Regular cooking pans, pressure cooker or crock pot?

I received an e-mail a few days ago asking if I use special kitchen gadgets to do my cooking at home. Well, yes and no. For sure, I am not the kind of person who has a specific gadget for every single task. Every kitchen tool or gadget I own serves many purposes. But let’s be more specific. Let’s start with cookware. I’ll write about the other kitchen gadgets and tools in future entries.

Boiling meat must be one of the easiest things to do to start a meal. Well, except opening a can, of course, if that counts as cooking. We want tender but not soggy or crumbly beef. We want something we can bite into and not something akin to corned beef. A thick-bottomed cooking pan or casserole should easily do the trick. The problem with ordinary cooking pans is that, most of the time, you have to watch the meat and add liquid from time to time. Unless you have a cooking pan with a very good lid, there will be a lot of evaporation while the meat simmers. Plus, you don’t save anything on electricity or gas. If the bottom isn’t thick enough and, at any point, too little liquid is left while the meat continues to simmer, there is always a chance that the meat will stick to the bottom of the pan. This is especially true with whole slabs of uncut meat.

In the mood for more food?

1. Braised tilapia
2. Stuffing a duck with aromatics
3. Bagoong (shrimp paste)
4. My daughter’s 14th birthday
5. Chicken and mushrooms burger
6. Refrigerator cake
7. Chicken, tomatoes and pineapple stew
8. Buko-strawberry ice cream and diced mangoes
9. Crushed galangal
10. Stir-fried chicken, mushrooms and peas

About Pinoy Cook

• About the author
• Cooking philosophy
• Food photography
• The noche buena section
• Product review policy
• Terms of use
• Privacy policy
• Recipe archive
• Published articles
• Food from all over
• E-mail the author

Readers

 Subscribe in a reader

Noche Buena

• An all-Filipino menu at a family reunion
• Peach pata hamonado
• Kalabasa (squash) and potato soup
• Chicken in sour cream
• Cucumber and coconut smoothie
• Food: the perfect Christmas gift
• Chili garlic prawns
• Roast duckling on New Year’s eve
• Roast pork with salsa verde
• Liver paté

How to cook

• Stages in beating egg whites
• Oven-roasted crispy pata
• Stewed mung beans
• Homemade broth
• Pork siomai (steamed dumplings), pearl balls and lumpiang shanghai (fried spring rolls)
• Meals in a flash, part 2
• Meals in a flash
• Don’t be a kitchen slave
• Herb-infused olive oil
• Stir frying basics

Sidenotes