Cooking in the Dishwasher

 Have you ever thought to cook in your dishwasher while you are washing your dishes? It may seem like a joke but it is a innovative technique that allows you to have delicious dishes with fantastic taste and texture using low temperature.

 

Safety

To cook safely in the dishwasher is essential to properly close the food in glass jars with hermetic caps, such as recycled jars of jams. You can obtain best results using vacuum plastic bags specific for vacuum cooking. Combining vacuum and low temperatures the results are amazing.

 

10 Benefits of cooking in the dishwasher (while you are washing your dishes):

1. Environment – save energy and water every day using your dishwasher at the same time to cook and wash

2. Health – at low temperatures there is no denaturation of proteins. Cooking in the dishwasher you can use less salt and fat

3. Weight control – food cooked in the dishwasher is naturally tasty and you don’t need to add oil, butter or other kind of  seasoning

4. Money saver – saving energy and water means saving money

5. Taste – cooking in the dishwasher brings the most natural taste and smell of food

6. Time saver – while you wash the dishes you can cook at the same time, there is no need to look after the stove and you gain some free time  while the dishwasher is cooking/washing

7. Low temperature – Dishwasher washes/cooks in a range of temperature between 50° and 75° C, cooking at low temperature you can obtain amazing texture and taste of food (meat, fish, crustaceans, mussels, eggs)

8. No smell and heat in the kitchen – cooking in this way don’t produce any smell or heat in the kitchen, particularly interesting during the summer or when you cook fish o sea food

9. EASY FOR ALL – cooking in the dishwasher is easy even for those who are not able to cook and is foolproof

10. Meal organization – Cooking in the dishwasher requires a minimum of organization, but this will reward you because you will have meals ready when needed. For example, if you use the dishwasher in the evening you can take the opportunity to prepare lunch for the next day (eg, couscous with vegetables in a jar)

 

 

Picture of Claudia Castaldi, “Cucinare in Lavastoviglie”, Gribaudo 2011

 

What to cook in the dishwasher?

Cooking in the dishwasher is a technique of cooking at low temperatures because it is baked in a temperature range between 55-75 degrees. This temperature range is absolutely ideal for cooking all the animal products such as meat, fish, crustaceans, molluscs and eggs. Only at these temperatures is enhanced to maximum taste and texture with the lowest volume reduction. You can also cook fruit and vegetables but it is a middle cooking that keeps the vegetables crisp and with less loss of vitamins than boiling. We can not cook in the dishwasher those foods that require higher temperatures as the cereal, legumes and potatoes.

 

 

 

Why we should cook in the dishwasher?

A common mistake when you cook the meat (or other animal products) is to cook them at high temperatures. Above 65 °C the fibers of the meat begin to shrink and lose juices, proteins deteriorate. The meat losses volume, flavour and turns gray. If you cook at low temperature, for example in a dishwasher, meet remains pink, succulent and juicy and there is no reduction of volume …. with benefit for taste, for the pockets and also for health. Ready to try your oven … super professional alias dishwasher?

In your book we can find many recipes. Are all of them from yourself? Do you experiment with new recipes?

 The recipes of Cooking in the dishwasher are divided for washing cycle. My idea is just to provide a user-friendly use to choose what to cook based on the wash cycle you are going to do. The strange thing is that you choose what to cook based on the level of dirty of your dishes. A few examples:

– The Eco wash – very dirty plates – perfect for red meat

– The Quick wash – dirty but fast-washing is perfect for fish

– The washing Normal / Automatic – daily dirt – is perfect for white meats, shellfish

– The wash intensive is perfect for fruit, vegetables and Large cuts of white meat.

All recipes are my own inventions but innovation is not in the combinations as in how to bake.

 

 

In terms of ecology, should we use the dishwasher? Is not it better to hand-wash our dishes?

On average, a family consumes more water and energy (hot water) washing dishes by hand than in the dishwasher. The new generation of dishwashers washes dishes for 4 people consuming about 10 L of water and less than 1 kw of energy, from studies conducted in Europe show that when you wash the same amount of dishes by hand is consumed almost twice of water. For example, I’ve done the test on myself and actually if you wash dishes under running water, the water consumption is very high. I’m sure there are people super virtuous who consume very little water and energy but in general to use the dishwasher is an environmentally friendly option, especially if you always use a full load … even better if you use the free space for cooking.

 

Cooking in the dishwasher: my book

Firs version of Cooking in the dishwasher has been published in Italy in 2011 by Gribaudo, in the following years this book has been translated and published in Spain, Germany, Estonia and Brazil. In English is available only the ebook (still looking for a publisher for the printed version).

Press Review

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NPR.org

The telegraph

Los Angeles Times

Fine Dining Lovers

 

Lisa