Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

by Samin Nosrat

  While some chefs insist on chilling blanched vegetables in ice baths, I generally disagree. The less time a vegetable spends immersed in water, the less chance of its minerals and nutrients leaching out. Instead of bothering with an ice bath, simply cook your vegetables a little less, knowing that they’ll continue to cook even after they’re pulled from the pot.

  Over the years, I’ve found that vegetables with higher water content, like asparagus and perfect little haricots verts, carry over more than denser, less watery ones, so pull them from the pot just before they’re done. Root vegetables, such as carrots and beets, won’t carry over even if you beg them to so always boil them until they are tender throughout. You can control carryover by slipping trays of vegetables plucked from boiling water straight into the fridge, or onto an icy porch, to chill quickly.

  The only way to know when a vegetable should be pulled from its blanching water is to taste it, and quickly. Before you add anything to a pot of boiling water, find your sieve or spider and prepare a landing pad. Instead of piling hot veggies in a bowl, spread them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to prevent overcooking.

  To save time in the kitchen, combine blanching with other cooking methods. Blanch tough greens like kale or collards until they are tender, then squeeze them dry, chop them up, and sauté. In Italy, balls of blanched greens are available at every deli, ready for any mamma to take home and sauté with garlic and hot pepper. Partially blanch denser vegetables such as cauliflower, carrots, and fennel on Sunday and keep them on hand for the coming week, ready to reheat and brown in the pan or oven at a moment’s notice.

  Blanching can also be a useful way to facilitate peeling produce with a clinging skin, such as fava beans, tomatoes, peppers, and peaches. Simply blanch them for about thirty seconds—or just long enough for the skin to loosen—and then plunge them into an ice bath to stop them from cooking any further. The skins will slip right off.

  Noodles and Grains

  Noodles made with wheat flour must be cooked in water at a vigorous boil in order to cook evenly, regardless of whether you call them pasta, ramen, bakmi, udon, or elbow macaroni.

  The pandemonium keeps the noodles moving, preventing them from sticking to one another as they release starch. Take the guesswork and measuring out of cooking whole grains such as barley, rice, farro, and quinoa by boiling them as you would pasta, until they are completely tender. Drain and serve as a side dish, or spread them out to let them cool, then drizzle with olive oil and add them to soups, grain salads, or store them in the freezer for up to two months for future use.

  Once you’ve grown familiar with the cooking times of various foods, you can stagger multiple ingredients into a single pot of water to save yourself time and a pan. When pasta still has a few minutes of boiling left, add bite-size florets of broccoli or cauliflower, chopped kale, or turnip greens to the water. Delicate spring peas or tiny slices of asparagus or green beans need only about ninety seconds to cook through, so add them just before draining the pot, and taste to determine their doneness.

  Reducing

  Intensify the flavor and thicken the texture of sauces, stocks, and soups by leaving them at a continuous boil. Recall that while water may evaporate, salt and other seasonings won’t, so take care to avoid oversalting reductions. Season cautiously as you go to give yourself a greater margin of error—you can always adjust the salt once you’re satisfied with the texture of the sauce.

  Extended vigorous boiling can also encourage clear sauces and soups to emulsify if they aren’t properly skimmed, so take care to remove fat from sauces or stocks before you set them on the stove. Or simply pull the pan askew on the burner for a moment—as one side of the pan calms and cools, the boiling action will force all of the fat and scum to collect on the side of the pan away from the bubbles. Skim the fat with a spoon or ladle, return the pan to the center of the burner, and keep boiling.

  Finally, remember that reducing food will continue to cook it, deepening and changing its flavor. Increased surface area—that is, using a wider, shallower pan—will speed up reduction. If the amount of liquid you’re reducing is beyond three inches deep, divide it into multiple shallow pans to allow steam to escape more quickly and prevent flavors from changing considerably. Using a second pan is also a great time-saving trick, and one I recently taught to a friend’s mom as she struggled to get Christmas Eve dinner on the table on time. Reducing the beef stock for the sauce was taking such a long time that all of the rest of the food was growing cold. When she realized that she’d have to add 2 cups of cream to the sauce and reduce it all by half a second time, she started tearing up. Just then, I poked my head into the kitchen to see if I could help, and when I realized what the problem was, I told her not to worry. I just pulled out two more shallow pans, poured half of the reducing beef sauce into one and the cream into the other, and let everything boil at full blast. Ten minutes later, our sauce was done and we were sitting down to eat.

