Piggybacking Cooking - How Efficient is Your Cooking Regimen?

by Monika Bartyzel, Posted Jan 6th 2009 @ 5:00PM

As much as I try to be environmentally friendly in my life, I haven't done it much in my cooking. I'm not talking about green bins and the like, but rather the pots I use and how I cook them. I imagine that part of this lack of piggybacking in my life is due to science paranoia -- which things can be joined together, and which can't? But a big part of it was the thought never occurring to me. That is, until I made the Fantastic Fish Pie.

If you read the recipe, you'll notice that Jamie Oliver gets the potatoes cooking, then throws the eggs right into the same pot to become hard-boiled, and then tops the whole thing with a steamer to steam the spinach. It took one pot instead of two or three, and only a fraction of the time and energy required to do them separately. It all turned out perfectly, and even my almost-too-old eggs were just wonderful. In fact, they were the first hard-boiled eggs in eons to shed their shells easily, without losing any of the delicious whites.

So I ask you: Do you piggyback any of your cooking? If so, please share your tips below!

Filed Under: How To
Tags: cooking foods in the same pot, CookingFoodsInTheSamePot, piggybacking food, PiggybackingFood

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-06-2009 @5:23PM bugga said... The fresher the eggs the harder they are to peel when they've been hard-boiled, so this was a great use of your nearly-too-old-to-use eggs!
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1-06-2009 @6:02PM Barry said... I don't that often. One I do most often is blanching the side vegetable (green beans, broccoli, etc) in the pasta water.
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1-06-2009 @6:04PM Barry said... I should mention before adding the side veggie into some sort of deliciousness. Plain, blanched vegetables just don't cut it.
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1-06-2009 @6:52PM J said... Its a great way to save on the number of dishes to clean up as well. One pot instead of three, that is not only environmentally friendly, but so much easier to clean up as well.
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1-06-2009 @7:16PM Kay said... Very often. Make pop corn in a pot using coconut oil and use the pot to make thai curry. Cook sausage in a skillet and make pancake. Roast a chicken in a pot and use the pot to make the stock. Stir fry meat and veggies and use the pan for making soup. The list goes on....
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1-06-2009 @8:52PM Rt said... An interesting variation of 'one pot cooking' - worth thinking about. Hmmmm.

To Kay's point, who hasn't fried an egg in the same pan the bacon was cooked in?

Still, a slightly different twist (but not much, Kay :).
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1-06-2009 @10:01PM Savor The Thyme said... Although I have not ever truly 'piggybacked' in the method you posted about, I do utlize water from one dish to another. I prepare them in the order that would best utilize the water and not throw off any flavors or textures.
http://savorthethyme.blogspot.com/
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1-07-2009 @4:31PM justin said... It might not make for the most perfect rice (I usually do brown rice in the oven now, thanks Alton Brown) but if I am making rice for a stir-fry or something I will steam veggies above my simmering rice. We have a set of Calphalon pots and pans with a steamer that fits on top of our other pans so it is really easy to steam while you do something else.
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1-10-2009 @1:34AM Kat Kinsman said... Yes! I like to piggyback leftovers with the notion that the recombinations will result in new dishes with amped flavor. I'll roast extra veggies in the pan with a chicken so there are some left over for the next day, which I'll put in a soup made with stock from the bones. Leftover biscuits are turned into ersatz dumplings in the soup, or a crust for some re-heated chicken. The end bit of last night's bottle of wine will deglaze the next day's pan, or the extra takeout rice is fried with leftover meat.

I just hate to waste -- whether it's food, energy or time.
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1-10-2009 @4:46PM bugga said... The fresher the eggs the harder they are to peel when they've been hard-boiled, so this was a great use of your nearly-too-old-to-use eggs!
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