Tiger / Endo Thermal Pot

When my career-driven, high fashioned girlfriend first told me about this Pot she bought for her new house 4 years ago, I was skeptical. Come on! What does a hardly-step-into-kitchen-barely-lifted-a-wok girl know about POTS!!?

Yet, as I listened to her and the sales lady (u know those very experienced, motherly sales Aunty) at Takashimaya Home Section, I knew I was caught. I parted with $268 for a 4.5L Tiger Thermal Pot, and it came FREE with a Endo 2.5L Thermal Pot. (I congratulated myself for the free pot *wink*)

I cooked its maiden soup in the Tiger, and I was bowed over! I thanked my girlfriend profusely! Now I feel like a real chef! The soup was magic (though I cant quite remember what soup was that... Must be something pork...).

You see, a soup is good when the ingredients and ALL its flavour FuSED together in every spoonful u drink! Yum! You must be able to taste the different parts in its entirety. And that can mean hours and hours of low-fire boiling over the stove, or long hours in the slow cooker. Talk about conserving gas and electricity.

So then what happens if you are working full-time with NO time to cook? Or like me, a SAHM with young children to attend to, meals to prepare, diapers to change, clothes to iron, books to read, friends to catch up with,... ... I cannot afford to stand at the fire even if I can afford the gas.

Thermal Pot! I call it the Magic Pot :)

The Endo comes with a Inner Pot and a shallow Inner Tray, with a lid. These 3 parts sit inside the Thermal Pot, and using the same keep-warm logic of a thermal flask, the Thermal Pot traps the heat from the Inner Pot, and allows the content to self cook and keep warm!

Of course there are some tricks I have learnt overtime on efficient heating/cooking. First, the soup content must be at least half of the Inner Pot volume. Next, you must transfer the Inner Pot quickly, immediately from the fire to the Thermal Pot, and close the Thermal Pot lid. Do not open and peek too often as this will cause it to lose its heat. If time allows, 2-3 hours before serving, reboil the Inner Pot for another 5 mins. This, I find, really helps to keep the soup Hot, and contents Soft. Though some friends only heat up just before serving, while others didn't even bother with either.

The shallow tray is for any other things that you want to keep warm (yay, by borrowing the heat from the soup below). So when Man is coming back late from work, I will place his rice, and dish in the shallow tray with the soup in the pot for him. That way, we save on electricity to keep rice warm, heat up soup, microwave the dishes blar blar...

I have cooked all kinds of things in these pots... Oxtail soup (ya! The oxtail is soft and it tears away from the bones and it melts in your mouth and it... ... Unimaginable!) My daily pork ribs soup,... Curry Chicken,... Chicken soup,... Porridge, Brown rice porridge... Many many...

The Tiger is simple. It is just a big soup pot that you boil with and keep in the Tiger Thermal Pot. Viola!

No more bad, shallow-tasting soup that taste like water with pork, but deeply flavorsome soup that wins Praises, and Hearts. :)
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