Instructions: Tips for engine cooking
Here are some hints for turning out top-notch road food.

Use good-quality heavy-duty aluminum foil. The regular thinner kind tends to tear when it touches screws, hoses and wires.

For best results, cook fish or chicken. Other meats tend to toughen.

Small pieces cook faster than large pieces.

To wrap food, use the Big-Mac method. Pull up two opposite sides of the foil square, capturing the food between them. Bring the edges together and fold over about 1/2 inch. Continue folding down for a tight seal. Fold the ends of the foil packet as if wrapping a boxed gift; then tuck the mitered corners under the packet.

(Food is wrapped for cleanliness - the foods and the engines - not because of engine fumes. The exhaust system releases fumes from the tailpipe, not under the hood.)

Dont expect the food to brown. Engine cooking essentially steams food. An engine cannot bake, broil or fry.

Seasonings become intense because food cooks more slowly than at home, so throttle back a little.

Be sure to outfit your toolbox with an oven mitt and tongs for retrieving hot food from the engine, and a roll of wire for securing food packets against the manifold.

Be sure to place food on the hot part of the engine. Some would-be cooks are tempted to take the little accordion-folded gizmo out of the air filter housing and put the food there. Stop!

Thats not a hot place. Neither is a water hose. Look for metal parts, especially those with grainy surfaces that came from a forge.

Beware of traffic jams, and shorten your cooking mileage accordingly. Food burns just as surely at 5 mph as it does at 65 mph.

When removing food from the engine, watch out for screws that could tear the foil. You dont want your mechanic asking about that stuff dripped on the engine block.

Engine cooking is inexact. A dish cooked at a certain distance on one car may need to stay a few miles longer on the engine of another car, even of the same model. Thats because all engines perform differently.

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