I’m not sure this is the right forum, please move if necessary.
I have a Le Creuset pot in which I was boiling 3 eggs and a plastic egg timer.
Well, I forgot about it and suddenly became aware of a foul smell permeating the house. All the water had boiled out of the pot, and the egg timer was melting all over.
My question is, should I throw the pot out? I’m pretty sure melting plastic is not something you should inhale (the fans are on and windows open) or ingest…but has it permeated the pot, rendering it dangerous for use? Or will a thorough cleaning suffice?
It’s iron and enamel and designed to tolerate high oven temperatures. And expensive.
I’d preheat your oven to 500° and put the pot in there empty and leave it there for four hours. Ventilate the kitchen well. If you can bake the remaining plastic gunk to powder or to crunchy stuff you can later scrape off the porcelain, you’ve still got a pot.
I think a thorough cleaning will tell you whether it’s permeated the pot and rendered it dangerous.
I’ve got Le Creuset baked enamel stuff too, and it’s pretty tough.
I don’t recommend baking it at a high temperature. Can you scrape the plastic out? Is the plastic seriously burnt on? Try scrubbing it with a non-metal non-scratch scrubbing pad. How baked on is the melted plastic?
If you can scrub it off, then yes I think your pot is perfectly safe. The plastic isn’t going to necessarily permeate the enamel. If you can scrape it off, then it’s gone. It hasn’t bonded with the enamel.
I have one of those pots. I’m with those who say to scrub/soak it off and not try to bake it into powder. I’ve burned things in mine (well, not plastic) and used some pretty abrasive media to get said burnt stuff off and it hasn’t hurt the pot.
But aren’t egg timers supposed to, you know, go off, make some kind of noise, or otherwise alert you that the eggs are done, and prevent this very thing?
I wondered why MissRancher was boiling the timer, too. According to her thoughtfully provided link, she was using a rather different sort of timer, a color changing plastic egg that you boil with the eggs and have to check. It’s described as ‘perfect’, but I think you’ve found a flaw. It seems kind of cool, otherwize, it even has a gauge that reads from soft to hard, with gradations.
You can solve this problem (and make damned good hard-cooked eggs with no green on the yolk) by not boiling them until they’re done. Instead, put the eggs in the pot covered with cold water. Bring to a rolling boil, then immediately cover the pot and remove from heat. Let sit at least 15-20 minutes, then dump out the hot water and fill the pot with cold water. Allow the eggs to cool in the water for about 5 minutes. Old eggs (kept in the refrigerator for a week or two before cooking) will tend to peel more easily than fresh eggs, although peeling is often something of a black art. In any case, I always cook my eggs this way; I have fewer cracked shells, soft, nonrubbery whites and nice yellow yolks, compared to boiling.
Seconded. I was going to post this exact method. Works every time. I add a little Kosher salt to the water. Probably to no effect, but it lowers the boiling temperature and (old wives tale) helps prevent cracking.
I’ve never found salt useful, but a splash of vinegar in the water does “catch” any leaking egg white and keep it neatly by the crack. I also use the method** Q.E.D.** outlines, and I find that when I do forget I have eggs on and come back three hours later, they’re not bad. A little firmer than I would usually like, but still well within the realm of edible.
Yes, you’ve got that part right. They use salt in ice-cream makers for that reason (and also to melt driveway ice). At the same time, it raises the boiling point. There’s a relatively good layman’s explanation here.
That I don’t know. It is in terms of raising the boiling temp enough to make a difference, but there is considerable debate on whether it works to reduce cracking or makes the eggs easier to peel. Personally, I’ve not noticed a difference one way or the other. YM, of course, MV.
I will now make a suggestion that will result in a lot of self-slaped foreheads, one of the most obvious things in the world, that didn’t occur to me till I was way old enough to know better: To get cooked-on food off of pots and pans, you use oven cleaner.
