Lids sustainable cooking with Pierre Wind

"Nou, is this kikkûh or not?" Pierre Wind looks expectantly at his two students. In the large kitchen of the ROC Mondriaan, he has stacked pans and lids on top of each other. The well-known chef from The Hague points to the bottom pan in the turret. "That's where the potatoes go. And on top of that a flat frying pan for...? What would you put in it?"

Pierre Wind shows ROC Mondriaan students what he means by 'stacking'.

When it remains quiet on the part of the young ladies, the practor of this hotel course thinks up something himself: "A fried egg, for example. Yes, you really can. Do you know how hot boiled water is?" Wind grabs another lid: "It doesn't stop there, does it?" Sophie and Patcharinee smile shyly. They look somewhat pityingly at the lid, which is lying with the flat, i.e. wrong, side up. "That way the plates get hot," they say.

He puts another lid on it. "And save you even more energy. Oh, wait." Wind disappears to the back and returns with a large sieve in his hand. He lifts the lids and hangs the sieve in the bottom pan. "Can you immediately cook the carrots with it."

The ECO Kitchen of Wind

Pierre Wind (The Hague, 1965) has been committed to more sustainable cooking for years. Together with his students, he has already conducted several studies; next year, 'What will our food look like in 2030?' is on the programme. From this spring, his latest book is on sale: 'The ECO kitchen of Wind'. With tips for more sustainable cooking.

At the table, where he orders a coffee, he reveals, "I am not a green knight, but I want to become one." He points to his feet. "Expensive, leather shoes. I can't snap my fingers and then say: from now on, I live completely eco-friendly. At home, I try to separate the plastic, but when I take out a magnifying glass, yes, there is always room for improvement."

Is that the reason you made this book?

"I have been researching how to cook more sustainably for years. You have to do something for society, I think. I think I've come up with something great. Just as people know who invented the light bulb, I want people to think of me as the person who invented the cooking stopper. I want to claim the method."

The cooking stop?

"The boiling stopper is one of the cooking methods described in the book. You put a pan of cold water on a heat source. Lid on it. As soon as the water boils, you turn off the gas or your induction. For a hard-boiled egg, you need an average cooking time of eight minutes. When boiling, you don't have a cooking time, you have a cooking time. You put it in cold liquid with a lid on. As soon as it starts to boil, you turn off the heat source and the cooking time begins. For a hard-boiled egg, this is also 8 minutes, but without the heat source still on. An energy saving of 8 minutes. It's not only better for the environment, but also for your wallet."

How do you know the water is boiling when you put a lid on?

"I made a manual for a cooking thermometer." With a grin: "That's for the handymen among us. But you can also put a teaspoon in the water, for example, which makes a mega noise when the water starts bubbling."

Sounds simple.

"It is. Only, a lot of people don't cook with lids. It was the same at the ROC. Were all those students standing in pans stirring. Because they were so used to it. Do you know that the lids were rusting away somewhere in storage, so to speak? So we brought those out again."

Hold on. Do you also cook fresh pasta that way?

"I know what the critics say: no fresh pasta in cold water because then the flour mixes with the water. Trust me, stir pasta for a while and then put lid on. No problem. But it's hard to get people to do that. If you have been driving on the right all your life, you don't start driving on the left overnight either."

Tagliatelle with carrot garlic pesto, egg and puffed tomato.

Once you get used to that lid, it's still a matter of stacking, I understand.

"You should see me when I'm cooking. On one burner I cook a whole meal together."

Read more about this interview with Pierre Wind in the magazine Bij Ons In De Residentie. The magazine is on sale at various Hague bookshops.