  Steaming

  Steam trapped in a pan, pot, or packet will efficiently cook food while preserving clarity of flavor. Though oven steaming requires a temperature of at least 450°F, the temperature within the vessel will remain below 212°F due to recycling water vapor. Note that since it’s higher in energy than boiling water, steam will cook the surface of a food more quickly. But I’ve grouped it with the gentle cooking techniques because steaming physically protects delicate foods from the jostling of boiling.

  Steam little potatoes in the oven by placing them in a single layer in a roasting dish, seasoning with salt, and adding any aromatics—a sprig of rosemary and a few garlic cloves will do. Add just enough water to cover the bottom of the pan, and tightly seal it up with aluminum foil. Cook until the potatoes present no resistance when pierced with a knife, and then serve with flaky salt and butter or garlicky aïoli alongside hard-cooked eggs or grilled fish.

  My favorite steaming technique calls for a parchment-paper package of fish, vegetables, mushrooms or fruit. Upon opening the package (cartoccio in Italian or papillote in French) at the table, each guest experiences a burst of aromatic steam.

  I once collaborated with a group of talented chefs on a special dinner. I was assigned to the dessert course. I suspect the only reason they asked was because I was the only woman in the group. It certainly wasn’t because I’m a natural at pastry, where it’s essential to follow recipes meticulously (and by now, you know how I feel about that). While the other chefs focused on one-upping each other with complicated techniques, I took one look at the massive oven in our kitchen and decided to take another route. The Blenheim apricots from my favorite farm had just come into season. With blushing orange skin and velvety flesh, these apricots evoke both the quiet awakening of spring and the vibrancy of summer, perfectly balanced in sweetness and acidity, absolutely delicious. If you ever see them at the farmers’ market, buy as many as you can carry.

  That night, I halved the apricots, removed the pits, and stuffed each half with a filling made of almond paste, almonds, and the little Italian cookies called amaretti. Then I placed the apricots on a piece of parchment paper, drizzled them with a few drops of dessert wine, sprinkled them with sugar, and wrapped up the cartocci. I baked the parchment packages in the blazing-hot oven for about 10 minutes, until they puffed up with steam, and then rushed them to the table with bowls of whipped crème fraîche. After a refined multicourse dinner, the simple pleasure of tearing open the packets, smelling the apricots’ heady perfume, and tasting their balanced sweet-tart flavor delighted our guests to no end. Even now, years later, when I bump into folks who were guests at that meal, they dreamily reminisce about the apricot cartoccio. I never cease to be amazed at how good a simple preparation can be.

  To steam on the stove instead of the oven, set a perforated steamer insert or sieve filled with a single layer of food—anything from vegetables and eggs to rice, tamales, and fish—over a pot of simmering water. Cover with a lid to entrap steam and cook until tender. Tradi
tional Moroccan couscous is cooked in this way—over a water bath spiked with aromatic vegetables, herbs, and spices to lend a whisper of flavor.

  Stovetop steaming is also an ideal method for cooking shellfish, such as clams or mussels, in the way I described in the walkthrough recipe for Pasta alle Vongole.

  Combine steaming with the browning that comes from intense heat in a method I like to call steamy sauté. It’s perfect for cooking dense vegetables such as fennel or carrots: add a half inch of water, salt, a generous splash of olive oil or knob of butter, and aromatics into a pan filled with a single layer of vegetables, and place a lid on ajar. Simmer until the vegetables are tender, remove the lid, pour off any excess water, then turn up the heat and let the Maillard reaction commence.

  Confit

  Confit is the French word for foods cooked slowly in fat at temperatures low enough to avoid browning. It’s one of the few times you’ll use fat as a cooking medium without the goal of browning.

