Origo 3000 maximum temp

[Mctavish]

I deeply appreciate my Origo 3000 but I wonder about its limits. I appreciate coffee I've had to wait for. But I tried frying a steak on it and I think the steak felt comfortable at most. It wasn't cold any longer, but it certainly wasn't affected by "wok" temperature. Are there any shortcuts to stir-fry temperatures for an Origo? Is it possible? Its a way to eat more vegetables. I don't need it, but it would be nice.

 

[grumpy_o_g]

Interesting trick with steaks - you need to warm the inside and burn the outside to do it properly. I'm not sure exactly why (though I have a bunch of theories) but you can sear things on a camp stove by using the stove to heat up a suitable stone slab and then searing the steak on that. The steak can be cooked sous vide, and then seared afterwards - it works amazingly well in practice. If you try and cook it slowly by just using a low heat in a pan though you could end up drying out the steak. You won;t cook a steak sous vide without either a proper sous vide bath or an accurate thermometer and a bit of practice with a slow cooker. I've successfully cooked a few steaks sous vide in a slow cooker, put them in the fridge overnight, taken them in a backpack (wrapped in newspaper and still bagged up) and then seared them on a slab. You're supposed to heat the slabs in an oven but I've found them fine on an open flame - just have a tea towel handy to wipe the soot off before you put the steak on it.

If you want you can even just cut thin strips raw and cook them from raw on the slab but it will lose it's temperature fairly quickly - strangely it doesn't cool that much quicker if you

The slabs are quite heavy and cost about £50-100. I'm told that using something other than a slab "designed" for the job means you risk it exploding. I'm sure there's a type of stone that's suitable but finding out what it is and then getting cut and polished would probably cost that much any way. It sounds a bit of a faff but, once you have the hang of it, it's dead simple, repeatable every time and more fun and much less hassle than a barbecue.

There's an interesting write up on sous-vide steak-cooking here http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/06/food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-steak.html

 

[agurney]

I deeply appreciate my Origo 3000 but I wonder about its limits. I appreciate coffee I've had to wait for. But I tried frying a steak on it and I think the steak felt comfortable at most. It wasn't cold any longer, but it certainly wasn't affected by "wok" temperature. Are there any shortcuts to stir-fry temperatures for an Origo? Is it possible? Its a way to eat more vegetables. I don't need it, but it would be nice.

Use a heavy flat bottomed pan. Had some lovely duck breasts cooked in ours over the weekend, no problems with heat.

 

[PhillM]

While and expensive luxury present, the boatie frying pan really does do a nice steak. Pretty god at bacon too. You can even melt cheese over your steak and bacon, if you like. Warm the pan up first and using the lid helps raise cooking temperature. Obvious I know, but there, I said it anyway

Mine is the Origio 1500 so either your is twice as big or twice as powerful!

 

[johnalison]

I think the problem is not the level of heat but the rate of conduction to the meat that matters in this case, which is probably why the heavy utensil is likely to be the right answer. We had an Origo for many years but cooking steak would have been much too posh and pricy for our two children and us.

 

[sarabande]

by putting a heavy bottomed pan on the burners and a lid on the pan, you can store "sensible" *heat in the pan (i.e. the heat is not used in boiling water or escaping to air,) until you perceive the pan is hot enough to quickly cook the meat. Once the stored heat is used up you are back to a stable state, thermodynamically speaking, where heat input is roughly the same as heat output.

* increased temperature in the pan base will be measurable, or 'able to be sensed'.

 

[agurney]

...We had an Origo for many years but cooking steak would have been much too posh and pricy for our two children and us.

Same here, but a decade or two later the 'children' rarely come sailing with us and we are starting to wean ourselves off the pre-prepared curry or spag bol.

 

[johnalison]

Same here, but a decade or two later the 'children' rarely come sailing with us and we are starting to wean ourselves off the pre-prepared curry or spag bol.

A far as I remember, our standard Origo supper circa 1980 was "ham rice". Bits of ham and a few veg fried up and thrown into some rice. Drowned with lots of mango chutney and cheap wine.

 

[Mctavish]

Thanks I'll try that. Looks like the way to go.

 

[PhillM]

I should add, that for any decent amount of meat we use a Cobb in the cockpit

 

[agurney]

Thanks I'll try that. Looks like the way to go.

My preferred tool is a non-stick flat-bottomed wok.

 

[ronsurf]

I think plenty of cheap wine is the answer.

 

[ibbo]

I've found as long as you fill the burner up first, it does steak without a problem in a normal non stick frying pan.