Cook with Kre

Cooking a Whole Meal on Two Burners

Updated

To cook a meal with two burners, save the burners for the jobs that truly need a flame and move everything else to the oven, the kettle, the microwave or earlier in the evening. Cook the things that hold well first, keep them warm in a covered pot or a low oven, and finish with the dish that has to go straight from the pan to the plate.

Count the burner jobs before you start

Look at every dish and write down what it needs from the stovetop, and how well it waits once it’s done. A typical dinner might look like this:

  • Rice: one burner for about 20 minutes, then it holds happily off the heat with the lid on.
  • A pan sauce or curry: one burner, and it reheats well.
  • Green vegetables: a few minutes, and they’re best eaten straight away.
  • Seared chicken or fish: one burner at the end, best straight from the pan.

Once it’s written down, the order mostly decides itself. The dishes that wait well go first; the ones that don’t go last. Two burners are rarely too few for the cooking itself. They’re too few when every dish wants a burner in the same final ten minutes.

How to cook a meal with two burners, in order

  1. Start what holds. Grains, braises, stews, soups, sauces and anything that reheats. These can be finished first and moved off the heat.
  2. Then what holds for a while. Roasted or braised vegetables, beans, a sauce that only needs warming through.
  3. Finish with what can’t wait. Searing, stir-frying, eggs, pasta tossed in its sauce, quick-cooked greens.

When both burners are busy and the next job is ready, the question is which pot can come off. A pot of rice that’s nearly done can finish off the heat with the lid on; a sauce can come off and be warmed again for a minute at the end.

Take jobs off the stovetop

The quickest way to get more from two burners is to give them less to do.

  • The oven. Vegetables roast with no attention, potatoes bake, and rice or other grains can be baked in a covered dish. Even a piece of meat seared on the stovetop can finish in the oven, which frees the burner.
  • The kettle. Boil water in an electric kettle and pour it into the pot, so the burner only has to keep it at a boil, not bring it there.
  • The microwave. Steaming vegetables in a covered bowl with a splash of water takes a few minutes and no burner at all.
  • No-cook sides. A salad, a slaw, bread or a quick pickle use no heat at all.
  • One-pot dishes. Pasta cooked in its sauce, or a stew with the vegetables in it, turns two burner jobs into one.

Share one pot or pan

Two jobs can often share one burner:

  • Put a steamer basket over a pot of boiling pasta or potatoes and steam the vegetables above it.
  • Drop green beans or broccoli into the pasta water for the last few minutes, then drain them together.
  • Use one frying pan in sequence: sear the meat, set it aside to rest, then make the sauce in the same pan with the browned bits.

Keep finished food warm, and safe

A heavy pot with its lid on keeps food hot for a surprisingly long time off the heat. For anything else, a low oven, around 200 °F (93 °C), holds dishes while you finish the rest. Leave crisp food uncovered so it doesn’t steam soft.

Hot food that’s being held should stay at 140 °F (60 °C) or above. The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service calls 40–140 °F the danger zone, where bacteria grow fastest, and advises not leaving food in that range for more than two hours. A covered pot or a low oven keeps it out of that range; a dish left on the counter for the evening does not.

A two-burner dinner, start to finish

Here’s how it might go for chicken thighs, rice, green beans and a pan sauce:

  1. Turn the oven to low. Rinse the rice and start it on burner one.
  2. Sear the chicken on burner two, then move it to the oven to finish cooking.
  3. When the rice is done, take it off the heat and leave the lid on. Burner one is free.
  4. Boil water in the kettle, pour it into a pot on burner one and cook the beans.
  5. Make the sauce in the chicken pan on burner two while the beans cook.
  6. Check the chicken with a thermometer, then plate everything together.

For bigger meals, the same thinking applies across the whole evening. Cook several dishes at once shows how to plan backward from when you eat, and cooking two dishes in one oven covers what to do when the oven becomes the crowded one.

Keeping the burners straight with Kre

Cook with Kre is one way to keep track when two burners are doing four jobs. Bring the recipe by link or paste it in, and Kre talks you through it one step at a time and keeps your place. When the meal is more than one recipe, Kre plans them together as one meal rather than one recipe after another. It keeps the timers too, so the rice resting off the heat isn’t forgotten while the pan is busy. Kre goes by what you tell it and by the timers, so the thermometer check stays yours. See how Kre cooks with you.

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