I recently learned that you can turn down the heat when boiling water when cooking to save energy. Apparently water that is a low boil is the same temperature as water at a high boil so your vegetables don’t cook any faster at a high boil but you will use more energy. Makes perfect sense so I’ll be turning down the dial on the boiling water next time I make some pasta.
This is also an important culinary point for certain foods and drinks — for example chicken stock shouldn’t be allowed to boil because it turns cloudy; if you keep it just below the boil it’ll remain clear. And green tea should never be made with boiling water because it gives the tea a bitter taste (one of the reasons many people say they don’t like green tea is because they’ve drunk tea made with boiling water and/or tea that has steeped more than a minute or two, which is generally the maximum for green tea). For green tea I wait until just the faintest bit of steam is coming out of the kettle, which is around 75-80 Celsius, the perfect temperature for most green teas. The difference in flavour is amazing.
brad, your knowledge is remarkable and pretty awesome. Thanks again for adding to our posts.
what do you think is more sustainable: Using a rice cooker or cooking rice over the stove?
I’m not sure Jeff. It would be interesting to figure out which uses more power per hour and then determine the differences in cooking times.