Clay pot without glaze. Clay pots: glaze is harmful
There was a time when not every kitchenware store offered products such as stew and roast earthenware pots, although the history of this kitchen utensil goes back thousands of years. Even in ancient times, a person noticed that ceramic dishes very carefully preserve the natural taste of products even during heat treatment. Designed for use in stone ovens, it is perfectly adapted to modern microwaves and ovens. The women's online magazine "Beautiful Half" tells about how to handle clay pots, and what dishes can be cooked in them.
What are the first things to look for when buying large or small clay pots intended for culinary purposes, and not for indoor flowers? By the way, I deviate a little from the topic, but I just remembered that the capricious indoor plant Phalaenopsis yellow also prefers clay pots to all pots in the world. So, clay cooking pots are glazed (that is, covered with glaze) and unglazed. What follows from this?
Myths about "harm" and the truth about benefits
There is still a myth that a glossy finish with inside pots are harmful to health. It is based on the fact that the glaze supposedly contains toxic substances. In fact, this information became obsolete 50-60 years ago. Nowadays, ceramic manufacturers use completely new, improved glaze technologies. For example, Russian ceramists apply the same food glaze to their products, which is used to process the external and internal surfaces of traditional enameled metal dishes.
If you cook a dish in an unglazed pot, no matter how thoroughly you wash it with sweat, food particles will remain in the clay pores. Sooner or later they begin to rot and release toxic substances. So coating ceramic dishes with a layer of glaze is not a luxury, but a necessity dictated by concern for the health of consumers. Glaze is analogous to a thin layer of glass, and we know that glass is a completely safe and clean material according to environmental criteria.
Dishes in clay pots and their features
You don't need to be a chef of an elite restaurant to cook tasty and healthy dishes in clay pots. Ceramic cookware has a high heat capacity and, conversely, a low thermal conductivity. The heat treatment that dishes in clay pots undergo is unique - it is not boiling or stewing in traditional form... We can say that the products languish in the ceramic "space", and at the same time they retain the maximum of vitamins and nutrients.
Fans of all kinds of diets can cook for themselves in ceramic dishes. For example, a pot will be a great find for those who have an autumn diet that eliminates almost all fats on their agenda. You can stew vegetables in pots without adding fat, and it will still be delicious. The same can be said for meat.
Culinary experts, and with them gourmets, often argue about how much water should be added to pots. Ideally, it should not be there at all, since both vegetables and meat usually secrete their own juice and come to readiness in it. But to calm your conscience, you can still add a little water: the main thing is that its volume does not exceed 1/3 of the volume of all other products.
It is convenient that dishes in pots do not need to be stirred during cooking, nothing will burn there.
Clay Pot Safety
Ceramic dishes are quite delicate things. Do you want your newly purchased pots to last as long as possible? Then do not be lazy to properly care for them.
Ceramics, especially unglazed ones, are guaranteed to absorb all odors. Therefore, it is better that you have “your own” pots for certain types of dishes. For example, if you start to cook both fish and chicken in the same pot, the dishes will get an incomprehensible and unpleasant smell. In general, you understand me: flies - separately, cutlets - separately.
When you get the pots from the store, immediately place them in a large basin and fill them with cold water until they are completely covered. Let them lie down for an hour, then they can be removed and dried. Before each cooking, the ceramics are simply filled to the brim with cold water for fifteen minutes.
After cooking, it is undesirable to wash ceramic pots with traditional dish gels, even if they have become very greasy. It is better to pour 2-3 tablespoons of table vinegar into each of them and fill with cold water, then put in a cold oven and heat it to a temperature of 150-170 degrees. Hold the pots there for half an hour. Let them cool slowly before they can be washed with laundry soap or baking soda.
Earthenware is very fragile and is afraid of sudden temperature changes. Therefore, food pots are always placed only in a cold oven and heated in moderate heat. For the same reason, after taking them out of the oven, it is undesirable to put them on a cold surface - take care of a wooden stand.
PS: You can write your opinion on how to use clay pots in the comments to this article.
