TOT: food hygiene

Unlike, say, carrots or pears which seem to turn to mush overnight if you are not paying attention, cabbage - especially the Savoy variety which I usually buy - are pretty sturdy and can last for weeks in the fridge. Rather than cut wedges out of the sphere, exposing lots of cut edges to the air, I break off the outer leaves and work inwards so there's always a fresh outer surface.

My favourite way to use cabbage is to boil it and toss in some freshly fried onion before serving but other recipes are available.

But I agree with you about the other stuff. I buy prepared salad leaves because it's cheaper than never getting through the whole vegetables I'd have to buy to prepare it. And yellow-label stir-fry mix is a no-brainer if I have the flexibility to make stir-fry on the day of purchase.

Nick

YMMV. I have an always-on Aga, and a fan blown oven or two, plus a microwave.

I tried using it when the Agaa was off for the summer, but frankly in summer I dont need oven ready food.

Many pulses need to be cooked alone in pure boiling water.

raw kidney beans chickpeas and some lentils come to mind.

I prefer to use tinned

Do you have a reference for "pure"?

Many advice pages refer to boiling in "fresh water", but by that they seem to mean "not the water you soaked them in".

-- Richard

A friend swears by a pressure cooker - claims kidney beans don't need soaking.

Its certainly a very good safe way to do them. As long as you have a place to store the damned thing. Mine is aluminium which isn't ideal. So I tend to cook stuff in a water filled pudding basin in a water filled cooker

Don like cooking in raw aluminium these days

My air fryer is used most days but I never believed the hype that you can cook a whole meal. I will use it to cook thin cuts of meat (no more than a few inches thick), burgers, sausages, a couple of medium size baked potatoes, wet fish in foil with butter etc. I still cook vegetables in a pan of boiling water or from frozen in the microwave. Anything like a full chicken or joint of meat, even a small one, will be cooked in the oven and not the air fryer. In the air fryer anything close to the element will burn. "Air frying" chips i found to be a bit hit and miss with a lot of variability with different brands of oven chips. IMO some of the leading brands are s*it but this is more to do with the cheapest of oils they coat the potatoes to give the chips an "non acquired" flavour. I live two minutes walk from a fish and chip shop and this is my preferred option if I want chips with a meal. I have a single basket 7litre model and either line the basket with foil or use a silicon inner basket. I have discarded the cooking shelf it came with in favour of a wire rack that allows a free flow of hot air to the underside of what's cooking.

The aga does all that marvellously And does a full roast as well - no warm up time required

I use a steamer. On top of the Aga

I deep fry my frozen chips in a saucepan full of olive oil reserved for the purpose

Lucky bastard.

Adding salt *raises* the boiling point, though only negligibly for a plausible amount of salt. The effect of the weather is greater.

High altitudes might actually have a significant effect. It's probably impossible to destroy the toxins by boiling at above 6000m.

-- Richard

I think you have the "wrong kind of floor"?!

My spray mop is marvellous. I can control how wet the floor gets, so it doesn't take too long to dry; I leave the cleaning fluid in the mop - mine is stored in the handle - so it's available at short notice for casual use. The only shortcoming is that it's rather flimsy - I broke one by pressing too hard on it. (I have a proper sponge mop for serious use.)

Of course I mean dried red kidney beans, soaked overnight. The instructions advise fast boiling for 10 minutes, then simmering for 40 minutes or so. I find simmering for an hour or so sufficient, without the initial boiling. Surely it's purely a matter of temperature.

I remember getting a similar response about buying mayonnaise. You have to make a large quantity of the stuff - far more than we could use before it has to be chucked.

It's much the same with coleslaw, I invariably end up chucking some away

- once the mayonnaise starts to separate.

Ditto except any large meat items are generally done in the slow cooker. However the air fryer does make rather nice roast potatoes.

Good heavens You are correct. Well my empirical data that salted beans take forever to cook must be down to something else.

Gosh . How did those Peruvian Indians survive?

It doesn't take long. Two or three minutes.

I admit that I'm anti supermarket coleslaw. They turn what should be a healthy food into a nasty fatty unhealthy mess.

When I make coleslaw, it doesn't have any mayonnaise in it. Just some yogurt and lemon juice.

You drive 200 yards, rather than walking? This is a bananas world we live in.

I think it's a temperature-time thing, with a minimum temperature at the start required to ensure the temp inside the bean gets to 100°C quickly, and then is kept there on a rolling boil so it remains at 100°C. Simmering is ok, but I would be concerned that if not checked it could fall to 80 - 85°C. According to

Kidney beans contain a phytohaemagglutinin, and that is what is responsible for the gastric symptoms. Ricin is somewhat different, and is found in castor oil beans. Although it is much less toxic by mouth than when injected, I wouldn't eat castor oil seeds to check it out! Its effect on the GI tract can be considerably more serious than the phytohaemagglutinin in kidney beans.

Sadly there is no evidence that a rolling boil is hotter than a simmer.

But the extra turbulence does help in some cases.

I think I would know if I were using a slow cooker, especially as I don't own one.