By far my favorite is to have a squirt bottle of water next to my stove. It’s great to have throughout the cooking process, especially if you’ve moved on from Teflon bullshit and are using a pan you pre-heat. To start, you put the pan on the heat and squirt a little water in it. When the water evaporates, the pan is usually in the 350F-400F range. Then when the pan is dry and heated a little more, you can squirt a few more drops in to see if the Leidenfrost effect has taken, uhhh, effect. The way you tell is that the water just dances around on the pan instead of behaving like water normally does, and it’s how you know your food won’t stick, it is at this point that you add the oil.
Moving on to the actual cooking, let’s say you’ve thrown some chicken thighs in the pan and you’ve built up a lot of fond (the brown bits that form in the bottom of the pan) and the chicken is almost done, but you’re not planning on making a sauce. Deglaze the pan with little squirts of water targeted directly at the fond and rub the chicken thighs over the area where the water is deglazing and suddenly that fond is sticking to your chicken thighs, resulting in a better crust and a cleaner pan.
Speaking of cleaner pan, once you’re done cooking and plating and you have a hot dirty pan, squirt enough water in to cover the bottom of the pan and then go eat. When you come back to the kitchen to clean up, the water will have broken down the shit on the bottom of the pan and will steam the sides of the pan, so the pan will wipe clean as easy if all you did was fry an egg.
Finally, I stopped putting milk (of any variety) in my coffee, but I wanna be able to drink my coffee right away and it’s too hot when it’s made fresh, but I’ve got a bottle full of room temperature water (all the filtered water in my house comes out ice cold) sitting right there so I can cool it down that way (I brew my coffee pretty strong so watering it down isn’t a big deal).
For pan temperature: Just get an IR thermometer. Squirt a bit of oil in and you have enough that you can get a good reading. And then you don’t have to worry about making sure the oil heats up before you put the meat/whatever in. For something like a (cantonese street vendor style) stir fry you may want to superheat the pan to the point that the oil would smoke, but (regardless of what the people who hate electricity say) that is not the norm. And is generally very difficult to do indoors anyway.
Deglazing: In almost every situation, I would rather use a splash of a more flavorful liquid. Even a glug of chicken stock goes a long way. And I have definitely been known to do the “one for me, one for you” approach to booze while cooking.
Leaving an empty heated pan on the hob: Don’t do this if you at all care about your pots and pans. Or if you have pets or (stupid) kids. You are right in that “deglazing” the pan after you cook is a great idea. But I just use a glass of water to dump maybe a few tablespoons-ish in there, scrape it up with a wooden spatula, and then wash the pan. Pretty much every dish benefits from resting for a minute or two (at least) and that is really all you need to clean up.
The problem with squirting the oil into the pan as it heats is that the metal of the pan heats up a lot slower than the oil so you will burn the oil before your pan is up to temp. Also, pre heating pans will not harm them in any way at all. It sounds like you’re applying my comment to Teflon coated pans, which I excluded at the beginning of my comment.
Preheating is not an issue. Leaving it on the stove with nothing to dissipate heat for twenty to thirty minutes (during dinner) is a good way to make a fire hazard and get pans past their rated heat. Which results in potential damage to rivets or even layers in the good stuff.
And if your oil can’t take the heat at which you are cooking, it is just burning and adding nasty flavors.
I definitely didn’t say to leave the pan on the hob for 20-30 minutes, it takes about 5 minutes. But if putting an empty pot or pan on the heat for 20-30 minutes ruins anything at all on your pans, you need better pans. Every single pan in my kitchen, and I have some budget ones, would just be too hot to handle for a while.
On the oil handling the heat, your way puts more heat into the oil than my way and you are way more likely to burn your oil.
If you use nothing but cheap aluminum or steel pans: You still might damage the rivets but are probably fine.
If you have a multiple layer pan (all-clad is the popular brand but things are now cheap enough that you can get some really nice department store brands with similar characteristics for a fraction of the price), which is great for a “best of most worlds” situation as you get uniform heat distribution while still having a stainless steel surface and so forth, then you are very much playing the game of finding out just how well it was made, how well everything was bonded, and what the heat expansion rates are.
This is why every pot and pan has a maximum temperature and it is good to be aware of that before you finish things in an oven or whatever. For something like cast iron? That is more or less the melting point of iron. For layered pans? Check your own but high 400F sounds about right (so actually 500-600). It isn’t going to instantly break if you get it that hot, but it is going to lower the lifespan of the pan.
Speaking of cleaner pan, once you’re done cooking and plating and you have a hot dirty pan, squirt enough water in to cover the bottom of the pan and then go eat. When you come back to the kitchen to clean up, the water will have broken down the shit on the bottom of the pan and will steam the sides of the pan, so the pan will wipe clean as easy if all you did was fry an egg.
If you finish your entire meal in 5 minutes? Have fun. If you are like a normal person and are looking at closer to 10-30 (longer if you have guests): Maybe don’t leave the pan on the stove for that long.
As for oil: my oil gets as hot as the temperature readout says. Which is about as hot as the pan itself, barring any hot spots (which those composite pans really help with…).
on the pan test, I just run a bit of water onto my hand and flick droplets off my fingers. My reason is that I absolutely LOATHE having anything plastic near the stove. I’ve had far more mishaps involving errant plastic containers than any other.
Besides, If my hand bacteria can make it into the water and survive a 300+ degree pan, it deserves to outlive all of us.
