Solar cooking

[Varmint]

It's expected to reach 102 in North Carolina tomorrow, and that got me thinking: could you set up a mechanism to cook food using only the sun? In particular, I could put some salmon in a vacuum-sealed bag and leave it in the sun for a bit -- think of it as solar sous vide. Anyone willing to try it? Anyone ever done it? I'd do it, but I don't have one of those vacuum sealers.

Disclaimer: Anyone crazy enough to do solar sous vide is doing so at their own risk. I take no responsibility for any intestinal craziness that might result.

[Jaymes]

Don't think I'd do it with fish, but I've got a great recipe for a pasta puttanesca sauce that is supposed to cook in the sun. I have a clear Pyrex casserole dish with lid that I make the sauce in. It sits in the sun for about 5-6 hours, and it's delicious. In the wintertime, I make it in a slow oven, but it's not as good.

[Malkavian]

There's always Sun-tea. I imagine you could give dried meats a go if you fancy jerky, don't know what the health implications would be there, but I'd be game for it so long as you kept the bugs and animals off.

103 in Charlotte, btw miserable.

[andiesenji]

I have a solar cooker I bought about 40 years ago.

It folds up but when open looks like a parabolic antenna or a very shiny satellite dish.

You wouldn't want to put your hand at the point where the sun's rays concentrate. It will bake bread. I used it many times when camping in the high Sierras as it was a way to get water hotter than I could on a stove or campfire.

We used aluminum foil and a fish (trout) would be fully cooked in about 3 minutes.

I have seen cookers made using just a sheet of shiny aluminum, bent into an arc and mounted on an adjustable wood tripod.

I will see if I can find the directions.

[maggiethecat]

Here's an updated version of Andie's contraption, and I've been fascinated by these solar ovens since I heard a Global Philanthropy piece on NPR's Worldview -- go Chicago Public Radio! These are distributed to women in sizzling parts of the Third World. With one of these the women and their children don't have to spend hours a day foraging for fuel, and they don't pollute the air as wood and dung fires do. About two hundred fifty bucks, and distributed a few miles down the road from me.

If you can't overnight one of these, I really want you to take one for the team with your salmon. Jaymes, that puttanesca idea is brilliant -- it's "only" 95 here, but the humidity is 105%.

[viva]

I used to dream about ordering a solar cooker when I lived in Phoenix. I mean, if not *there*, then where? This site is where I'd cruise the solar cooking info... it's got the parabolic type Andie mentions on it, as well as some other types.

Solar Cookers International

[maggiethecat]

Here's a homemade solar oven.

It requires a cardboard box, foil, cord and glue. What a science project for you and the L'il Varmints!

[lemniscate]

I used to dream about ordering a solar cooker when I lived in Phoenix.  I mean, if not *there*, then where?  This site is where I'd cruise the solar cooking info... it's got the parabolic type Andie mentions on it, as well as some other types. 

Solar Cookers International

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I live in Phoenix and do a fair bit of solar cooking. Mostly I roast potatoes and vegetables. I also baked apples with success. I bought a Global knock-off cooker off ebay and have had a great time experimenting. My cooker is a metal box with a glass lid and a parabolic aluminum collar. I have found I need to 'vent' it a bit because of the moisture that comes off what is being cooked. It is not dry like an traditional oven. I need to find one of those black splatterware covered roasters because I think that would enhance the heat gain. I've gotten temps of 325-350 during the hottest parts of the day. You have to keep repostioning it to follow the sun and the temp will vary significantly even on days with just a few clouds drifting around. I've avoided raw meats so far, just used sausages and ham in the dishes I've made.

[hummingbirdkiss]

Here's a homemade solar oven.

It requires a cardboard box, foil, cord and glue. What a science project for you and the L'il Varmints!

←

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH I can not believe I am seeing this ..when my kids were little we baked a cake...cooked a chicken and a bunch of other things in one of these (very cheap entertainment I tell you!) ..how funny ..I think I got the plans from Mother Earth News!!! My plans were a less complicated shape and I used foil inside it to direct the heat ...

it was fun and it worked perfectly for very little money even here in the PNW we could get decent results

if you want to try it this is worth the effort ..how funny to see it again ...

Edited August 8, 2007 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[Varmint]

But can you cook food without any fancy contraption? If you put a piece of protein in a vacuum-sealed bag and left it in the sun (or in an enclosed water bath), could you come close to a sous vide style of cooking?

[kbjesq]

Here's a homemade solar oven.

It requires a cardboard box, foil, cord and glue. What a science project for you and the L'il Varmints!

←

You are so right! My daughter won first place in her school's science fair with her solar cooker for hot dogs:

[emilyr]

I baked a cake to get a badge in Girl Scouts with the cardboard box/aluminum foil/cast iron pot contraption. I think I started around 10 am and the cake wasn't done until 5 pm, and the girls who did chicken tooke ven longer, but then again we camped in late May, so it wasn't nearly as hot as it is now. And I seem to remember one girl's dad building a rig that utilized 2 or 3 pizza boxes.

Here's the Solar Cooking Archives site.

And here's a site that shows how to cook hotdogs in repurposed Pringles cans.

[andiesenji]

But can you cook food without any fancy contraption?  If you put a piece of protein in a vacuum-sealed bag and left it in the sun (or in an enclosed water bath), could you come close to a sous vide style of cooking?

