Waterless Cookware

[danmantn]

Waterless cookware has been around since the 1930s. Most of these have been sold door-to-door and state fairs over the years. They are always sold as healthy implements, but I believe that most people simply just use them as regular parts and pans, unfortunately.

I have several pieces and brands of waterless cookware. I've been on a quest lately to learn and use these pans properly, and while I believe I have mastered some basic techniques (vegetables-I'll never boil veggies again), I would like to believe there is much more to be enjoyed from these unique kitchen tools. I've purchased several books (mostly from the manufacturers) and at times the book contradicts themselves on technique.

So, does anyone else have and use waterless cookware as it's intended (greaseless, waterless)? Have you been successful in making it work for you? Please share your thoughts, techniques (especially around creating and maintaining the mysterious/often confusing vapor seal), and recipes!

 

[sudsmaster]

I remember when these became popular in the early 70's. I couldn't afford one then, but it was my understanding that you had to add a little water, say, to a pot full of veggies, so that they'd have something to steam up first.

Since that time I rarely if ever boil veggies. It's always steamed. The technique is to add a little water to the pot, experience tells one how much is needed for the pot and the food, bring it to a boil so that steam is coming out the lid, add the food, bring it to a boil again so that steam is coming out the lid, then turn heat down to keep the steam coming but not too fast, and cook for whatever time is needed to finish the veggies. Usually it's about 7 minutes. Old Magnalite cookware is the best - it has heavy aluminum lids with machined rims that fit the pots very precisely, resulting in almost a pressure cooker setup. If you set the heat correctly, usually the simmer setting, very little steam/water escapes so you can use less water to begin with.

 

[tomturbomatic]

In the early 50s when Wesson Oil and Mazola oil were building a market share, they advocated adding a spoon of oil to the pan with the fresh-washed veggies for waterless cooking. It does give them a good flavor.

My manager in housewares recalled a story of a woman who had attended a demonstration of how waterless cooking could be done in Farberware, which also has a thick base and a well sealed cover. So the next day she brings in a skillet she ruined by trying to poach eggs the waterless way with the eggs in the cups in the insert, but with no water in the pan below them. You can't anymore poach without water than you can prepare rice or pasta without water. As they say, "There's no fixin' stupid."

One trouble with most of the older waterless cookware, especially the kind that bills itself as being made of surgical stainless steel, is that it is built with no layer of magnetic stainless so it cannot be used on induction cooking units. A small fault to most, I guess.

 

[norgeway]

I have a LOT of it!

All different brands, Royal Queen, Aristo Craft,Townecraft,and Lifetime, I can cook vegatables with NO water and they really do taste good.Also I can cook a pot roast with no water and not burn it,and believe it or not, you have plenty of gravy when done.

 

[surgilator1]

i have a full set of aristocraft from when my parents sold it in the early seventies. and a new full set of saladmaster cookware. i just love my saladmaster set. once you learn how to use them they are the best cookware you can buy. steven

 

[dynaflow]

Vita craft

my mother has a set of Vitacraft she bought before she got married in 58. U would have to know my mother but hers is as perfect as the day she took it out of the box. I have found a few pieces here and there, along with my Aristocraft, Club,Saladmaster to name a few.vintage cookware is a weekness of mine

 

[norgeway]

I want!!

More Aristocraft,its my favorite!

 

[polkanut]

Bev & I are just back from visiting friends down in Madison, and our friends have a complete set of AristoCraft cookware. I love the square-ish shape of it. I would compare it to our vintage Rena Ware which belonged to Bev's mom.

 

[toggleswitch]

Woman I know was THRILLED with her waterless cookware.

I didnt hesitate to tell her that her using BUTTER to cook everything was NOT a better alternative!

(Taurus woman-- it's ALL about diary products, to her. But there is a REASON Taurus females tend to resemble Elsie the cow in size...!)

DUCKS AND RUNS!

 

[tomturbomatic]

I have one piece of NEW ERA 5 Ply Aluminum Core cookware by Vollrath. It is attractive, low and wide, but not a Taurus, Toggle. Maybe a 1.5 or 2qt saucepan that is wider than a 6 inch surface unit so it could be used as a skillet, I guess. The cover has a steam valve under the knob that can be opened or closed. It heats very evenly, but not more so than other good cookware I have and there is a lot of that.

 

[whirlcool]

I have never heard of waterless cookware before. Can anyone describe how it is used? Do you just plop the veggies in there and turn on the heat?

 

[tomturbomatic]

Allen, it is a term that became popular in the 20s. It had to do with the discovery of vitamins, especially the water-soluble ones. It was old practice to cook in pans without covers and to use lots of water. People who did not know to cook-down their veggies to concentrate the pot liquor would pour off this cooking water and throw away the nutrients. Waterless coking can be done in any well constructed pan with a tight fitting cover, Only a tiny bit of water is needed for most vegetables, like the water that clings to them after washing, if they are fresh. Potatoes need more. The food is started on medium heat so as not to burn the food while the steam is being produced and the veggies sweat out water they contain and in which they will cook. Once steam makes the cover of the pan hot to the touch, the heat is lowered to continue the cooking without having steam escape. Before stainless steel was invented, high quality aluminum cookware like Club Aluminum was touted as waterless. Pans like Guardian Service were sold at dinner parties. Some makers of waterless cookware went so far as to put pop-up steam vents on the covers to show when the heat should be turned down. Some put clamps on the pans to hold the lids down tightly. When cookware manufacturers came up with ways to bond other metals to stainless steel to give it even heating qualities, the makers of stainless steel cookware set out to discredit aluminum saying that aluminum salts lodged in the brain and made people senile with age. Well, enough older people went senile to give this credibility so that all kinds of cookware claims for the healthy aspects of stainless steel are in circulation.

