Cooking... with your car

Reusing some waste heat in from your engine bay to cook a meal on your way home.

After I showed this to a few people, I found out that there is a book called "Manifold Destiny" on this very subject. I have not read it yet, but I'm told that there are quite a few recipe's with locations and times (miles).

Step 1: Gather Some Ingredients

This was mostly improvised... But on my menu:

+Baked Chicken and Herbs (chicken breast, flour, your choice of herbs - I used mostly basil)
+Italian Chicken (chicken breast marinated in zesty Italian salad dressing cooked with pepper and onion)
+Red and Green Peppers and mushroom Noodles (used noodles from a ramen package, added a little EVOO, and cooked in vegetable stock)
+Baked Potato Pieces (salted with a little cooking oil)
+Baked Apples (sliced in half with a pat of butter and scoop of brown sugar)

Comments

[SeaSkyShore]

My husband and I are on our way to seattle from north idaho soon. This will be perfect for a nice mid trip dinner. I can't wait to try it. Perhaps some baked chicken with corn and some apple pie for dessert....

[Kasm279]

Well, hello from Idaho! :D

[fenuz]

Si può essere di destra. Ricordo di aver sentito o letto "aspirato", come un riferimento a un motore con un carburatore. Non mi ricordo dove e quando l'ho sentito usato in questo modo, anche se. pusat grosir

[domtheo]

it's awesome, great works for your menu food :9

Rumah Dijual

[angela188]

Nice article & great idea sharing our peoples cooking with in car......
dark knight rises coat

[GabbieZee]

This is awesome! My husband and I take looong road trips all the time and this would save us money on food if we "cook" ourselves. Thanks!

[Fend1952]

I'm interested, but are you sure it's totally safety to cook like that and then eat the food?

[jvell]

Haha, this is nice for kidsparties! I know a website called www.uitnodigingkinderfeestje.com (a dutch one) where they're trying to gather some funny and original ideas for kidsparties. This is AWESOME! :-) :-)

[IssacAcorda]

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[ngebala]

(removed by author or community request)

[Violet_blue]

Lol>you drove 100 miles and overcooked the chicken

 

[JermaineHanmer]

(removed by author or community request)

[DELETED_coupon015]

(removed by author or community request)

[spark master]

Back in the 70's this was discussed in Mother Earth News. I took fried eggplant parm and made sanwiches and put them in the engine compartment, I wrapped them will, but it was skunky. The item MUST be in a meatl sealable container to work well, but it indeed cooked my eggplant parm and melted the cheese and made it very hot, albiet stinky. A cookie tin inside a cookie time would be nice.

[trebuchet03]

Stinky? Sounds like an car in need of maintenance ;)

[spark master]

Hi Treb, possibly , but under a car hood there is usually a smell of gasoline and in an older car (70's vintage Valiant) it definitely smelled like gasoline a bit. It transferred to the food. I cook daily on an alcohol stove for fun (eggs), so I understand wanting to do this, I mearly want to share with those that will try it that they need to seal their tasties in a reasonable vapor proof , heat conductive package. you can have cool water (some have claimed cold, i never tried this) you take a water jug wrapped in towels soak the towels and tie to fron grill (you might want a resevoir under it somehow ) then drive, after an hour of driving you get cool water (evaporation of water cools the water), if you have a foor rack it is even better, do it on the roof. Therre are versions of this concept here on instructables using flour pots and sand with water. sparky

[trebuchet03]

Right... older car.... carb'd :p Totally fair point :)

[Phil B]

Even with a "normally aspirated" car (i.e. uses a carburetor) I would want to check for something that may be causing gasoline to seep or leak--heavy float (common after a few years), hardened gaskets, loosened screws).

Once I was to meet my wife so we could go someplace and she had not eaten. I wrapped a frankfurter in aluminum foil and rested it on the exhaust manifold for the 30 minute drive. It was nicely cooked when she ate it.

