Cooking with the A4 Box Induction Cooker: What'd you make?

[lemniscate]

On the patio with the A4box tonight.  Last decent weather evening per predictions.  Sablefish sautéed in butter in A4, eaten right out of A4.   And some saku tuna.  

[lemniscate]

I found another useful action for the A4box.  I wanted to reduce some stock without heating up the house.   I have the soup insert for the A4 and it's nice and shallow and wide for max evaporation.   So I poured in the stock and set it and forget it, (with an applicable timer set on my phone so I really don't forget).   It works nicely.

 

 

Edited July 22, 2023 by lemniscate (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, lemniscate said:

I found another useful action for the A4box.  I wanted to reduce some stock without heating up the house.   I have the soup insert for the A4 and it's nice and shallow and wide for max evaporation.   So I poured in the stock and set it and forget it, (with an applicable timer set on my phone so I really don't forget).   It's works nicely.

 

 

 

What setting?

 

[lemniscate]

1 hour ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

What setting?

 

Started on highest to get the simmer started and backed off to 7ish.

[Smithy]

As documented here, when I made the purchase; and here, when I opened the box and began playing with it, I bought myself an A4 Box. Last night I grilled a sandwich on it and was pleased. Today, for lunch, I heated a mess of chopped spinach until it began to wilt, added feta cheese and some oven-dried tomatoes, and tossed all until I thought it was done.

 

I very much like the broad, flat, rather shallow pan for doing this sort of work. It allowed water to evaporate from the spinach quickly, and allowed me to stir the greens easily because the pan is so broad and shallow.

 

 

When the food was done, it was easy to pick the pan up out of the cooker, using the little silicone pot holders they provide. It will be easy to wash the pan, too. Given the pan's size, it will be easier to wash than the skillet I might otherwise have used.

 

 

 

As for the lunch itself, well...

 

 

...it looks better than it tastes. The tomatoes are too sour to compliment the spinach, and I didn't chop the spinach finely enough. Or maybe I overcooked it. I like spinach, both raw and cooked, but this seems to be a bit too much in the middle ground.

 

So: score 1 for the A4! Proof of concept, and I got that spinach out of the refrigerator before it went off! But I won't try repeating this lunch.

[Sid Post]

This has me looking forward to getting mine!

[Smithy]

I used my A4 tonight to try out a recipe I've been anxious to try: Marinated Gigante Beans, from Heartbeet Kitchen. My best friend recommended it and I thought it looked pretty good. As always, I had to make minor adjustments (didn't have shallots, my red peppers already cooked) but the A4 performed beautifully.

 

Gently warm olive oil....

 

 

Add garlic and chopped olives and a touch of salt (there were supposed to be shallots before this step)...

 

 

Then, in my version, add the already-cooked butter beans, warm them; add lemon zest, lemon juice and parsley. Serve.

 

 

Looks nice, doesn't it? And I've no complaints about the pan's performance.

 

Unfortunately, the cooked beans I've had in the freezer are unaccountably sweet. If they're butter beans, they've been cooked in a sweetener. I NEVER cook beans in sugar. I don't know where these came from! So...score 1 for the A4 Box, hold judgment on the recipe, but this particular dish is a bust. I hate sweet beans!

[Smithy]

I decided to try using the A4 box with the grill pan as a twofer, something Anna N (rest her soul) had suggested. I needed a fairly quick and light dinner. These days, that often means a grilled sandwich. I also needed vegetables of some sort, and there's a bag of corn in the freezer that I'm trying to work my way through.

 

At the top of this collage: the beginning. I put the A4 box control on High, let it preheat for a bit, then loaded the corn (with butter) at one end of the grill pan. After the corn and butter started to sizzle, I put the sandwich on the other end. (I took temperatures using my IR thermometer, but forgot to write them down. Sorry. It was hot.)

 

 

At the bottom of the collage (so, look up) you can see that the corn is beginning to brown and that I should have flipped the sandwich sooner!

 

Dinner:

 

This comes of not paying enough attention to when it's time to flip the sandwich. Note the difference between its two sides:

 

 

That same thing happens to me when I'm using a skillet atop a stove. It isn't the fault of the A4 Box; it's Operator Error. But, to answer a question from @Maison Rustique a while ago, I think I'll stick to the panini press for my grilled sandwiches. Then the sandwich is heated, more or less evenly, at top and bottom.

[Maison Rustique]

There are some plastic bags that came with my A4. The only place I see them mentioned is on the box where it refers to Lazy-Cooking Bag. Any thoughts on how these are to be used?

