Cooking with clay pots - My experience with buying, curing, cooking and cleaning 😅

 

When I venture into something new, you can be sure that I don't do it in half measures. 😆

Why I'm saying this is, about a year ago, I thought I was done with non-stick and aluminium kadhais and wanted to start cooking in clay pots. You can imagine the work I did to make it happen later!

So here is my experience with the whole process, in case you are thinking of doing the same, and not sure how to start.

Starting from buying them, to the lengthy process of curing them to finally cooking in them, I have written it all down, with some pictures in between. Read and let me know if this was helpful for you? 😘

When the clay utensils bug bit me first last year, we made plans to visit Bangalore's famous Pottery Street, which turned out to be a super disappointment for me. (You can read all about it by clicking on the link above.)

Then by chance my husband found a vendor on the Bangalore-Hyderabad highway, about 10 kms after the Nandi Hills turn, near the Chikkaballapura entrance. He turned out to be quite reliable with the quality of the pots, and had reasonable pricing too. He was also quite happy to exchange a piece if it turned out to be leaky or chipped.

We bought some water jugs, several pots and pans, and one uruli I fell in love with, and lids for all of these, except for the uruli. I also spotted a bag of use-and-throw chai kulhads that were so cute, and bought several. (I intend to keep reusing them for my multiple-chai-cravings-a-day and not throw them after one use though! 😁)

 

The pots need proper curing before they can be used, and I did a lot of research on how best to do it. It's a longish process that will need at least 5 days for getting them ready. The following process is what I found to be the most effective:

Step 1:

Save the water you washed rice with and pour it into a bucket. Immerse the pots in this water. Don't forget the lids too if you have them. You can add plain water to this so that the pots are complete immersed. You will hear a faint hissing sound and see air bubbles forming and floating to the surface. This is because the clay pots are porous and the air trapped in those pores is escaping. 

Leave the pots immersed for 2-3 days. The water will ferment because of the starch and it will help strengthen the pots and make them more durable.

Remove the pots from the starch water after 2-3 days and let them dry. It will take anywhere between 16 hours to a day for it to dry completely. 

Step 2:

Pour fresh water into the now-dry pots and let them stand for anywhere between 12-24 hours. This is to ensure that there are no leaks anywhere. 

 

Once you are satisfied that the pot is intact and there are no leaks, pour out the water and clean the pots using a light scrub and water. This will remove any grime or stray particles of clay from the pots. 

Again, let them dry completely.

Stop after this step if it's a water jug or a curd pot. You can start using them now. 

Proceed to Step 3 only for pots you will be using for cooking.

Step 3:

Once the pots are completely dry, apply oil liberally all over the pots. You can use any edible oil, including ghee. I used coconut oil. Make sure you cover the outside of the pot too, and the lids. 

Let them dry completely. The pots soak up the oil pretty quickly, and I kept it to dry only for about 5-6 hours. 

 

Your pots are now ready for cooking!

Use them to cook any of your favorite dishes. It's a good idea to keep separate pots for different types of cooking. For example, a separate one for rasams and sambars, one for seafood like fish curry or prawns, one for chicken, one for subjis or curries, etc. You also get roti and dosa tawas, and you can follow the same curing process for those.

 

Cleaning:

It's not a good idea to use soap or a chemical cleaner on your clay utensil. You saw how the pots are porous and soak up the water and the oil in the previous steps? The same way, they will soak up the soap/cleaner, which will leech into your food when you cook next.

Soaking the pot in water for about 10 minutes and then gently scrubbing the pot with natural fibres like coconut husk or a gourd scrubber will remove most of the food stuck to the pan. I do not recommend a synthetic scrubber like 'Scotch Brite' since first of all it's harsh and might remove layers off the pot, and secondly, it's not environmentally friendly. If there is remnants of oil in the pan, you can rub a lemon rind all over the pot and then rinse off with water.

I had a bunch of coconut fibre my mom-in-law saved from the coconuts we use liberally in our cooking (we are from Coastal Karnataka, after all! 😁), and I just used a handful of it to scrub this pot. We also save the lemon rinds after squeezing the juice out of them, so I used one of it to clean it thoroughly, then rinsed off with water. All clean!

 

Storing:

Store your clay pots in a place where they won't come in your way when you move about the kitchen. (This is very good advice for especially clumsy people like me! 😜) Keep them in a dry cabinet or get one of those on-the-counter pot stands that have multiple levels for keeping each pot.

I hope this was helpful to you! Do give me feedback and I'd also love to hear about your experience with clay pots.

Happy cooking! 💖