You risk missing the forest for the trees by focusing so strongly on the science of the heat transfer, perhaps you’re looking at this backwards.
If I told you that a big green egg was a more efficient source for making food than a traditional luau (I have no idea whether it is or not, this is just a thought experiment) does that invalidate your neighbors decision to dig a pit and put lava rocks in it and preserve/honor the traditional way of doing things?
Invalidate? Hardly. But a Polynesian earth oven and a BGE are wildly different cooking methods. A skilled chef who is familiar with imu cooking can do just as well with traditional preps using other methods. The food is indistinguishable. Not so in a BGE. And they’re not lava rocks…
I want everyone, including you, to LOVE cooking in clay. But there’s no real science behind claims it makes better food, at least that’s been articulated so far.
But I get superior results using an earthenware pot on a stovetop. I’ve explained why multiple times. There’s a huge value to the kinds of food I cook in slowing down the process. It may very well not be as important to you.
I’m not expecting to convert you, but you’re arguing your point over and over having never used a stovetop earthenware pot (correct me if I’m wrong). Have you made cassoulet? What type of cookware did you use? Have you made a tagine or a tangia? Again, in what?
I understand that I’m in a minority in following traditional methods. But I’m no more wrong to do it than your luau master is for heating up his stones.
Yes, so you say. But you’ve not explained how or why that’s true in any objectively verifiable fashion. So it remains your opinion. And that’s 100% fine.
Where on Earth did you get the idea I’ve never cooked in these things? I try to cook in and on everything I can get my hands on. That’s one way to sort out specious claims.
After visiting Single Thread up in Healdsburg, we ended up getting a donabe. We started making dry steamed chicken essence in it and then eventually more pedestrian things like congee and oatmeal.
The soup is delicious, my pot never hit a full boil (which would have been more difficult if I used the copper pot instead) and I’m happy with both my process and my results
You can probably pick up from the picture how low the flame is under a heat diffuser. That, as they say, is the ticket.
but yes, I think whether it’s the material the pot is made from or the effect the material has on my cooking technique, the outcome is different. When the bolognese recipe calls for insaporie, I do it differently in clay. I’m forced to go slower and use less heat initially.
Interesting! I can find steamed chicken essence, but not dry steamed chicken essence. Is that something best made in a donabe? Can you say more about it, or share a link?
I was surprised that several posts stayed up that were personal, demeaning attacks, not passive aggressive at all, but overtly aggressive. The increasing vitriol has made what started out as an interesting cooking inquiry very unpleasant indeed.
Something smaller than a Romertopf clay baker? I have a very small clay baker with a lid that I use a lot, oven, not stove top (I got it from 1,000 villages), and lots of small cazuelas I bought in Spain decades ago that I use in the oven, as well (that they have held up for decades is wonderful).
However, I think you mean something else that I don’t understand at all.
A smaller picture of me looking bereft; tried to make it smaller, chose something else, then I thought better of it, and deleted the whole thing. Sorry.
It was like this;
oh, I can relate to this! My son dropped most of an ice cream cone at age 5, and then a few months later, an entire snow cone dropped out into the ocean when we were at a Boston Harbor Island!