Energy-efficient cooking

Energy-efficient cooking

I wrote a while ago about our Braun food processor, and dad mentioned how it helped him and mum economise when they were students by making mince out of cheap cuts of meat. That got me thinking about the ways Ed and I economised when we were students. A big part of it was being energy efficient whilst cooking, so I made a list of things we did:

• Put lids on pans. Food cooks quicker and often you can turn the ring down
• Use the smallest ring possible, and turn the heat as low as possible. Gas flickering up around the sides of your pan is wasteful (and liable to set your handles on fire)
• Put steamers on top of pans so your veggies and rice are all cooking on just one ring
• Turn off the heat under the pan a few minutes before end of cooking time. For example we learned how to cook rice using 2/3 of the electricity by boiling it (in twice its own volume of water) with a lid on for 10 minutes, then turning off the ring and just leave it sitting for a further 10 minutes. It cooks perfectly
• You can also often turn the oven off before the end of the cooking time and leave the door closed. This can be disastrous with sponge cakes or souffles, though, which may collapse
• Mum bought us a pressure cooker, which meant we could cook dried beans (a staple for us then and now) in a fraction of the time
• One student flat we rented had a split oven. We found we hardly ever needed to use the larger oven, most things could be done in the small oven, saving energy. When we replaced our own cooker recently I made sure to get one with a split oven
• We also tried to cook more than one thing in the oven, for example whilst our roast stuffed butternut squash was cooking for dinner, a pie or sponge pudding was also baking for dessert
• Microwave ovens use less energy than conventional cooking but the end result isn't always exactly the same. We learned a few tricks such as pre-cooking things in the microwave then finishing them off in the oven. Baked potatoes for example are just as delicious if you microwave them until they are 3/4 done, then stick them in a maximum heat oven for the last 15-20 minutes to crisp up the skin
• One-pot meals obviously save energy. We liked casseroles with beans and vegetables and dumplings, and we also ate a lot of pasta dishes cooked this way
• I've read that slow cookers are very efficient, but they seem more suited to meat-based meals than the vegetarian food our family usually eats, so I don't have one

I still do some of those things, but now we're not so hard-up I have got out of the habit of doing them all the time. I'll try to use our steamer and pressure cookers more often, and also make sure the oven is full whenever possible.