I’ll echo the other comment about deglazing with other flavorful juices to make a better pan sauce (even if it’s not going to be a sauce), since I just prefer it that way. BUT, a splash of water into a pan sauce that’s simmered for too long WILL restore its glossiness and re-thin it.
By far my favorite is to have a squirt bottle of water next to my stove. It’s great to have throughout the cooking process, especially if you’ve moved on from Teflon bullshit and are using a pan you pre-heat. To start, you put the pan on the heat and squirt a little water in it. When the water evaporates, the pan is usually in the 350F-400F range. Then when the pan is dry and heated a little more, you can squirt a few more drops in to see if the Leidenfrost effect has taken, uhhh, effect. The way you tell is that the water just dances around on the pan instead of behaving like water normally does, and it’s how you know your food won’t stick, it is at this point that you add the oil.
Moving on to the actual cooking, let’s say you’ve thrown some chicken thighs in the pan and you’ve built up a lot of fond (the brown bits that form in the bottom of the pan) and the chicken is almost done, but you’re not planning on making a sauce. Deglaze the pan with little squirts of water targeted directly at the fond and rub the chicken thighs over the area where the water is deglazing and suddenly that fond is sticking to your chicken thighs, resulting in a better crust and a cleaner pan.
Speaking of cleaner pan, once you’re done cooking and plating and you have a hot dirty pan, squirt enough water in to cover the bottom of the pan and then go eat. When you come back to the kitchen to clean up, the water will have broken down the shit on the bottom of the pan and will steam the sides of the pan, so the pan will wipe clean as easy if all you did was fry an egg.
Finally, I stopped putting milk (of any variety) in my coffee, but I wanna be able to drink my coffee right away and it’s too hot when it’s made fresh, but I’ve got a bottle full of room temperature water (all the filtered water in my house comes out ice cold) sitting right there so I can cool it down that way (I brew my coffee pretty strong so watering it down isn’t a big deal).
Eh.
For pan temperature: Just get an IR thermometer. Squirt a bit of oil in and you have enough that you can get a good reading. And then you don’t have to worry about making sure the oil heats up before you put the meat/whatever in. For something like a (cantonese street vendor style) stir fry you may want to superheat the pan to the point that the oil would smoke, but (regardless of what the people who hate electricity say) that is not the norm. And is generally very difficult to do indoors anyway.
Deglazing: In almost every situation, I would rather use a splash of a more flavorful liquid. Even a glug of chicken stock goes a long way. And I have definitely been known to do the “one for me, one for you” approach to booze while cooking.
Leaving an empty heated pan on the hob: Don’t do this if you at all care about your pots and pans. Or if you have pets or (stupid) kids. You are right in that “deglazing” the pan after you cook is a great idea. But I just use a glass of water to dump maybe a few tablespoons-ish in there, scrape it up with a wooden spatula, and then wash the pan. Pretty much every dish benefits from resting for a minute or two (at least) and that is really all you need to clean up.
The problem with squirting the oil into the pan as it heats is that the metal of the pan heats up a lot slower than the oil so you will burn the oil before your pan is up to temp. Also, pre heating pans will not harm them in any way at all. It sounds like you’re applying my comment to Teflon coated pans, which I excluded at the beginning of my comment.
Preheating is not an issue. Leaving it on the stove with nothing to dissipate heat for twenty to thirty minutes (during dinner) is a good way to make a fire hazard and get pans past their rated heat. Which results in potential damage to rivets or even layers in the good stuff.
And if your oil can’t take the heat at which you are cooking, it is just burning and adding nasty flavors.
I definitely didn’t say to leave the pan on the hob for 20-30 minutes, it takes about 5 minutes. But if putting an empty pot or pan on the heat for 20-30 minutes ruins anything at all on your pans, you need better pans. Every single pan in my kitchen, and I have some budget ones, would just be too hot to handle for a while. On the oil handling the heat, your way puts more heat into the oil than my way and you are way more likely to burn your oil.
If you use nothing but cheap aluminum or steel pans: You still might damage the rivets but are probably fine.
If you have a multiple layer pan (all-clad is the popular brand but things are now cheap enough that you can get some really nice department store brands with similar characteristics for a fraction of the price), which is great for a “best of most worlds” situation as you get uniform heat distribution while still having a stainless steel surface and so forth, then you are very much playing the game of finding out just how well it was made, how well everything was bonded, and what the heat expansion rates are.
This is why every pot and pan has a maximum temperature and it is good to be aware of that before you finish things in an oven or whatever. For something like cast iron? That is more or less the melting point of iron. For layered pans? Check your own but high 400F sounds about right (so actually 500-600). It isn’t going to instantly break if you get it that hot, but it is going to lower the lifespan of the pan.
If you finish your entire meal in 5 minutes? Have fun. If you are like a normal person and are looking at closer to 10-30 (longer if you have guests): Maybe don’t leave the pan on the stove for that long.
As for oil: my oil gets as hot as the temperature readout says. Which is about as hot as the pan itself, barring any hot spots (which those composite pans really help with…).
on the pan test, I just run a bit of water onto my hand and flick droplets off my fingers. My reason is that I absolutely LOATHE having anything plastic near the stove. I’ve had far more mishaps involving errant plastic containers than any other.
Besides, If my hand bacteria can make it into the water and survive a 300+ degree pan, it deserves to outlive all of us.
I’ll echo the other comment about deglazing with other flavorful juices to make a better pan sauce (even if it’s not going to be a sauce), since I just prefer it that way. BUT, a splash of water into a pan sauce that’s simmered for too long WILL restore its glossiness and re-thin it.