Back in the mid-1960s I saw an article in the Minneapolis Star about a family that cooked roasts and potatoes on their engine when taking family vacations. It was the days before the Interstate highway system was widely in use and roadside rest parks were easy to find. They drove for a period of time, stopped, and turned their food so it could cook on the other side. When the food was done, they stopped at a rest park and ate it while seated at a picnic table.

My daughter was interested in this and I checked into the book "Manifold Destiny." It is out of print and available copies were quite expensive. I expect a person could do what you are doing--experiment and make notes.

I thought it would be interesting to make a basket or enclosed box that would absorb heat from the engine, but would also protect it from air drafts and from falling down to the road, as well as from tearing or opening of the foil so the food was contaminated by dirt or oil.

[klincecum]

BTW, normally aspirated, or naturally aspirated doesn't mean it has a carburetor. It refers to engines without turbo, or superchargers. It refers to how it breathes.

[Phil B]

You may be right. I remember hearing or reading "normally aspirated" as a reference to an engine with a carburetor. I do not remember where or when I heard it used that way, though.

[spark master]

I never bought a copy but I saw it once, it may have been mentioned in Mother Earth News. Double cookie tins would work or real stainless pot in a cookie tin. you could add some dry sand in outer tin around pot to act as thermal fly wheel, but then you will add to cooking time. (no free lunch you must heat the stuff before the meal gets a going.

If you have a way to rig the outer pot safely even permanently you could add a few rows of foil ribbing. You use the tape used on exhaust ducks off boilers (stainless or aluminum metal tape). people use that technique to make collars for "heiny can" pots and thus get better boil times for Alcohol stoves (see you tube vids as well as )If you go to a camping store look at "Jet Boil" items. Google Bill Wrigley and alcohol stoves, and see his stuff, he came up with the foil tape idea.You could just take heat sinks from old computer equipment and rivet them on the outer can.

My car is now too new to screw with it, so I will not be mangling the guts of the engine compartment! But if I see a place for it.....hot dogs fer lunch with kraut and homemade NYC dog onions, mmmmmmm.. bettr then Hojo any day..

ttfn

[spark master]

BTW do you trebuchet? at the neigyhbors or with their pets!!!!! such a chuckle, I need to make a cardboard one, just for chuckles. The plans are here on Instructables. Looks pretty cool. again, anything to piss off the neighbors. Unless they want one as well. big enough we can have water balloon wars. Hey , Hot time summer int he city!! bye foer now sparkie

[dasgemuse]

Respect to the mazdaspeed

[kadalmesir]

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[karterricky]

Wow, this is amazing. I never thought of this before. Nice post trebuchet03

[fatray]

Mazdaspeed, lol.

[taichung116]

I had been try it before , Put one chicken leg in the enginee, but I did contrl the cooking time so it's not hot enough alos fall down in a small hole in my car enginee. But I feel it's intresting. My experience, maybe put one steel plate and binding it. Maybe suitable for the long time driving! Expecialy in a rough road??

[fgredauer]

I love Baked Chicken`s! Will test it soon !
Thanks

[davidbue]

There is a whole website dealing with this phenomena. It's an online cookbook called roadroast.com

The site is not that much visited but it's also just launched. Seems like a good idea tho.

/David

[Lithium Rain]

AWESOME!!! Just one question though...would it completely wreck the engine and other stuff in there if all of the food spilled?

[Danish M1Garand]

Not really, I forgot to open a can of soup before heating it. The resultant steam opened it quite forcefully.....DOH! I washed off the engine compartment with a water hose and No Harm No Foul.

[vanmankline]

Was it by any chance chicken soup?

[Danish M1Garand]

Ham Chowder IIRC. It was 2001 so I might be wrong.

[Lithium Rain]

Sweet! I gotta try this...

[Yerboogieman]

No.

[Danish M1Garand]

No?! This really works and a hot lunch outside is a great thing. Now I have a generator on my truck at work and carry a microwave oven. It's the best 38 dollar I ever spent.