A lot of confusion arises when determining what is the difference between a ceramic pot (pot) and an earthenware pot (pot). An entire generation of people has lost the ability to distinguish between the two types of dishes, a judgment I made by visiting various forums where they discussed cooking in earthenware. Moreover, this confusion is typical not only in the Russian-speaking sector of the Internet, but also in many forums, let's put it mildly, "non-Russian-speaking"
And all this is due to the fact that the modern generation, since childhood or adolescence, have never encountered pottery for cooking. For example, I grew up in that post-war period in the former USSR when there were no mixers and refrigerators. Cream for cakes, yolks, poppy seeds for pies were ground in clay makitra. Makitra is such a wide cone-shaped clay bowl in which poppy seeds were ground with a special pestle (makogon), various creams were whipped.
In addition, each household had clay pots for other purposes .. Our family had a two-liter clay jug covered with white glaze on the inside - it was intended for storing milk. A milkmaid (a peasant woman from a neighboring village) brought milk to our eight apartment building every day. there were almost all the neighbors. During that hungry post-war period, it was believed that if there is bread, milk and potatoes in the house, "you will not die of hunger."
There were also a few clay pots different sizes for storing lard (melted fat), pieces of fried meat and filled with lard - the so-called "meat supply". When there was no fresh meat in the house, a "meat supply" was taken from an earthen pot with a spoon and added either to the borscht, or to the soup, or to the roast. Potters came to our place at the fair with their goods, mainly from the Carpathians. Mom took me with her to such fairs and I have remembered the feeling of pottery in my hands for the rest of my life.
Very much interferes in determining the difference and the very definition of "Ceramics" - a product made of clay.
It's like in that joke about a foreigner studying Russian:
"The fox is sitting in a tree - a scribe!
A woman has a hat on her head - a scribe!
The bus turns over - a complete scribe !!! "
That's how it is with the definition of what is "Ceramics"
It turns out that "ceramics" is:
1) porcelain - ceramics
2) faience - ceramics
4) bricks - ceramics
5) tile, facing tiles are also ceramics !!!
We say "Ceramic pot" - is it made of clay? So how does it differ from the "Clay Pot", which is made of clay? Ceramists and potters tell us about the "composition of the clay", production technology, structure, firing temperature. Well, for them, specialists, this is clear. And for us, ordinary consumers? Nothing is clear. Everything must be groped. Or in examples like this:
1) In the top photo: on the left side - a clay pot
On the right side is a ceramic pot
How to distinguish purely visually?
In the bottom photo: on the left side - the bottom of a clay pot. It roundly passes into the sides of the pot (by the way, this is the Chinese main pot, the so-called "sand pot" or translated into Russian "sand pot".) And, most importantly, the bottom of the earthen pot is never covered with glaze. touch.
On the right side is the bottom of the ceramic pot, with a clear rim and glazed bottom.
Let's take another example:
2) In the top photo: on the left side - an earthen pot and a mini earthen pan (or cocotte maker),
On the right side there is a ceramic pot and a ceramic baking dish.
In the bottom photo, the bottom, respectively. (I must apologize for the photo of the bottom of the clay pot, but ... "I won't throw out the words from the song." chemical means, then you have to put up with the soot of earthenware, because nothing can remove such marks: chemistry is not suitable, because the clay base is very susceptible to absorption, and then, in the process of cooking, to the release of this very chemistry into the prepared dishes. Physically clean the bottom of Ch. dishes with various graters, it is also impossible, because the structure of the surface layer of the clay product will be disturbed.)
It is clearly seen that in the clay products (on the left side) the bottom is even, it looks like natural unglazed clay, while in the ceramic products on the right side of the picture the bottom is either completely glazed or partially with a light (white) faience ring.
And finally, another example:
3) On the top photo: on the left side - an earthen pan (using its example I will write in the future about "Before the first use, the main pot is needed ...")
On the right side is a ceramic pot
On the bottom photo: on the left side - the bottom of an earthen pan, you can see that the bottom is earthen, slightly rough, not glazed.
On the right side - the bottom is slightly (4 mm) protruding and although it is not painted over, it can be seen that the pot as a whole is simply painted "like clay". (such a pot is scary to use for food at all, because it even sticks slightly to the touch). I bought this pot for the occasion at a flea market for ridiculous money (20 shekels). I ask the owner, why are you selling such a "good" thing? He replies that they brought him from Russia as a gift, it was inconvenient to refuse, but they do not need him "like that", so he sells it.
