I cook up big pots of stews, start with garli, and onion (6 garlic bulbs in this). Then add herb and spices/stock then add whatever veg,
Then pearl barley,, then red lentils
After about an hour and a half it's perfect. But the final pot is around 16litre. I also have a 20 or 25 litre pot. The whole thing is so big and so hot i place it in a sink of cood water.
But it just heats up the water and stillnkeeps cookikg Cooked this up last night, 10 hoirs later still hot.
So the perfect stew still tastes great but i lose the textures and colours.
When cool i portion out into tubs and freeze.
Whst would be good ways to cool these massive pots of stew down. Im thinking maybe if i i had a huge metal tray to spread it out on.
Ta
by DonkeyWorker
4 Comments
Put it straight into the freezer 30 minutes before it’s 100% cooked, it’ll continue to slow cook anyway if you leave it in the pot
looks like ASS
I’ve never cooked this much at once, but seeing that it keeps cooking for several hours after you’re done, I’d take it off the fire way before it’s “cooked” as it will continue to cook by itself as it cools down.
Once it’s a little cooler (stirring helps you, as it gets cool air into there), I’d then dish it out into containers which will help cool it down faster (both the dishing itself and the fact it’s in smaller containers). Most containers can take hot food in them, so it shouldn’t be an issue. Just make sure to use gloves so you don’t burn yourself.
These containers can then be put in the cold sink water or just left out (not near each other) to cool a bit more before you put them in the fridge.
If you don’t have anything that will go off in your fridge/freezer, you can just put them straight in and the machine will help you with the cooling process.
You do know about surface area right? Transfer the stew to multiple other containers so that it can cool faster.