Zojirushi Mini Thermal Pot (Experiment)

A friend informed me of a new mini “food jar” or also known as “Thermal pots” that is very popular in Hong Kong these days. For starters, this jives with me because:

• I love thermal pots and their heat saving efficiency
• I love anything that can make soups
• I love Japanese technology and products
• I love to drink the soup that I make in my thermal pots
• Go Green!

So, I bought one, or two, or three and gave some away as gifts.

And what made it so special was I also love experiments.  So this was the perfect opportunity to play with food and equipment and create something amazing!

Wait wait.. the good part is that this thing isn’t only for making soups – it can make rice, congee, soups, eggs, sauce, spaghetti, noodles, and basically whatever your good, creative imagination can come up with given the constraints of such a tiny jar.

I actually have no association with this product or the company, but it’s nice to share cool finds when I see them. The price ranges from $280 – $350 HKD depending on where you buy it from and it’s super cute in size, is portable and easy to clean.

Here’s what it looks like opened. Simple two-pieces. No brainer – right?

It’s made from stainless steel on the inside and uses the space efficiently. Another love of mine – efficiency.

So my first experiment was to make an egg. Apparently, to make a semi-solid egg, it takes about 30 minutes to “bake” in boiling water.

1. First, rinse the pot in boiling water and let it sit covered for about 5 minutes (this is the trick to get the insides warm first so you don’t lose valuable cooking heat to the pot).
2. Put a room temperature egg into the pot – another trick. Don’t use eggs directly from the fridge because again, the temperature difference is too significant.
3. Cover the egg completely with boiling water – for the purpose of this experiment, I just used 98 degree Celsius water from my hot water dispense (too lazy to boil water)
4. Put on the lid securely and let it sit for 30 minutes.
5. And ta-da!
6. Oops, for mine, I kind of forgot about it and came back about 45 minutes later and found this… still awesomely yummy with a bit of sea salt. 

More yummy experiments to come later. I’ve used the thermal pot to keep food warm though, like congee when my daughter was sick and it stayed toasty warm for over 6 hours! Definitely a neat find and will be trying other foods soon! YUM and YEAH for green technology!