←

Frankly, unless there was a way to guarantee there were absolutely no pathogens in the food prior to vacuuming, I would be hesitant. However, I do know people who cook eggs and ham in a divided clear Pyrex baking dish, covered with plastic wrap and placed on a shiny aluminum cookie sheet which is placed on the dashboard in their SUV parked so it faces the sun. At this altitude and with absolutely no clouds and temp above 90 F, it takes less than 15 minutes for the interior temperature to reach 140 degrees.

They do it as a demonstration project but the eggs and ham are certainly edible.

I have neighbors who "cook" jerky on the shiny aluminum roof of a utility shed. It takes just one day.

Try it with some sliced apples with sugar in multiple packages and after they have had time to reach what you think is a cooking temp, take one package and insert an instant-read thermometer and record the interior temp. Repeat with additional packages at 10-minute intervals. That should give you an idea of how long it takes to get to a certain temp.

Place the outer container on something shiny. Black might work too.

[Natho]

In my research for my current design assignment (which you can help my research for here) I have stumbled across solar cooking. I am really intrigued after reading this discourse on it and really want to try it out. Has anyone here ever done it before? I assume it would be very similar to crockpot cooking and would probably be very good for pouch cooking as well. I think I will build a cookit style cooker and have a dip soon. Any experiences would be gratefully heard.

[Daniel]

I was thinking with a magnifying glass... I cooked ants a few times, never ate them though.

[DTBarton]

Here are some other online resources:

http://www.solarcookers.org/index.html

http://www.cookwiththesun.com/

http://www.sunoven.com/

[melkor]

At the Chicago Botanic Gardens last year they were doing a solar cooking demo, their oven was a simple box lined with foil with a clear lid. Left in the sun it was able to bake cookies in 20-30 minutes. I've considered building a solar oven at home a few times, but then I remember I live in San Francisco.

[JSD]

I have a solar oven. There's a picture of it here http://www.sunoven.com/usa.asp

We have very hot summers and I don't like to pay to heat the house with the oven and then pay to cool the house too.

I've made coffee type cakes in it. They turn out great.

I don't see any reason to cook meat in it. I'd rather barbeque it.

It takes longer than in a regular oven and you have to pay attention, and turn the oven so it's always facing the sun optimally.

My husband wanted to make one, but the fold out reflective panels which concentrate the sunlight would have been hard to make.

I don't use it in the winter. The sun is too low, and the oven heats the house which I would be doing anyway.

[andiesenji]

I have a large fold-up solar oven that was used extensively during the years when I was still able to get up into the high Sierras on camping/fishing trips. It is like a parabolic antenna with wedge-shaped sections on a wire frame.

It will broil, bake and cook just about anything one can cook on a regular stove.

When I posted in an earlier thread, I had forgotten about the pressurized water boiler that was great because the water would reach a true boil, something that was impossible at over 8000 ft altitude in an open vessel.

Very important for a tea drinker!

Here's another site that has some good info.

solor cookers/parabolic

Edited March 18, 2008 by andiesenji (log)

[Natho]

Sounds good. In australia we have plenty of sun. Too much of it in summer for my taste. Anyone have any recipes that work well or cooking tips?

[andiesenji]

I'm bumping up this topic because the new Real Goods catalog

has some new solar cookers and ovens offered.

One is very reasonably priced and comes with its own 5.3 qt. enameled steel pot.

I recently had a chat with a friend who lives up at June Lake and used a solar cooker extensively this past winter when she was having problems with her gas line.

Her deck faces southwest so the location was ideal for getting the most sun and being at high altitude, the solar cooker was very efficient at cooking and even baking (biscuits in a cast iron dutch oven).

Edited June 1, 2009 by andiesenji (log)

[andiesenji]

Here I am, bumping this topic up yet again.

Kitchen contraptions sent an email today with this little item highlighted.

Global Sun Oven with Thermometer

for those (like me) who live in the "sun belt" this looks like it would be very handy.

[dcarch]

Do you have a town recycling center where you live?

See if you can find a throw-away large screen rear-projection TV. The front thin plastic is what is known as a Fresnel lens.

It can be used to make a very powerful solar furnace. It costs a few hundred dollars to buy one of those lens on ebay.

Make sure you wear sun glasses if you make one. the foucused ray is very bright.

It is many time more powerful than a solar cooker.

Here is one that I have made. It will set a log on fire in a few seconds.

dcarch

[LizD518]

I have a solar cooker I bought about 40 years ago.

It folds up but when open looks like a parabolic antenna or a very shiny satellite dish.

You wouldn't want to put your hand at the point where the sun's rays concentrate. It will bake bread. I used it many times when camping in the high Sierras as it was a way to get water hotter than I could on a stove or campfire.

We used aluminum foil and a fish (trout) would be fully cooked in about 3 minutes.

I have seen cookers made using just a sheet of shiny aluminum, bent into an arc and mounted on an adjustable wood tripod.

I will see if I can find the directions.

As a girl scout we would make out own cookers out of a box and foil, designed to reflect the heat from a campfire and cook our dinner. I think we mainly used them to make english muffin pizzas.

[andiesenji]

I'm bumping this topic up because this has been whizzing around on FaceBook with multiple shares today and at one time there were several folks here on eG interested in solar cooking and baking.

I think there was another thread but I couldn't find it with a cursory search.

 

SunOven