 

[maytagbear]

Yes, Tom has it

right. "Waterless" is sort of a misnomer, but "very low water cooking" does not exactly trip off the tongue

Really, one of the best (if not the best) way to cook vegetables is in the microwave, because of even less water (a tablespoon or two, compared to up to 1/4 cup conventionally), and time. Extended cooking time, excess water will destroy vitamins.

Worse yet, was a fad from the 1920s through the mid 50s, of adding a pinch of baking soda to green vegetables! Yes, it did keep them bright green, but it DESTROYED vitamin C, and just as bad, made the vegetables taste sort of "soapy."

My boss at the college dining service in the late 70s would add baking soda to vegetables before they went into the blast steamer. I got documentation about the destruction of vitamin C, presented it to him, and he eventually stopped doing it.

Most people now realize that the best way to cook vegetables is in just a LITTLE water, for a SHORT time. Unless you really want to have that long-simmered Southern flavour. Usually green beans cooked with cut-up bacon. Once a month or so won't kill a person. The Pennsylvania Dutch add peeled potatoes to their green beans and bacon. True Pennsylvania Dutch season their bowls of green beans, bacon, and potatoes with a sploosh of cider vinegar at the table, and make a meal of it. It's awesome with apple smoked bacon!!

My main stove-top cookware now is Classic Farberware. I have some Club aluminum, and some older Revereware. But, I generally use the Farberware. Heats evenly, and goes into the dishwasher nicely. If I ever see any at resale shops or rummage or garage sales, I'm thinking about adding a piece or two of Le Crueset.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[sudsmaster]

I prefer the method I described above. You want to get up a full head of steam in a tightly covered pot before you add the veggies. Then add them and keep the heat high until the steam resumes escaping the lid. Then you can turn down the heat to maintain the steaming without losing much water.

In this way the veggie surfaces get "flash steamed" which helps to seal in the nutrients and flavors, and they also cook faster than just adding freshly washed veggies and a little water to a cold pot and then bringing it up to temperature. The general concept is akin to stir-frying, where the goal is to get the oil hot enough to cook the food quickly without losing nutrients to the oil or air.

It's no coincidence that properly steamed veggies taste better than those boiled or slow cooked.

Boiling is good for pasta, though ;-)

 

[gansky1]

I have a set of Amway Queen cookware I found at an estate sale and completed on ebay. My mother has a set of this, nearly identical but different name. Does this look like the Vollrath stuff mentioned here?

Vita-Mix has a set of "Less-Water" cookware that looks very nice but similar/same as the others talked about here...

http://www.vitamix.com/household/products/neova/

 

[norgeway]

Waterless is a good method..BUT!!!

Not for green beans,I still like southern green beans,cooked at least an hour with some fat back.

 

[passatdoc]

parodied on Mary Tyler Moore Show

On one episode, Rhoda described to Mary how she bought a set of "Waterless ThunderWare". It got a big laugh line as most of the audience got the joke.

For steaming vegetables, even in the 70s, I'd just use a fold-up steamer insert with an inch of water in the pan, add the veggies and pop the lid on top. If you have Corning Ware or other glass-lid casseroles (e.g. Anchor Hocking, etc.), you can do the same with veggies and a little water. Frozen veggies (e.g. Trader Joe's haricots verts) do very well in a covered casserole and NO water, since the ice crystals will vaporize to form steam. I add spices, a little oil, and possibly a teaspoon of liquid (soy sauce or flavoring sauce---I used to use Trader Joe's Thai peanut sauce), and microwave for about seven minutes.

 

[tomturbomatic]

HEY GREG! You have one of those tall, narrow Westinghouse Dishwasher glasses with the bubbles on the sides! I have two of them. I wonder if you got one if you visited the dealer and looked at the dw or if you had to buy the machine?

The Vollrath came under several names, New Era and Vacumatic among them. The Vollrath pieces I have seen have a winged, Bakelite valve under the lid knob for steam and maybe to release the vacuum that forms when the pan cools. In their literature they tried to say that a vacuum forms during cooking but that cannot be if you have active steam. Say it sternly enough and you will get someone to believe you, I guess.

Green beans: I give them 5 minutes in the pressure cooker with a chopped onion. The flavor is quite good. Only in a Chinese restaurant do I like cooked vegetables that crunch; otherwise I want them dead so that they don't jump or slide when you take a fork to them. When I moved up here there were all of these people from the South who wanted to pretend that they were from someplace else. You had to take a knife and fork to their green beans and they tasted like something meant for grazing from out in the pasture. Pretentious queens.

 

[norgeway]

AMEN!!!

I agree, and yes,the pressure cooker produces a perfect bean,all my dads sisters cooked green beans that way, and I do too some of the time.