Fun Cooking with a Rocket Stove

Writing Challenge Three ( #writingchallenge03 ) asks us to write about our favorite meal. My favorite meal is the meal in front of me at any given day; So, I decided to write up my favorite cooking method.

Back in the early 2000s I read an article about a company called StoveTec that wanted to reduce global warming by creating the best possible biomass burning stove. Since the company was working to improve the world, I bought the product.

The stove is designed to pull air through a small bundle of wood and up a chimney. It makes a rocket sound when working at peak efficiency. One can boil a gallon of water with just a few sticks. These bright flames in the picture above were produced by a handful of twigs.

This image shows the burning chamber:

I usually burn yard waste in the stove. This is wood that would otherwise be hauled off the dump. So the stoves are carbon neutral. I am cooking without releasing carbon from a fossil fuel source.

The cooking equipment gets covered with soot. I have two primary pots. The first is a large dutch oven that I acquired at a closeout sale and round bottom wok that I bought at a restaurant supply store.

Yes, I know that woks, by definition, have round bottoms. Try telling that to a clerk at a megamart where they think woks have flat bottoms.

I have a separate storage area for the pots. I actually clean them with a hose in the garden. Speaking of gardens, my garden loves the ash from the stove.

I have cooked a ton of different items on the stove. Every thing comes out with a rich flavor that only cooking on fire brings. Some of my favorite recipes on the Rocket Stove are chili, chicken gumbo, eggplant parmesan, chicken and dumpling soup, french onion soup, stir fry, tempura, steaks and trout.

As I said at the beginning of the post. My favorite meal is the meal before me. Cooking the meal on a carbon neutral rocket stove just makes the meal better.

BTW: You don't have to buy a stove. You can build a rocket stove from a pile of bricks. I bought the stove as they were a young company at the time. I believe that this was their second model.