[Yerboogieman]

I meant it only to Adrian.

[albylovesscience]

lol what if a squirrel or rat was stowing away in your Mazda . did any one say side dish ? or Where is my apple pie ?

[Its Giggles]

Any of you guys considered doing this when you go for a date?
lol Its just a sorta funny idea that i had in mind. =P

[Patrik]

This feels like a good place to mention Laurie Anderson's recipe for... HOTEL HOT DOGS Ingredients: 2 Bratwurst (or Oscar Mayers, depending on the continent) 1 Lamp 1 Set wire cutters Unplug lamp. Using wire cutters, cut into the lamp cord about a foot from the plug end. Strip all insulation off cord. Run wire through hot dogs. Plug in lamp. Cook for 2 seconds (at 220V -- 4 sec. if in the U.S. where it's 110). Be careful not to overcook, or your hot dogs will explode. Unplug lamp and eat. Serves one.

[Patrik]

Heh - here's a nice almost-instructable:

Cooking hot dogs via electrocution

They embellished it a little, by sticking LEDs into the hotdog while it's plugged in! :-D

[Danish M1Garand]

When I was a bachelor and before I joined the Marine Corps and had cook on staff, I had a machine called the "Hot Dogger" that made hot dogs by doing just this. It was safer (LOL) than this as the points were shielded and the cover cut the power. I even cooked sausages for breakfast. you had to cut off the uncooked ends though. The Hot Dogger and Campbell's soup kept me from starving to death at 19 and 20.

[amin_misran]

NICE yummy!~

[Yerboogieman]

In step 6 i think you meant love instead of live.

[Its Giggles]

Im gonna try to make some apple pie (when I get a car).
THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME! ! !
What a great way to save energy and waste none. Im gonna go om a road trip soon; I love to cook and drive. . . why not do both at the same time?

Craziness, my friend, is the key to success.

Friggin fantastic instructable! =]
-moni

[abadfart]

you can see the antenna when you open my hood or the passenger door

[blugyblug]

"And at the horror of onlookers, I proceeded to eat from my engine bay." AWESOME.

[blugyblug]

Scaring people with weird things is always funny.

[Yerboogieman]

Until they really believe its a bomb if you catch my powerslide.

[stephenniall]

Haha love it me n my dad restore old stationary engines and i can remember at a vintage rally we Cooked boiled eggs in the hopper of our watercooled engine

[thyubernoob]

OK, no ones mentioned it so I have to ask! How much food have you guy lost that has fallen out when hitting bumps, etc.

[Gort]

I used to work at a place where we dynod big diesel engines. We used to put baking potatoes and steak in wraps of tinfoil with what ever else we wanted on it and lay it on the manifolds. Those manifolds are much different and larger than you will see in a car so we could put lunch for the crew on a V-12 and after a 1/2 hour dyno run ...yummy..hey that is increasing efficiency as we did not have to use energy to run the stove at lunch..lol

[pdub77]

my roommate and i used to do this in college. we'd make hamburger patties stuffed with cheese and onions, wrap them in bacon, add some potatoes and corn or whatever we had on hand and go for a nice long drive on the back roads of southern indiana. some very good times. when travelling, having a hot meal after a long time on the road is just nice in general. not to mention the fact that it's cheaper than a restaurant, and helps the planet by using some of that extra energy being generated.

[Esmagamus]

Better still, get a nice fish, don't gut it, spread olive oil, coarse salt and a bit of fresh garlic and parsley. Put it in the engine and stop when it smells done.

[incorrigible packrat]

I'd always entertained the notion of cutting a hole in the floor of my old Chev van and having somebody back there, grilling stuff on top of the cat, whilst hurtling down the road. Sadly, high gas prices, a crapped-out alternator, and lack of a personal chef, have conspired to prevent the realization of this dream...

