Cooking
The share of cooking in the total energy consumption in household
Electric kettle is the fastest way to boil water.
Cooking in the household is not only an every-day necessity but often also a hobby which brings a lot of inspiration and fun. Everyone who furnishes a new kitchen or plans a reconstruction of the old one must choose a suitable stove and other kitchen appliances.
Tips for saving::
Baking
When baking, open the oven only if it is necessary. You can check the baking meal through the transparent window. When you open the door of a hot oven for a couple of seconds its inside temperature drops by 20 to 30 °C.
You can switch off the oven 5 to 10 minutes before the baking is finished. The oven is still hot enough to bake the meal till ready.
Use special glass or ceramic pans for baking. They can keep the heat better than metal pans and therefore the meal is ready sooner.
Cooking
Cover the pot when cooking. This way you can save more than 20 % of energy.
Do not put small pots on large gas ranges (electric ranges) or vice versa – big pots on small gas ranges (electric ranges).
Use pots made of suitable materials which conduct heat well and have an even bottom – this way you can save 10 to 15 % of energy.
Switch off the electric range 5 to 10 minutes before the end of cooking, this way you use the residual heat of the cooking range and save 32 to 55 % of energy.
Do not waste water during cooking; when you cook one liter of water where only a quarter of a liter is necessary, you use 75 % of energy more.
Glass-ceramic cooktops – when buying glass-ceramic cooktops focus on induction heating which uses the latest technology. Due to the use of magnetic field only items made of ferromagnetic materials are heated. It is only the bottom and the walls of a pot that are heated up, not the cooking range itself. On such a cooktop meals hardly ever get burnt. If anything drops from the pot directly on the glass-ceramic surface of the cooking range, it does not get burnt either. It takes approximately 2 minutes for one liter of water to start boiling on glass-ceramic cooktop with induction heating and the electricity consumption totals only ca. 0.15 kWh. Power consumption is lower also thanks to the fact that the size of the induction field immediately adjusts to the size of the pot.
Microwave oven – is suitable for heating or defrosting of groceries or meals. Its biggest advantage is the short time necessary for the preparation of meals. And also fewer dirty dishes compared to the usual way of heating meals because you can heat the meals directly on your plate without having to use a pot.
Practical tips:
Built-in models need a sufficient air supply in order to work properly.
It is reasonable to use the microwave to prepare meals the weight of which is lower than 400 g.
Flat-shaped meals get hot in the microwave sooner than voluminous ones because the microwave radiation penetrates the food to the maximum depth of 6 cm.
Never start microwave heating without groceries inside, you could damage the microwave oven.