I bought it for fun, I will use it as a planter for flowers, otherwise in Israel, ceramic podvazonniki are very expensive.
What else do I want to write and what to look for?
Here's what ... I wrote many times and emphasized in my recipes that I love and try to cook in earthenware over an open fire, that is, on gas stove... It is not only convenient, but most importantly, it is economically beneficial.
I don’t know about other countries, but in Israel, electricity is very expensive. And if you also take into account that in the summer months with Israel's constant heat of 32 - 36 degrees C and the widespread use of air conditioning (otherwise you simply cannot survive), then you have to pay colossal amounts for using electricity. After such huge payments, you will think three hundred times: is it worth turning on the oven again, given that, as a rule, our ovens are electric. However, walking on the Internet on foreign forums, in particular - Germany, France, Italy, Egypt, I see that people there are worried about high electricity bills and willingly buy clay pots made by new technology and suitable for cooking on an open fire (in particular, on a gas stove, since gas is much cheaper than electricity .. So consumers are switching from clay pots for ovens to more cost-effective crockery for cooking on a gas stove.
There was a time when not every kitchenware store had an assortment of products such as clay pots for stewing and baking, although the history of these kitchen utensils goes back thousands of years. Even in ancient times, a person noticed that ceramic dishes very carefully preserve the natural taste of products even during heat treatment. Designed for use in stone ovens, it is perfectly adapted to modern microwaves and ovens.
What are the first things to look for when buying large or small clay pots intended for culinary purposes, and not for indoor flowers?So, clay pots for cooking, they are glazed (that is, covered with glaze) and unglazed. It is best to cook in those where there are no coatings, especially inside, since the composition of the glaze almost always contains toxic substances that are hazardous to health. However, if the pot is covered with glaze on the outside, this is not so scary, but vessels with a glossy coating on the inside are not recommended to use.
Dishes in clay pots and their features
In order to prepare delicious and healthy meals in clay pots, you don't need to be the chef of an elite restaurant. Ceramic cookware has a high heat capacity and, conversely, a low thermal conductivity. The heat treatment to which food is subjected to clay pots, is unique - it is not traditional cooking or stewing. We can say that the products languish in the ceramic "space", and at the same time they retain the maximum of vitamins and nutrients.
Fans of all kinds of diets can cook for themselves in ceramic dishes. For example, a pot will be a great find for those who have autumn diet ->
Eliminates virtually all fats. You can stew vegetables in pots without adding fat, and it will still be delicious. The same can be said for meat.
Culinary experts, and with them gourmets, often argue about how much water should be added to pots. Ideally, it should not be there at all, since both vegetables and meat usually secrete their own juice and come to readiness in it. But to calm your conscience, you can still add a little water: the main thing is that its volume does not exceed 1/3 of the volume of all other products.
It is convenient that dishes in pots do not need to be stirred during cooking, nothing will burn there.
Clay pots: safety precautions
Ceramic dishes are quite delicate things. Do you want your newly purchased pots to last as long as possible? Then do not be lazy to properly care for them.
Ceramics, especially unglazed ones, are guaranteed to absorb all odors. Therefore, it is better that you have “your own” pots for certain types of dishes. For example, if you start to cook both fish and chicken in the same pot, the dishes will get an incomprehensible and unpleasant smell. In general, you understand me: flies - separately, cutlets - separately.
When you get the pots from the store, immediately place them in a large basin and fill them with cold water until they are completely covered. Let them lie down for an hour, then they can be removed and dried. Before each cooking, the ceramics are simply filled to the brim with cold water for fifteen minutes.
After cooking, it is undesirable to wash ceramic pots with traditional dish gels, even if they have become very greasy. It is better to pour 2-3 tablespoons of table vinegar into each of them and fill with cold water, then put in a cold oven and heat it to a temperature of 150-170 degrees. Hold the pots there for half an hour. Let them cool slowly before they can be washed with laundry soap or baking soda.
Earthenware is very fragile and is afraid of sudden temperature changes. Therefore, food pots are always placed only in a cold oven and heated in moderate heat. For the same reason, after removing them from the oven, it is undesirable to put them on a cold surface - take care of a wooden stand.
P.S .: Your opinion on how to use clay pots, you can write in the comments to this article
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