LOTOR Double-Boiler Stew Pot 4.5L | Five Ceramic Inner Pots, 24-Hour Timer

A Western slow cooker sits the food in a crock directly on a heated base. Double-boiling does not, and the difference is the entire technique. The ingredients go into a sealed ceramic pot, and that pot stands in simmering water, so the food never touches the heat source and never climbs above boiling point. Nothing catches on the bottom, nothing reduces down, and nothing takes on that stewed-out flavour a slow cooker gives everything by hour six.

It is how Cantonese soups are made, and the reason a properly double-boiled chicken and ginseng soup comes out clear rather than cloudy: the broth is never agitated. It is also the only sensible way to steam an egg custard, to make bird's nest or snow fungus with pear, or to cook a herbal soup where the point is the infusion rather than the reduction.

Five separate white-ceramic inner pots is what makes it worth the worktop space. Five different soups at once, or four portions of the same one, or a herbal soup for one person alongside a chicken broth for everyone else. Nothing shares a flavour, and each pot goes straight from the machine to the table.

It steams as well as stews, so a tray can run above while the pots work below. The 24-hour timer means the soup that wants three hours can start while you are out and be ready when you walk in, rather than needing you at the hob.

Specifications

About the control panel

The labels on this pot are in Chinese. That is normal for an appliance built for the Chinese market, and it is why it double-boils at all, since no British-market slow cooker is built to do it. An English guide to the controls is below.