[TdeV]

Last night I took the maiden voyage with my A4. I can't remember whether I took photos, I was trying to make dinner for company, and now I have misplaced my phone.

 

It took me 1.5 hours to grill onions! (Green bell pepper added at the end). I couldn't decide whether to keep the lid on or not (to get water out of the onions). The lid fills with water, you flip it over, but the lid can't be emptied because of its design (Grrr).

 

I kept upping the temp a little at a time, so naturally I eventually burned the onions.

 

Live and learn (they say). 🙃

 

 

Edited December 21, 2024 by TdeV
More to say (log)

[Maison Rustique]

I noticed that about the lid when I washed it after unpacking. Apparently I will need to experiment with food for myself before I plan to make anything for others!!

[TdeV]

My problem, @Maison Rustique, is that I previously (mostly) made grilled onions in the slow cooker for 24 hours, so I had little idea of what "cooking on low" meant. (I think that's what Anna N described).

 

Anyway, I know more now.

 

(I need @rotuts little emoji with the bursting eyeballs). 🤪

 

Edited to add:

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2024 by TdeV (log)

[lemniscate]

The lid has that weird design I think because the condensation needs to be kept away from dripping down into the space between the outer case and the grill area.   I just keep a folded up paper towel to swab the corners/edges of the lid when I remove it and flip it over to mitigate the moisture.  Or, I just ignore it if I'm steaming stuff like veg or frozen dumplings.

[ElsieD]

Anyone use the A4 lately?

[Smithy]

47 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

Anyone use the A4 lately?

 

I haven't, since this post above. Been distracted with other things. Still haven't seen the other inserts become available!

[Maison Rustique]

I plan to use it for something this week. I'm defrosting some sausage so I can experiment with some small recipes.

[DesertTinker]

Ok, not exciting or innovative, but I made grilled Ham & Swiss sandwiches for lunch today. Neither the ham nor the cheese were of any more than ordinary grocery store provenance. Mayo and Dijon on the inside, butter outside. The bread was my white whole wheat sourdough sandwich loaf. I used the medium high setting, it was a tad slow to brown, but the inside was completely heated and the cheese was melted.

 

[Maison Rustique]

@DesertTinker, did you put the lid on to get it melted inside?

[ElsieD]

I'm not @DesertTinker   but I did do up a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches in the A4 a couple of weeks ago..  That was my first time using it.  I had the lid on, but the temperature i started with was way too low so it was taking forever to toast and melt the cheese.  Once I cranked the heat up, it worked well.  Nice and toasty, cheese melted.

[DesertTinker]

12 minutes ago, Maison Rustique said:

@DesertTinker, did you put the lid on to get it melted inside?

No, but  I think that’s where the slower browning helps, more time for the heat to penetrate through the layers.

[ElsieD]

We're calling this Mulligan Soup.  It's what's for dinner tonight along with focaccia currently baking in the oven.

[DesertTinker]

3 hours ago, ElsieD said:

We're calling this Mulligan Soup.  It's what's for dinner tonight along with focaccia currently baking in the oven.

Ooh, the much coveted deep pan! 😮(read as green with envy.)

[Maison Rustique]

I finally remembered to take this over to the new house since I don't have cookware there yet. A few days ago I bought a package of the pork egg rolls at Aldi that I really like. (I hadn't taken this yet.) I nuked one for lunch while I was there and it was soggy and horrid. So, I brought "The Box" and I had one today that I heated in it. Put it on med/med hi, egg roll in, covered. I turned it several times. It wasn't quite as hot as I wanted it to be, but it was at least crispy and I had with some Aldi Thai Chili Dipping Sauce. Much better than the soggy mess the other day. Sorry, didn't think of taking pix since I was in a hurry. Just wanted to report that it worked just as desired.

Edited August 2 by Maison Rustique
typos again (log)

[lemniscate]

17 hours ago, Maison Rustique said:

Put it on med/med hi, egg roll in, covered.

I would put the A4 on the high setting and not cover for crispness.  Or you could slight cock the lid a bit to allow steam to come out and keep most heat in.   The lid really works well to keep the steam in, to the detriment of crispiness.

[ElsieD]

I made something called Molten Brownie Bites in the Takoyaki pan tonight.  Pictures show them both cooking and the finished product.  These are great little fudgy things.  When I put the batter in the pan I I inserted chocolate chips in the middle of each one.  Eating them warm, as we are doing, and you get that nice melty centre.  I've got some other things I want to do with this pan.  Fair warning - octopus balls will not be among them.