lemon-cilantro-chicken-and-yellow-rice/

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi – Korean BBQ

September 12, 2016 by Heather Clark 2 Comments

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi - Slider

My sister-in-law is from Korea. She cooks the best food ever. This thermal cooker bulgogi is not one of her recipes. 🙁

But it is DELICIOUS, and until she comes over from Korea again to cook me her homemade bulgogi, this will have to do. Also, in the thermal cooker, it was about a 10 minute total project, and it came out piping hot. The meat was all intact, but melt-in-your-mouth tender, and the rice was perfect. All this after seven hours cooking, and being transported to a Korean themed bachelorette party —don’t ask!

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi - Featured

The joy of this, like most of our recipes is that to cook it, you dump the ingredients into your large pot, boil hard for three minutes, and put it into the cooker to cook. This was a fun experiment, because I just let the rice go the whole time, hoping it wouldn’t overcook. It was absolutely delicious! Better for certain than 7 hours in the rice cooker on warm.

I felt like a cooking superstar, and it was easy as anything!

Thermal cooker bulgogi also freezes very well. And you will probably want to freeze it, because this recipe makes a lot. Air is your enemy, as it brings down your food temperatures too quickly, so I always cook in larger amounts, and freeze leftovers.

See Kathryn’s recipe for instructions on the rice that I cooked in the nesting upper pot.

Thermal Cooker Bulgogi – Korean BBQ

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Ingredients

1 C soy sauce
1/2 C white sugar
1 C chopped green onion
1/3 C minced garlic
1/2 C sesame seeds
1/2 C sesame oil
2 tsp ground black pepper
Water until beef is just covered (1-2 C)
3 inch piece puréed fresh ginger
4 pounds thin-sliced beef roast

Instructions

Purée fresh ginger in soy sauce and sesame oil and garlic, Add all ingredients to thin-sliced beef in large inner pot of thermal cooker. Add enough water to cover beef. Bring to a hard boil for at least 3-5 minutes, stirring consistently.

Place pot into thermal cooker, add nesting pot with prepared white rice. Seal, and cook for a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 8 hours.

Serve bulgogi over rice with steamed broccoli or other side vegetables.

http://thermalcookerrecipes.com/thermal-cooker-bulgogi-korean-bbq/

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The Best Way to Cook White Rice – In a Thermal Cooker!

September 8, 2016 by Kate Thompson 2 Comments

Do you know about the new BEST way to cook white rice?

It’s rice. It’s white. This is the simplest of foods and I’ve been cooking it for years. I didn’t think you could surprise me with a new method or recipe when it came to white rice.

In a pot. On the stove.

In a rice cooker. ~~My favorite~~. My OLD favorite.

When I got my thermal cooker, rice was one of the first things I tried.

It’s simple.

It’s fast.

And it comes out perfectly in the thermal cooker every time.

We’ve experimented with cooking time and have had great, perfectly-cooked rice with a total cooking time of anywhere from 2-5 hours so far. The five-hour rice was a bit mushier than the two-hour but still delicious, no more mushy than if it had sat in a rice cooker for 5 hours.

So if you’re up for perfect, delicious, portable rice, try it in a thermal cooker. The good news is, if you have a cooker with nesting pots, you can cook the rice in the top pot and sauce and meat in the bottom.