The hot basket mode of cooking involves, heating the uncooked food by another means to an appropriate temperature and then putting the hot pot into the insulated Hot Basket until the food is well cooked. The Hot Basket is therefore a great complement to the Solar Oven.
The Solar Oven and Hot Basket combination way of cooking greatly reduces and sometimes prevents the use of firewood, Kerosene Stove, Gas and Electricity for cooking.
Depending of the type of food item being cooked, the use of a Hot Basket can save between 20% and 80% of the energy which will normally be needed for the cooking. The longer the cooking time needed, the higher the percentage of energy saved.
In conventional cooking, any heat applied to the cooking pot after the cooking temperature has been reached maintains the cooking temperature by replacing the heat lost to the surroundings, so the Hot Basket cooking is to maintain the cooking temperature without the application of further energy beyond the cooking temperature. Hot Basket cooking can therefore be explained simply as follows:
1. Bring the cooking process to cooking point by conventional means. ( 5 minutes for rice and other grains, 15 minutes for large dry beans or whole potatoes).
2. Then put the pot into the Hot Basket to continue the cooking.