[Esmagamus]

Do it like a construction worker I heard about. He borrowed a spotlight from a electrician, tilted it up, put the lunch box on it and heated his lunch right there on the construction site.

[Esmagamus]

I loved it! I first heard of this way of cooking in a documentary about the WWII willys jeep, that had a grid to put two cans of ration. Of course, once in a while someone would forget to poke a hole in the can and then got a nice coat of baked beans on the engine, great to protect from moisture and bullet damage. About drinks, I have used as a bottle opener: -tape -shoelaces -maths book -stones -cheese graters -keys -screwdrivers -paper -other bottles -incense holders -pocket knives -pliers -can't remember! Anyway, there's no reason to damage your car. Be creative, like you were with this instructable.

[AncientWays]

I've been really wanting to try this. I looked at my engine with the guys from work and we are not sure where a good spot would be on my car. I have a 1994 Jeep Cherokee Sport, 4L/ 6 Cyl. engine. Please advise! Also...let me know if you need a photo of the engine.

[buhdieboy]

i have a copy of manifold destony would it be worth anything? my screenname on yahoo connects lucky?$$ for info

[unidyne]

"Manifold Destiny", first published in 1989, is long out of print. Used copies on Amazon run between $50 to $240. A second version was published in 1998. According to an entry for the book on Wikipedia, "A third edition is tentatively going to print." I wonder if they will have information on cooking with Hybrids.

[evanthehunter]

ha, sweet. I am gonna try this next year when im 16 :).

[ivanbg]

Do you think that the engine of a prius gets hot enouph?

[Nachoman]

Quite cool. I'd love to try it, but I barely ever drive more than twenty minutes straight, which wouldn't warm anything. However, I've got a friend who operates 16-ton busses on regional routes, and I bet he'll enjoy the idea of a warm meal after a two-hour drive.

[Danish M1Garand]

When I was a Lineman for the phone company we had a truck with a turbo. The manifold had a flat spot right before the turbo. We used the truck to pull in cable so it ran hard while not moving. I would bring a leftover piece of steak, green peppers, onions and potatoes in heavy duty foil. After about 45 minutes the veggies were steaming hot as was the steak. My coworkers eating Baloney and Cheese were green with envy. Cans of Chunky soup worked too, jut lift the tab so it didn't explode.

[twocvbloke]

I'd love to try this on a 2CV 602cc engine, there's 2 heat exchangers under the bonnet just begging to cook something!!! :D I'm sure once I get one I would be a bit of an oddity pulling tinfoil packages out and eating the contents!!! :D

[Liberty Prime]

lol

[multiplecats]

This is gonna be hard to do on the engine of an old Type 1 VW Bug. :)

[LiLyDo]

I love this! I've made hamburgers several times on my civic. Shape patties, season, wrap in foil and a couple hours down the road... Lunch!!! I spread the buns w/mayo, slice of cheese, onions.. the way we like 'em, wrap 'em in plastic and pop in the ice chest with our drinks. I've also warmed leftovers, ie: breakfast burritos, pizza, etc... My husband and I try to be frugal and like to pack food for road trips. Having a hot meal that is better than any drive thru makes being "cheap" not a bad thing at all. The funny thing is, people never believe me when I tell them I've cooked on my car's engine!

[ChaosJile119]

I have a 26 model T and I just bought a cooker that slides on the manifold,and works like a Dutch oven. They need to make such a thing for mondern cars.

[hitokiri_808]

I heated up some cold fried chicken on my exhaust manifold once. Always been meaning to actually cook something under there.

[noahh]

A while ago I tried to buy manifold destiny. But since it is out of print it is REALLY expensive. I have made popcorn on the engine before.

[Vendigroth]

Yum.

[Uthman]

ROFL AWESOME

[descartez]

Genius sir, pure genius. however, if you spill, you have a heck of a mess to clean up. I wonder if this will work with my honda civic. its a hybrid, so it would be interesting to see.

