When I was looking to buy some cooking utensils for cycle camping one of the main things I was looking for was compactness. I already had pots, plates and a frying pan which I had been using for years when I was camping in the car. The thing about these was that they were all very bulky. I had a kettle and a stacking set of metal pans but none of these were small enough to pack into my panniers.
The kettle was probably the first thing I looked at replacing. I saw a collapsible one in an outdoor shop and it seemed to be ideal for my needs. It was a sea-to-summit X-pot. This kettle has a maximum capacity of just over a litre which is large enough for solo cooking. It has an aluminium base and the rubber sides collapse down to a height of 3cm and is 18cm in diameter.
I also bought an x-pot 3 piece cooking set. This comprises a 18cm collapsable pot, a bowl and a mug. The pot which has a lid is 6cm deep and has a capacity of 1 litre.
The good thing about sea-to-summit is that all these items will stack together. I have an 8” alpha pan which fits together with the kettle and cook-set and packs away to a hieght of 7cm and 20cm in diameter. I originally used a Firemaple branded pan. The quality of this non-stick frying pan was a bit better than the sea-to-summit one (apart from a slightly dodgy locking mechanism on the folding handle). The size was supposed to be the same but the sea-to-summits fits better together with the same branded cook-set.
There is space inside the kettle when packed, for a foldable spatula, a folding cutlery set and a dish sponge which doubles as packing to stop these items rattling. The complete set weighs in at 120g.
Cooking with the pot and boiling water in the kettle is easy. Both are low enough to be stable when on the stove. Care has to be taken that the flame does not extend past the base or the sides would melt. The metal base transmits enough heat that things will cook and water boil without the flame needing to be so high that this becomes a possibility. Both cool down fairly quickly once removed from the heat which is handy when cooking around a tent. They also clean easily and the silicon rubber means food does not stick.
Looking at Sea-to-summit web-site, it seems as though they have re-named a lot of their products as the ones I bought are no longer advertised but the basic designs are still there. The aluminium based pots are now marketed as ultralight and they do stainless steel versions of the collapsible pans.
Just Me - On my bike 