Controlling the pan
Preheating, choosing a fat that can take the heat, reading the flame, and the cooking that carries on after the pan. After this you can decide what heat a dish needs and when to take it off.
FIRST MOVE
Preheat the pan, not the food
Metal takes time to come up to temperature, and a heavy pan takes longer than a thin one. If you put food in while the pan is still climbing, the food's own moisture comes out before the surface is hot enough to evaporate it. You already know what that gives you: grey and steamed.
A thin pan may be ready in a minute or two on medium. A heavy cast-iron or thick steel pan can want four or five. The reward is that the heavy pan barely cools down when the food goes in.
Getting a pan ready
- Dry pan on medium to medium-high
Start with the empty pan on the heat. For stainless or cast iron, give it a couple of minutes. Nonstick is the exception: never heat an empty nonstick pan on high, put the oil in first and keep the heat moderate.
- Test it
Flick a few drops of water onto a dry stainless or iron pan. If they hiss and vanish, it's warm but not there yet. When they gather into beads and skitter across the surface, it's hot.
- Then the fat
Add the oil and swirl. It should thin out and glide across the pan almost at once. Wait for a faint shimmer, not smoke.
- Then the food
Lay it away from you so nothing splashes back. You want a clear sizzle on contact. If there's no sound, take the food out and wait.
Check yourself
Nasrin is frying eggs in a nonstick pan. She puts the empty pan on the highest flame to save time, waits three minutes, then adds oil and the eggs. What is the main problem with her routine?
- Eggs should always go into a cold pan so they don't toughen
- An empty nonstick pan on a high flame overheats and damages the coating
- Nonstick pans can't be used for eggs
- Three minutes is not long enough to preheat any pan properly, whatever it is made of
Show the answer
An empty nonstick pan on a high flame overheats and damages the coating
Right. Nonstick coatings are not made for that kind of heat, and with nothing in the pan there is nothing to absorb it. Oil in first, moderate heat.
Smoke point
The temperature at which a fat starts to break down and send up a steady blue smoke. Past it the fat tastes harsh and burnt, and the smoke is unpleasant to breathe. Different fats give up at very different temperatures, so the fat has to match the job.
Butter starts to smoke and blacken well before a pan is hot enough to sear meat. Refined oils and ghee carry on happily at that heat.
| Fat | Rough smoke point | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Refined oil (sunflower, canola) | around 220°C | searing, frying, high heat |
| Ghee / clarified butter | well above 200°C | frying, rice, high heat |
| Extra virgin olive oil | roughly 190°C | medium heat, and raw over finished food |
| Butter | roughly 150°C | gentle heat, eggs, finishing a sauce |
Check yourself
High heat or gentle heat?
- Refined sunflower oil for searing lamb
- Butter for scrambled eggs
- Ghee for frying onions
- Extra virgin olive oil poured over a finished salad
- Canola oil for deep-frying falafel
- A knob of butter stirred into a sauce at the end
Show the answer
Can take high heat: Refined sunflower oil for searing lamb, Ghee for frying onions, Canola oil for deep-frying falafel
Keep the heat gentle: Butter for scrambled eggs, Extra virgin olive oil poured over a finished salad, A knob of butter stirred into a sauce at the end
What each heat level is for
- High: boiling water, searing a thin piece of meat, a quick stir-fry. Loud, fast, and it needs you standing there.
- Medium-high: most pan-frying. Chicken pieces, kebab in a pan, aubergine slices. A steady strong sizzle.
- Medium: onions turning golden, thicker pieces that need to cook through, anything that browned too fast on high.
- Low: a gentle simmer with a bubble breaking now and then, around 85–95°C. Stews, khoresh, rice finishing under a lid.
- Judge by sound and sight, not the number on the dial. A furious bubbling stew is on too high a flame, whatever the knob says.
Check yourself
If a stew is bubbling hard, turning it down to a slow simmer will make the meat tougher because it cooks less.
Show the answer
False
The opposite. A hard boil shakes the meat apart on the outside and squeezes it dry while the inside is still tough. A slow simmer, around 85–95°C, is what melts connective tissue into softness. Lower the flame and give it time.
AFTER THE PAN
Food keeps cooking off the heat
When you lift food off the heat, the hot outside is still far hotter than the centre, and that stored heat keeps travelling inwards. The centre goes on climbing for a while. This is carry-over cooking, and the bigger and thicker the piece, the more of it there is.
A large roast can climb several degrees at the centre while it sits on the board. A thin fillet or a lamb chop barely moves. So plan for it on a big piece, and ignore it on a small one.
Check yourself
- Case A: Leila roasts a 1.5 kg whole chicken and takes it out when the thickest part of the thigh reads 74°C. Fifteen minutes later, on the board, the same spot reads several degrees higher.
- Case B: she cooks a thin chicken fillet in a pan and takes it out at 74°C. Five minutes later it has barely moved.
Same oven, same meat, same temperature when it came off the heat. What does the difference tell you?
- Ovens carry heat over but pans don't
- A thicker, heavier piece stores far more heat, so its centre keeps rising after it leaves the heat
- Whole chickens are always undercooked at 74°C
- The thermometer is unreliable on thin pieces
Show the answer
A thicker, heavier piece stores far more heat, so its centre keeps rising after it leaves the heat
Yes. Mass is the whole story. On a big roast, take it off at your target and let it climb; on something thin, what you measure is what you get.
Resting meat, and why
- Take it off and leave it alone
Put the meat on a warm plate or board. Cover loosely with foil if you like, but don't wrap it tight or the crust you worked for goes soft.
- Give it the right amount of time
A few minutes for a chop or a chicken piece, 10 to 20 for a big roast. Long enough to matter, not so long it goes cold.
- Then cut
Cutting straight off the heat sends juice running across the board. After a rest the meat holds far more of it, because the muscle has relaxed and the juices have settled back through it.
- Keep the safety line separate
Resting is about texture, not safety. Chicken and other poultry must actually reach 74°C / 165°F at the thickest part. If it hasn't, it goes back on the heat, not on the board.
Check yourself
Hooman is cooking chicken thighs in a pan. He has read that meat keeps cooking off the heat, so he lifts them out at 68°C and leaves them on a plate, expecting carry-over to finish the job. Is that sound?
- No: pieces that size gain a degree or two at most, and poultry needs to reach 74°C
- Yes, meat always gains about ten degrees while it rests
- Yes, as long as he covers the plate and rests them for twenty minutes instead of five, so the heat keeps travelling inward
- Yes, because the plate keeps the heat in
Show the answer
No: pieces that size gain a degree or two at most, and poultry needs to reach 74°C
Right. Carry-over on a small piece is tiny. Chicken has to reach 74°C at its thickest point, and if it hasn't, it goes back in the pan.
Lesson recap
- Preheat the pan before the fat and the fat before the food, and listen for the sizzle. Nonstick is the exception: oil first, moderate heat.
- Match the fat to the heat. Butter and extra virgin olive oil burn well below searing heat; refined oil and ghee don't.
- Read the flame by sound and sight: a furious boil is not a simmer, and a simmer is where tough meat goes soft.
- Big pieces keep cooking off the heat, small ones barely do. Rest meat for texture, but poultry must still reach 74°C.