This product would be specially formulated so that any residue left behind would be tasty and delicious. Oh, and not poisonous. It would also come with several dozen fuses to start the cooking process.
The instructions might read "Sprinkle one tablespoon of Doctorremulac3's "Da Bomb" cooking powder onto each side of your steak. Insert the fuse, light and step back."
Though there might be an issue with the short intense heat creating a steak with a charcoal exterior and a bloody raw interior, surely there might be a perfect measurement of thermite for any given cut of meat that would leave the interior perfectly cooked with a crunchy seared coating and perhaps anything beyond that simply burned away.
I didn't say it would be easy. Or even successful.
IDEA MODIFICATION:
A searing paste that you put onto meat, specifically sous vide prepared steaks that need to be hit with a flame to sear the outside giving it a pleasant, barbecued rather than boiled look. Smear it on, hit it with a regular lighter, (no fuse) and after a few seconds of a little tabletop pyrotechnics, you have a beautifully seared (and seasoned) steak, ready to serve.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 21 2017 Oh god. [8th] is going to be all over this like a rash.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 21 2017 Your precognitive abilities are advancing in leaps and bounds, very much like a flea on LSD, but slightly less useful.
// I didn't say it would be easy. Or even successful. //
... and in that you were, for once, completely and entirely correct.
We are not even going to attempt a critique of the idea, partly because it's so bad that there's no obvious place to start, but more because it would be like cutting half of one wing and two legs off a fly and then placing it near a spider's web. It's childish, it's pointlessly cruel, and the outcome is never in doubt.
OK, yes, we still do it from time to time, when we can't find any kittens to douse in maple syrup mixed with Tabasco, but that's not the point.-- 8th of 7, Dec 21 2017 If you Google "cooking with thermite", there are hits.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 21 2017 This could revolutionise the fast food industry.
Consumers would no longer need to worry about their burger or kebab getting cold in the passenger seat as they drove home. All they need to do is, on arrival, pull the metal ring on the packaging, which drags the sparkler-like rod through the precisely calculated quantity of thermite contained within, and then wait for it to burn out, leaving the food at the optimum temperature for immediate consumption.-- Wrongfellow, Dec 21 2017 Baked for canned foods in WW2 and WKTE. Still available.-- 8th of 7, Dec 21 2017 Baked, perhaps, but has it ever been commercialised on a consumer scale?
I've certainly never seen an ad for a KFC ThermoBucket, or any such.-- Wrongfellow, Dec 21 2017 No way you could dilute this stuff enough that a precise measurement of it could be sprinkled on food to cook it eh?
Here's why I'm not sure this wouldn't work. You could adjust this formula to burn at any temperature and for any amount of time you want.
Remember, this isn't putting something on a thermite grill, it's actually putting some mixture of thermite and something else on the food to cook it. And you'd have to do something to adjust the temperature or else you'd burn through any pans or grills you'd be putting the food on.
Totally wildly impractical? Eh, maybe.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 21 2017 A pottery like high temperature clay coating before the sprinkle might work. The thicker the slower the cook, more heat retention. Breaking "the" bread will have an older perspective.-- wjt, Dec 21 2017 Odd .... call me old school if you must, but I always thought that C4 was the preferred fuel for wilderness meal prep.-- normzone, Dec 21 2017 Seem to remember my dad talking about using it to heat coffee when he was the army. For those un- familiar with the stuff, C4 burns evidently. Guess you need a detonator to make it blow up.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 21 2017 Being based on RDX (Trinitrocyclamine), C4 and similar conformables burn with a fast, smoky yellow flame. They require a primary to initiate thel - burning in small quantities isn 't enough.
There are a number of hilarious party tricks using C4.-- 8th of 7, Dec 22 2017 Ok, let me flip the script.
8, you've been tasked with creating a "cooking paste". The outline for this product is the following:
1- It comes in a jar.
2- You paint in on your food or pour a layer of it in a special pan, put the food in it and pour another layer on it. (I added another approach possibly addressing your previous critique of the idea)
3- You light it and it cooks the food perfectly.
4- Obviously you can use any ingredients you want.
Can you do it?-- doctorremulac3, Dec 22 2017 Oh yes, of course.
We will check for Prior Art before posting here, as it may be worth patenting.-- 8th of 7, Dec 22 2017 How about cooking with pistachios? Bulk pistachios can spontaneously combust, because they contain oils that oxidise and generate heat. A well-insulated container should be able to achieve the same result with few pistachios. Just pack your chicken in the centre of the nuts, and wait.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 22 2017 //Just pack your chicken in the center of the nuts, and wait.//
"Hey Doc, those fillets ready yet? We've been waiting for two days now, gettin' kinda' hungry."
Of course you could just make a paste that heats up upon exposure to air. The big trick is making any of these "oven in a tube" products non-toxic and even tasty.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 22 2017 Finely-ground pistachio powder, dispersed into air, ought to be sufficiently flammable for any culinary purpose.-- Wrongfellow, Dec 22 2017 You know, this doesn't have to cook it, it can just sear it. With that in mind this idea has taken a turn from somewhat silly to having some actual utility.
There's a method of cooking steak I've recently discovered called sous vide. It's where you slowly cook meat in a vacuum sealed bag immersed in hot water. Comes out very tender. Point is, the meat comes out looking grey and corpse-like so you have to sear it with a blowtorch to make it presentable. Really.
With this "Searing Paste" you just smear it on with a sauce brush and hit it with a lighter.
Now the job is a lot easier and there could be several ways to do this and, yes, it would be seasoned.
"Doctorremulac3's Searing Baste".
THAT could actually be a real thing. I would totally buy it. Without the "Doctorremulac3" thing that is. Although on second thought, having a mad scientist be the mascot for the product might not be a bad idea. That or some kind of demon.-- doctorremulac3, Dec 22 2017 random, halfbakery