[uberchoob]

I'd be VERY careful. I've got a mechanic friend that's certified for hybrids and he tells me horror stories about car owners who popped the hood. Lot's-a-voltage! Good Luck!

[trebuchet03]

I imagine there's some rather hot spots on your civic hybrid ;) If you do any regular highway driving, I imagine the ICE is always on ;) I think engine bay space might be a problem :p

[descartez]

i looked under the hood now. ya, its very tight, i'll figure something out.

[mogui]

Oven cooking bags work great and there is less chance of leakage. Search thrift stores for odd aluminum pots that will fit the spaces in your engine compartment. Then put the food in the cooking bag and the bag in the pot. Any slow cooker recipe works with this method.

[mhcomp]

I hate to be a party pooper but I heated things on the manifold of cars 50 years ago. Worked great then and I guess it still works great!

[trebuchet03]

Not a pooper at all :D Although, I have discovered the newer designs of putting the exhaust manifold pointing to the rear of the car is a bit more difficult to cook on :p

[Dont blame me if Im wrong]

"Drinks! The striker plate (the part that holds the door closed) on most cars is a great glass bottle opener should you find yourself in the middle of nowhere with a coke and no bottle opener ;) Just look inside the door frame for something that resembles a bottle opener." my dad says you can open a glass bottle with just about anything so your finding is no surprise for me

[trebuchet03]

my dad says you can open a glass bottle with just about anything so your finding is no surprise for me

This is true, it's just a matter of comfort. My door clip was shaped perfectly to open up a bottle cap without any effort. I've opened bottles on the site of cheap tables before - which works as long as you don't mind banging your hand into the edge of the bottle cap and potentially damaging your table ;)

[Dont blame me if Im wrong]

another thing I DONT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE JET ENGINE AETHER
also you need a haircut

[trebuchet03]

also you need a haircut

Indeed - but my lady friend doesn't mind too much, she's only bothered by a prickly mustache (therefore, no rush to pay someone to cut growing hair for me) :p

[calvinexpress]

Does cooking on the car engine make the food smell like gasoline?

[trebuchet03]

Only if your car has a terrible terrible gasoline leak in the engine bay....

[Breckrider]

You can also cook things by strapping them to the muffler. I"ve done this on long motorcycle rides for years. Just use several layers of foil and I use the adjustable metal straps that screw tighten.

[TheSaneOne]

I think this is really swell! My drive to school every day is about 25 minutes, I could cook up some breakfast and it would be hot and ready by the time I got there. Bacon and Sausage? Delicious! You could dice up your potato and mix in some herbs and oil to get that nice breakfast potato. I don't know, maybe you could modify it to cook an egg? Probably you could make a boiled egg! "Just a second professor, my biscuits are about to burn."

[boocat]

Great, treb! Never apologize for your gorgeous head of hair. My husband would sell his soul to rock 'n' roll for your sensuous locks!

[5Volt]

I remember reading on the car magazine 'quattroruote' ('four wheels' the most respected in Italy) how they cooked a trout fish on the engine on a trip. At the time I did not have an engine of mine (possibly 20 years ago). Now things are different !...

[Bilou]

Miam miam!! When I came across this, I coudn't resist a try!! It works great, it tastes great, but most of all, it creates a hell of a reaction around you... For my first attempt at "car-becue", I went for something simple: Chicken breast, pepper and onion... I even convinced my girlfriend to tase...my next creation... Here's a picture of what it looked like. Thanks for the instructable trebuchet03. Bilou, from Quebec

[trebuchet03]

Awesome! That looks really good :D

[shadymilkman]

people in the military have been doing this for years on tanks to heat up MREs instead of using the stupid heating thing. My dad told me they do this at the coal mine he works at with the large multi-million dollar trucks. the desil generators have large manifolds and they also can use the radiator.

