A new way to cook ham. For cold people.

[desperance]

Put piece of ham in saucepan. Cover with water, and set on nice high heat.

Come upstairs to carry on finishing book.

Some time later, wander downstairs in search of snacky foodstuffs.

Discover downstairs entirely full of smoke, ham utterly boiled dry, pan on the very eve of destruction.

Curse.

Snatch pan off heat, pondering price of new pans and marvelling at how bottom of pan is covered with crusted black stuff although there was nothing in there but ham (which is still there, still whole, welded in place) and water. Set hot tap to run, open back door to let smoke out.

When water running very hot, hold pan under tap and marvel at how water boils on contact.

Empty water into backyard drain; note how much of the black detritus has come away already, and think perhaps the pan can be saved after all.

Refill with water, nudge ham, see it part from pan.

Leave pan soaking, remove ham to plate.

Find that apart from burned bottom, ham looks perfect.

It's been through a sort of triple-process, I guess: first simmered, then steamed, then baked. I'll see if the cats want the burned bit. Not that they deserve it: they made no effort to tell me that catastrophe was on its way, and their sensitive little noses must have known.

Mine, of course, didn't stand a chance. I expect the house stinks, but I can't smell a thing.

Comments

[footlingagain.livejournal.com]

Maybe cremated ham is a cat delicacy and they wanted the whole thing....

[desperance.livejournal.com]

We wouldn't be at all surprised. Heedless, selfish, uncooperative creatures...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Cajun-blackened ham! Or something!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. Something like. The pure form, without adulterating spices.

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

This post just saved me from an embarrassing curry related disaster.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yay! I has not lived in vain! If I can have saved a curry, it makes it all worthwhile...

(Maybe this is what we need: little random screens popping up to say "Have you left anything on the stove?") (I usually remember to bring my timer up, but only when I'm actually timing something. A ham? Nah, that's done by instinct and poking...)

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

Apple reveals the Icook!

I do like the fact that anything can be made to look cooler and groovier by putting an I in front of it.

IRJ

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Painful personal experience enables me to inform you that getting the rest of the carbonized bits off the interior of pots can be accomplished by simmering a couple of fingers' worth or white vinegar in the vessel, and scraping at it from time to time. After 10 or 15 minutes' simmering, you should be able to get the pot clean without too much elbow-grease.

(This household hint brought to you courtesy of the pot of chili Sunday before last and the pot of marinara sauce from the wedding banquet early in September.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. We do clearly come from the same school of shared experience: vinegar and soaking are my tools. The saucepans that occupy privileged positions in my back yard are my failures, alas...

[ellarien]

A couple of weeks ago, I managed to deposit a layer of carbon on the bottom of a pan by letting it boil dry under a steamer basket full of veg. The bottom bits of red pepper were slightly caramelized, but otherwise the veg were fine. If it hadn't been a pan (plain aluminium, from before that went out of favour; I never got around to dumping them before the tide of opinion turned again) I'd had since my student days, I'd probably have written it off, but I did eventually get it scoured.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Is aluminium back in favour again? Most of my own pans are anodized aluminium, which I adore. That's partly because of their sexy charcoal-grey colour - for yes, I am exactly that shallow; but also I find them fabulous to cook with, and almost always easy to clean. Only lost one in twenty years, when I put some fish to seethe in milk for an ailing cat, and then, um, went to have a bath. Came down an hour later to utter calamity, and the saucepan had to go...

[ellarien]

Well, I'm sure I read or heard somewhere that they decided it wasn't causing Alzheimers after all, anyway -- something about sample contamination.

All my current pans that are less than 25 years old (and not omelet pans) are stainless steel, and I haven't killed one of those yet, but I've gone through a few cheap nonstick milkpans by letting vegetables-and-pasta boil dry; I don't even bother trying to save those once they've burned.