**Some ideas just go to pot

A few weeks ago I happened to see a cooking show where a pasta pot was used. It was actually two nested pots-- an outer pot with an inner perforated pot. Cook the pasta in the nested pots, and then just lift out the pasta with the water draining out the perforations into the larger outer pot. Really looked slick compared to trying to carefully pour a gallon or two of boiling water off pasta without dumping pasta or steaming fingers, etc.

I did some searching on web and at a local discount store. Such pots were not cheap compared to ordinary stew pots. At Pamida, an eight quart version that also included a steam tray was around $24. A stew pot that would fit right into our 16 or 20 quart pot was on sale for about $8. The tightwad Norwegian tendencies kicked in and I thought, "How hard would it be to drill some holes?

Well, drilling holes in a stainless steel pot provided a small bit of education. The first two black oxide drill bits from a cheap set snapped before they made any more impression on stainless steel than my fingernail would have. So, off to a hardware store to get a better center punch and a 5/32" titanium drill bit. That worked much better. Of course, the price gap between $8 and $24 was narrowing. With tax, the bit was about $2. I will probably use the $4.79 punch for several years...but.... Anyway after some swearing and disgust at less than an ergonomic design for an electric drill spread over an evening and a morning, I had over 100 holes drilled without breaking the titanium bit. That wasn't so bad after all.

Time to clean up the fillings. Then I noticed that few of the holes drilled with a clean edge. Stainless steel like that in these pots made in China or India flake off like small bits of shiny oatmeal. And when they don't flake off leave a razor sharp tab next to the hole. Some tedious "grinding" with a sharpening stone which was the closest I had to a useful tool at the time and place and the pot holes were more or less cleaned up.

Next day, I got a rotary steel brush which would fit a drill and finished the hole touch up. By then I had enough holes that something in the neighborhood of 9 quarts of water would drain out in 10 to 15 seconds.

One advantage of working on something like that is that one looks at the pot very carefully and in good light to see if the holes are cleaned up or if filings remain. I noticed a black substance around rivets and rolled seams and in every groove or indentation. Hmm. Wiping with a paper towel and soap and water gradually removed that. I don't know if it is a polishing grit or a mixture of polishing grit and fine stainless steel or what, but I did see rather quickly how contamination could get into processed food and even machine filings, etc. So, next was putting the pots together and boiling some water in it to remove oils, etc.

Then, I wondered about the pot which we had used for a couple years. The lid on it had rolled seams. Running a paper towel around the rim into them yielded the result shown on the paper towel in the photo.
So, I suppose we have had some pasta over the past year that had water somewhat less than pure as a result of the whatever black stuff slowly washing into the water with the condensed steam.

Based on my experience, I would suggest not trying to save a few dollars and instead finding a good pasta pot if you can. The combination did really work slick after it was finished and clean. I assume the ready-made ones would be as useful or more so. I also became very aware of how filings, etc. could end up in cooking equipment and food processing machinery. Cleaning up was really a pain in the rear.

BUT, I also think it would be wise to carefully examine all metal pots in a good light and then carefully wipe around rivets and seams with significant pressure and persistence if you notice a black stain or grit in seams or around rivets, etc.

So much for how-to-do-it or more likely how not to save a few dollars.

***Stay tuned, I'm sure there are more political events going to pot than there are even pots going to pot--Doug Wiken

Comments

[mikesdak]

I've had one of those for a while now. I can't recall where I got it, but it couldn't have been too expensive. It is a handy item, but I've been using the single- pot-with-a-strainer-in-the-sink setup lately, mainly because the strainer fits into the dishwasher more easily.

[John]

I have one of those pasta pots too, but have used it only a few times. When the strainer is removed, some of the spaghetti dangles out of the bottom, so you can’t set it down without making a mess. Typically too, a few strands of spaghetti have fallen through and are in the water.

So there you are, standing with the hot strainer in one hand, and wondering if you can dump the large pot full of boiling water (never mind the loss of those few strands) with the other hand, so you can return the strainer to the pot. Common sense prevails, and you set the strainer down, despite the mess that it makes.

I normally use a smaller pot, which in any case is a better choice for the amount of pasta I make, and use a strainer in the sink. I actually bought the larger pot with the strainer primarily for those few times when I need a pot that size, so I’m not too disappointed that the strainer doesn’t work well for me. I expect it would work better with some other pasta forms, like macaroni.

[tgrindadams]

Hey Wiken, you doing OK? Missing your more regular posting.

Have you asked Hill and Barry to stop by when they come to SD so you can do an interview?

[Douglas Wiken]

Still chugging along here even if the posting has not been so regular lately. My guess is that Hillary would avoid my interviews like a plague.

Recently, I was invited to a conference involving some foreign visitors interested in transparency in government ..including SD Government. Unfortunately, it was in Rapid City and I would not be able to get there. Sounded interesting however. Here and there, bloggers are being viewed as an ugly step child of the established press.

Meanwhile back to the pot. John, it sounds like you made using that pot awfully hard. We put a dish for the pasta next to the stove. Pull the strainer out of the big pot. Dump the spaghetti into the bowl and stick the strainer back in the pot. The few strands of pasta that stuck out then ended up in the drain or the trash basket. Seemed slicker than snot on a doorknob to me, but your mileage may vary.

While on the spaghetti track, we have found Barilla brand to be about the easiest to cook so that it is not too hard and not mush. Unfortunately, the local stores no longer sell that brand, so we are "importing" our pasta from Rapid City.

More cooking water instead of less also seems to make better tasting pasta.

[John]

Doug – Dumping the spaghetti into a bowl is one good solution to the pasta preparation problem. However, conservation and laziness take high priority in my home, so spaghetti is normally served directly from the pasta strainer as it sits atop the empty pot. It is served in a bowl only on special occasions. After dinner, the leftover spaghetti is put in a zip-lock bag and refrigerated. The leftover sauce is refrigerated in the same covered pan that it was cooked and served in.

Here’s another trick to save time, effort, water, etc. – when reheating individual bowls of spaghetti and sauce in a microwave oven, put the sauce on the bottom and the spaghetti on top. This avoids splattering the sauce all over the microwave oven without using a plate or whatever to cover the bowl. (I’m not sure why, but reheated spaghetti sauce always tastes better than it did when first prepared.)

[Douglas Wiken]

John, I told my wife that you were probably using the strainer as an exquisite serving dish.

She used my klutchmatic system yesterday. Said it was really handy, but was still wondering if it might have been better to buy the genuine article without me wasting time...as she said, "having fun making something."

Your idea of covering the sauce with the spaghetti is interesting. Spaghetti sauce does have a tendency to explode splattering the microwave with tomato paste..or glue.

A woman who helped take care of my MIL before she died, usually boiled a cup of water in the microwave before cleaning it. That pretty much means a quick wipe with a paper towel will clean it.

A similar approach works somewhat less well, but is useful anyway with the "George Foreman" style countertop broilers. Put a couple of soaked paper towels in there after cooking. That will help clean them up if you still have one with non-removable plates.

I suppose anybody reading this might be interested in a book on cooking written by an engineer, but right now I can't remember the title or the author. Women without engineering degrees shouldn't have all the "fun".

[tgrindadams]

And when reheating that spaghetti, with the sauce on the bottom as John suggests (I like it!), cover it with a fairly damp, even wet, paper towel. It helps to keep the spaghetti moist.

Now perfect the ultimate prime rib recipe for me and I'll put in a good word for you at bloggerimmortality.com.