[rhoula]

I tried to cook some chicken the first time, i was driving from oklahoma city to tulsa, when i arrived to tulsa, i looked for my meal but never foun it. I think i lost it somewhere on my way there. I was both hungry and broke, thanks god i had some more raw chicken and vegetables left. on my way back i put everything as suggested in an aluminum foil and covered it with a towel so it woudn't slip it was about 2 am next thing i know my old chevy truck caught on fire. To tell you the truth i was more worid about the chicken that i was about the truck. thank god the food was just fine. my truck was still burning when i was enjoying the great chicken and vegetables. I even let my kids roast some marchmellows on the fire. To tell you the truth their marshmellows tasted more like gasoline but I had to keep my kids busy so they wouldn't eat my a la car te meal or should i say a la burnt truck meal.

[jack ruby]

There was a fantastic episode of 'red green' about this once. They even did mashed potatoes in the hubcaps !

[orbar]

I have wanted to try this ever since the Manfold D was published. My boyfriend says he always has to take me out to eat when I drive to visit. (poor thing) but.....This time I am going to take the plunge. Any one try meatloaf? I remember people were welding frames to something, to hold large pots, so they would have soup/stew/chili on arrival. This is probably not possible with new car designs? Will let you know what my car cooks for 'cheap' boyfriend and results.

[trebuchet03]

Well... I have a new car nowadays (2000 VW Jetta)... and unfourtunatly for this project - the exhaust manifold is "behind" the engine -- so access is quite difficult :( I'll think of something though ;)

[jammis]

This is a awsome project, Im going to try this when i go to mexico in october for a scuba trip.

[spinach_dip]

There was a story about someone doing this in an old Pop Mechanics years ago, they had recipes and everything. Yours is cool but kind of defeats the purpose as you had to cook the noodles before hand. By the way, I wouldn't suggest this if you have a date along fo rthe trip. Unless you want to run her off.

[trebuchet03]

I did not cook the noodles before hand ;) Everything was a la car ;) hehe, my girlfriend was in the car at the time, but it was not a date - we were returning home from school :P

[uni_vision_tech1]

RAMEN NOODLES!!!

[hjjhjhgjjh]

Good Project Awesome instructable Keep it up

[jypucca]

This is so hilarious!! I first wondered if you are an engineer, and later found out from ur blog you were one. Hmmm, it reminds me of seeing MEs in my school building robots for senior projects.

[Myplague5]

Very useful

[freeflytim]

I reheat leftovers out of the cooler when off roading in my Landy... I got a couple of spots that I can wedge the stuff.. some hotter some not. Been looking for that book for years.. tho any 'one pot' recipe without liquids work.

[trebuchet03]

even things that require liquid work ;) You just need too form your packet to allow it:P

[mrbinky3000]

How did you keep stuff from shifting around while your were drivng?

[trebuchet03]

That's the tricky part (well, its not so bad if you're familiar with your engine bay). I wedged things in there tightly, and some things were on flat surfaces (valve cover in my case). So I was not too concerned... I DID use an alligator clip on the chicken packet that was on the heat shield - but it was really unnecessary in my case. I also have some undercarriage panels (helps aero and acts as a splash shield) that would have caught most of the stuff if anything happened to fall through.... In this case, literally YMMV.

[ll.13]

(removed by author or community request)

[trebuchet03]

I had been going 70-80mph on the highway... But you really don't have to go that fast... And yeah, bigger engine will have more heat coming off - at least more than my 2l 4cyl :P

[tmclucas]

"Manifold Destiny"....I've seriously been trying to figure out the name of that book for years. I want to try this on my next motorcycle trip.

[Sluttyduck]

What about fried chicken?

[fungus amungus]

Heh, as soon as I saw this I thought you were gonna be quoting Manifold Destiny. No big need to dig through the book, though, since it's filled with pics of older cars and recipes that anyone can figure out. It's the basic idea that matters.

[phinch]

on a scale from 1 to 10, this is A for awesome.

[quicumque]

WONDERFUL!