  The best-known, and perhaps the most delicious, confit is made with duck. This dish from Gascony, in the hills of southwest France, evolved as a way to preserve duck legs for later consumption. The process is simple and the results couldn’t be tastier. Season the legs, immerse them in rendered duck fat, and cook them gently until they are tender at the bone. You’ll know the temperature is right when the duck fat emits a bubble or two every few seconds. When covered with fat and stored in the fridge, the duck will last for months, ready to be turned into the shredded duck pâté called rilletes, or cassoulet, the traditional French dish of duck, bean, and sausage, or simply heated and crisped at a moment’s notice and served with boiled potatoes, zesty greens, and a glass of wine.

  If you don’t have duck on hand, the technique works beautifully with other meats, including pork, goose, and chicken. For a holiday indulgence, remove and prepare a confit from the legs of your Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas goose. Roast the breast and offer your guests a bird prepared two ways. In the summer, try confit of fresh tuna in olive oil spiked with a garlic clove or two and make Niçoise salad. Vegetables, too, are ripe for confits: toss Artichoke Confit with pasta and some torn basil for a quick supper, or pair Cherry Tomato Confit with fresh beans or poached eggs. Strain and refrigerate the olive oil, which will be as flavorful and valuable as what was cooked in it, to use in vinaigrette or cook with again in the coming days.

  Sweating

  Sweating is a gentle way of cooking vegetables in minimal fat until they are tender and translucent, without resulting in browning. As they cook, they release some liquid, hence the name. Mirepoix, the aromatic combination of onions, carrots, and celery at the root of all French cooking, is typically sweated, rather than sautéed or browned, in an effort to prevent coloring. Sweat onions to add to risotto bianco, cauliflower purée, or any other ivory-colored dish where flecks of browned onions would offer unwelcome punctuation.

  A foundation of sweated onions is the secret to delicate-tasting single-vegetable soups such as English pea, carrot, or Silky Sweet Corn Soup, whose recipes are identical: sweat onions, add the chosen vegetable, cover with water, season with salt, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and remove from the heat the moment the vegetables are cooked, or even just before that moment in anticipation of the carryover that will occur. Place the whole pot in an ice bath to chill immediately, and purée. Stir, taste, adjust, and serve with a tasty garnish, replete with acid and fat, such as an herb salsa or crème fraîche.

  To keep temperatures in the sweat zone, watch the pan closely. Add salt to draw water out of the vegetables. Use a pan or pot with tall sides to discourage steam from escaping. Parchment paper or a lid will help entrap and recycle steam, if needed. And don’t hesitate to add a splash of water from time to time if you sense a brown spot starting to form.

  A note on stirring: it tends to dissipate heat. So, stir regularly when you want to keep food from browning, and stir less often to let browning take its course. Stir with a wooden spoon, which is both strong and soft, to prevent sugars or starches from building up at the bottom of pots of caramelizing onions, béchamel sauce, or polenta. You don’t have to get too crazy about stirring—just add it to the toolbox of tricks you can use to encourage or discourage browning.

  The Frying Continuum

  In Fat, I explained that the various names for frying methods generally refer to the amount of fat used in each preparation. Whether you’re deep-, shallow-, pan-, or stir-frying or sautéing, the concept is the same: preheat the pan and the fat long enough so that food immediately begins to brown once it’s added, but regulate the temperature so that the food cooks through at the same rate its surface browns. Always resist overcrowding the pan and moving food around too much, too soon. Proteins in particular will stick to the pan as they begin to cook. Leave fish, chicken, and meat be for a few minutes, and once they begin to brown, they will release from the pan.

  The term sauté is derived from the French word for “jump,” and it refers to the little jag of the wrist used to flip all of the food in a pan. Use minimal fat when sautéing to avoid burning yourself with a splash of hot oil—just enough to barely coat the bottom of the pan (about 1/16 inch) will do. Sauté small foods that will cook through at the same rate their surfaces will brown, such as shrimp, cooked grains, small pieces of vegetables or meat, and greens.

