If you know me at all, you will be aware that I am extremely careful what I eat when I am out. My food microbiology background has trained me to look for hazards and assess the risks of food poisoning where I see food being cooked and sold. So can you imagine what I am like in my own kitchen? Yes that’s right, I am paranoid about food safety when I am storing and cooking my food.

This post is about cooking safely with the Thermomix, and in particular when cooking with the Varoma. I have been cooking with a Thermomix for 6 years now. My Thermomix is my best friend in the kitchen and I use it everyday. I even take it away on holidays and it has its own carry case. I mentioned in an earlier post that cooking with the Thermomix revived my interest in cooking at  a time when I was becoming a little lazy. It is a truly amazing machine. There are many recipes available on the internet and I also have a few Thermomix recipe books and I am mostly happy with the recipe formulation but there is one thing that bugs me about some of the ‘all in one pot’ recipes.

And that is what I am writing about today to warn you to be careful.

For those of you who use the Thermomix to cook full meals you will be aware that some of the recipes allow you to cook meat or fish and vegetables in the Varoma while cooking rice and a sauce in the bowl. The idea is that the whole meal is cooked together. It’s a great idea and I use these recipes all the time. However,  what often happens is that one component of the meal is cooked before the other components and the instructions tell you to remove the cooked food and keep warm. This all sounds fine, but what worries me is the order of cooking that is recommended in these recipes. There is a possible risk of food poisoning if the normal instructions are followed.

You will note I am using cautious language here. I am not implying that you will end up with food poisoning if you follow these recipes. However, there is always a risk when you are handling raw foods in your kitchen. Using a food safe approach is always recommended. By this I mean you must consider the temperature used to cook at, the order of cooking, and the separation out of the various components as they are cooked and the risks associated with cross contamination.

Typical instructions for order of cooking for one pot meals

The instructions usually look like this:

Place the meat/fish/chicken in the Varoma.

Place the rice in the basket and place into the bowl with water ( or a sauce of some kind).

Cook on Varoma Temperature for 20 minutes.

 Remove the cooked rice and basket from the Thermomix bowl.

Continue cooking the meat/fish/chicken on Varoma temperature for an extra 20 minutes.

What is wrong with this? Well, as you know, the food in the Varoma is cooking using the steaming method. The steam is produced by the liquid in the bowl. The steam rises and heats the food in the Varoma and condenses, dripping back down into the bowl. The juices from the meat/fish in the Varoma are also dripping down into the bowl. This is all fine if all components of the meal are to be cooked at the same time and cooked through thoroughly. But if you remove the rice before the meat/fish is cooked through, there is potential for raw juices to be dripping down into the bowl. So you remove the basket with these raw juices present on the rice.

What’s the risk of food poisoning?

Meat/ fish are high in moisture and protein. There are lots of microorganisms that will either survive or grow on the surface of meat/fish and the aim during the entire food handling chain from paddock or ocean to plate is to keep the meat/fish /chicken fresh, tasty and safe from the growth of those microoganisms.

You will probably be thinking that the risk of food poisoning  as a result of cooking the meat/fish/chicken and rice as described above is probably not all that high and perhaps you are right. But because you can never know the whole truth of what has happened along most of the food handling chain, you should always take the utmost care to keep the food safe i.e. at every step from purchase, transport, storage, cooking and serving. In this case it means the way you cook the meat/fish in the Varoma and bowl.

My recommended order of cooking for one pot meals

Place the meat/fish/chicken in the Varoma.

Cook the meat/fish/chicken on Varoma Temperature for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes place the rice in the basket and place into the bowl.

Continue cooking on Varoma temperature for an extra 20 minutes or until all components of the meal are cooked through. 

I strongly recommend that you check the recipes you find for the Thermomix and especially the Varoma and ask yourself the question about order of cooking. If you are not happy, adjust the recipe to make sure that everything will be cooked through by the end of the process.

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Until next time,

Gillian (and Andrew)