Thermal cooking and the Thermos ShuttleChef

[Rick Westlake]

Cooking (well, meal preparation) is not a strong point with me, and even less so on my boat. I am content to fix sandwiches and one-pot suppers, the simpler, the better, and it doesn't bother me to have the same thing for lunch and supper. It would be even better if I didn't have to re-heat it for supper ...

Yes, I know I could cook a double portion at lunchtime and put the leftovers into a thermos jar. But it turns out that the clever Thermos folks - over in Japan and China - have gone that one better. They've come up with a super-Thermos device, the "Shuttle Chef" thermal cooker, that lets me fix a hot casserole for lunch and supper before I even weigh anchor after breakfast.

Thermal cooking works by retaining the initial heat of boiling up your ingredients, and letting that heat do the same sort of slow cooking as a "Crock Pot." Basically, the thermal cooker is a cook-pot that fits inside a vacuum-flask thermal jacket. You cook up your ingredients, bringing them to a boil, on the stove top, then you put the saucepan straight into the jacket and latch on the insulating lid. It takes maybe three times longer to cook this way as it would to simmer the same meal on the stove - but no simmering is involved. Once you put the pot into the jacket, the stove is off. This saves fuel, and worry. If you fix your lunch in it right after breakfast, you're not going to be ready to eat until it's ready to be eaten.

DISCLAIMER: I am quite lazy about cooking. I'm content to fix up a kettle of canned meat (or chicken, or fish) and brown rice (or quinoa), with some dried vegetables and spices thrown in for flavor. I'm also content to open a can of soup, but that's not as good for sticking to the ribs; and it might have been a little too exciting yesterday, with 15-G20 winds blowing up a quite-lumpy Chesapeake Bay. As it was, all I had to do was dish up lunch, and close the pot to keep the leftovers hot until suppertime - which it did, very nicely.

My first attempt with the Shuttle Chef was abortive. I didn't want to scorch the inner pot, so I cooked up my meat-and-brown-rice in a separate pot and poured it into the inner pot. It didn't cook the rice, and after four hours of waiting I finally poured the mess into my pressure cooker and finished it that way. Drat.

What you need to do is to bring everything to a rolling boil in the inner pot, and keep it boiling for 3 to 5 minutes to make sure that even the chunks of meat are boiling hot clear through. I generally pre-heat the outer thermal jacket by pouring in a few ounces of boiling water, as well. Then when you put the pot into the jacket, you have ample "thermal mass" to continue the cooking. When I did it this way - four hours later, at lunchtime, the brown rice was cooked perfectly. It certainly wasn't a fancy meal, but it required NO attention save to keep the jacketed pot from getting tipped over or falling. (And my Shuttle Chef has a carrying handle; I tied it to the galley towel-bar and had no problem.)

If one-pot cooking is satisfactory to you, this might be worth your while to examine. I'm sure you can make far more interesting and savory meals than I do.   ::)

[s/v necessity]

We have the Nissan thermal cooker (I think it is the older version of what you have).  And we use it constantly at our house.  It's indispensable for bean dishes and sometimes rice.  We are forgetful folk, and this cooker wont burn down the house if we forget!