  Sautéing saves both time and a utensil, and also ensures even browning on all sides, so it’s a good skill to cultivate. Don’t worry if you don’t have the flipping action down—it took me years to master. Just lay an old sheet on the living room floor and practice: place a handful of rice or dried beans in a frying pan with curved sides, tilt the pan down and your elbow up, and flip fearlessly until you get the action right. In the meantime, use metal tongs or a wooden spoon to move your sautéing food around the pan.

  To pan-fry, use enough fat to generously cover the bottom of the pan (about 1/4 inch). Pan-fry larger foods—such as fish filets, steaks, pork chops, or Finger-Lickin’ Pan-Fried Chicken—that need more time to cook through. Let the pan and the fat preheat long enough so that any food you add will immediately start to sizzle, but don’t crank the heat: the food should brown at the same rate it cooks through. Since chicken breasts and fish filets take longer to cook through than bite-size pieces of meat or shrimp, the temperature here should be slightly lower than when sautéing.

  Shallow- and deep-frying are fraternal twins, both ideal for cooking starchy vegetables, or battered and breaded foods. Appearances aside, the two methods are nearly identical. Submerge foods in fat a little more than halfway to shallow-fry. Submerge foods completely to deep-fry.

  Whichever form of frying you’re undertaking, the temperature of the oil should be right around 365°F. (Just think, I wish I were eating fried food 365 days a year! to remember the right temperature for frying. Or simply mark 365°F on your frying thermometer with a permanent marker.) Much lower, and a crust won’t form quickly enough, resulting in soggy food. Much higher, and the batter will burn before the food it encases has a chance to cook. The only exception to this rule: dense, tough foods that take a while to cook through, such as chicken thighs, which can fry for upward of 15 minutes. Add chicken thighs to oil at about 365°F to get that desired crust, but let the temperature drop to 325°F, where they can cook through without burning.

  Like that roadside cook I watched making chapli kebabs in Pakistan, pay attention to the signals frying foods emit as they cook, and eventually you won’t need to get your thermometer out every time you fry. Steam, bubbles, food rising to the top of the pot, and browning are all clues to heed. When the temperature is hot enough, food sizzles and browns—but not too violently or quickly—upon entering the pot. When the bubbling ceases and steam slows down, batter is done cooking. When food is crisp and golden, it’s ready to pull from the oil.

  The amount of food you add into a pot of oil will affect its temperature. The more, bigger, colder, and denser the food you add, the farther its temperature will drop. If the o
il takes too long to climb back to 365°F, the food will overcook before it has a chance to brown properly. Preemptively heat oil just past the ideal zone or add less food at once in anticipation of a big drop in temperature, and always let oil temperature return to the ideal point in between batches.

  Since the ideal frying temperature is so far beyond 212°F, any water in the batter or on the surface of a frying food will immediately vaporize—the source of all of the bubbling. The key to getting a crisp, golden-brown crust is to encourage that vapor—steam—to escape as quickly as possible. In other words, don’t overpack the pot. Battered foods must never touch or be more than a single layer deep in the oil—otherwise they’ll cook into a big, soggy mass. While foods fried sans batter—such as potato, kale, or beet chips—can and will touch, stir them often to prevent them from sticking together, and to encourage them to brown evenly on all sides.

  Choose to shallow-fry delicate foods that could be broken apart by the bubbling tumult of deep-frying, such as crab or fish cakes, little chard fritters, or breaded green tomatoes. Deep-frying is a better choice for chips of all kinds, battered foods, and more substantial foods that need total immersion to cook evenly, such as soft-shell crabs.

  Searing

  It doesn’t matter whether you use a grill, a cast iron pan, or a baking sheet preheated in the oven—the main requirement for searing is a blazing-hot cooking surface. Preheat the surface over high heat, then add the fat and let it approach its smoke point before adding meat to sear. Once Eccolo closed, I began to cook more and more in my home kitchen. It was hard to give up the restaurant’s turbo-charged stove and get used to my apartment’s no-frills one with its weak burners. At first, no matter how long I preheated my cast iron pan on the stove, it never got hot enough to properly sear a steak without overcooking it. After a few tough steaks, I started preheating the pan in a blasting hot oven for at least 20 minutes before bringing it up to the stovetop to begin searing over high heat. It works like a charm.