8Dry heat: sauté, grill, roast, fry

Every method here cooks with dry heat. Deep-frying, pan-frying, stir-frying and sautéing all use fat. The only real difference between them is the amount of fat in the pan.

Grilling cooks food over charcoal, gas, wood or another heat source. Roasting wraps food in hot air.

Meat has five dry-heat methods:

• roasting
• pan-frying
• pan-broiling
• oven broiling
• deep-fat frying

8.1 Sauté and pan-frying

The heat reaches the food mainly by conduction. Conduction means heat passing straight from the hot pan into the food that touches it. Done well, a sauté browns the outside and keeps the food's own texture, moisture and flavor.

Getting the food and the pan ready

• Cut the food small, or slice it thin. Small pieces cook through in the short time a sauté takes.
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• Choose a pan wide enough for every piece to lie flat in one layer. Steam then has room to escape. A crowded pan traps the steam, and the food stews in its own liquid instead of browning.
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• Sauté pans are a type of pan made for this job.
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Choosing the fat

A sauté is cooked at medium-high heat, so the fat must stand that heat without smoking. The smoke point is the temperature at which a fat starts to smoke. Some oils have a smoke point too low for sautéing. Common choices are sunflower oil, rapeseed oil and clarified butter.

Plain butter tastes better, but it holds milk solids. These burn at a lower heat and sooner than other fats. Clarified butter is the better choice for a sauté.

Cooking

Everything goes into the hot pan together and cooks quickly. Keep it moving. You can stir with a spoon or spatula, or toss the food by jerking the pan.

When the food is meat, chicken or fish, browned bits stick to the pan. These bits are called fond. Cooks often finish the dish by deglazing the fond, turning it into a sauce.

Sauté or sear?

Searing is not the same as sautéing. A sear only browns the surface of the food. In a sauté, the food is browned and cooked quickly all at once.

8.2 Grilling and broiling

Fitting the method to the food

Grills burn charcoal, gas, wood and other fuels, and they cook steak, poultry, fish, seafood and vegetables. So there are many ways to grill. Choose a method by thinking about three things: the food, the heat source, and the result you want. Personal taste and the weather matter too. Will you cook inside or outside?

Direct heat

In direct grilling, the food sits right above the heat. It is the simplest and most common way to grill. The heat is usually high, which makes it good for searing. To sear on a grill, the cook browns both sides of the food hard for a few minutes, to seal flavors. A thicker piece of meat can take a longer sear.

After the sear, the food can move to a cooler part of the grill to finish. Burgers, sausages, steaks, chops and kabobs suit direct heat. They are usually fully cooked in half an hour or less.

Indirect heat

In indirect grilling, the food is kept away from the heat source and cooks by reflected heat. The lid stays closed for most of the cooking. If the food has to sit over the heat, the heat must be kept low. This is close to roasting in an oven. It suits big pieces that need a long time, such as roasts, legs of lamb and whole turkeys. Some foods get both: a sear over direct heat first, then indirect heat to cook through.

Diamond grill marks on steak

• Heat the grill until it is very hot, around 500 to 550°F.
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• Season the steaks with salt and pepper, or another seasoning.
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• Lay each steak on the grill so its ends point to 10 o'clock and 4 o'clock.
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• Wait until the underside is seared and juice starts to show on top. Then turn each steak clockwise so the ends point to 2 and 8 o'clock.
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• A minute or two later, turn the steaks over. Cook to the doneness you want. A meat thermometer helps if you are unsure.
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• Move the steaks to a clean plate. Let them rest for about 5 minutes so the juices spread back through the meat.
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Broiling

To broil beef steaks in the oven:

• Cut through the fat and the epimysium about every inch. The epimysium is the connective tissue wrapped around a muscle. The cuts stop the steak from curling.
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• Take the broiler pan out of the oven and turn the oven to broil. An electric broiler is preheated; a gas broiler is not.
• Set the meat on the rack of the broiler pan, 2 to 5 inches below the heat. A steak wanted rare goes nearer the heat. A steak wanted well done goes farther away.
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• Keep the oven door open a little during broiling.
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• Broil until the top is brown. By then the steak should be about half cooked, or a little more.
• Turn the steak and brown the second side. To test doneness, make a small cut next to the bone, or in the middle of a boneless steak. A thermometer reading is a second check.
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Season broiled meat after it browns, not before, or leave it unseasoned. Salt pulls moisture to the cut surface, and that wet surface is slower to brown.

These are the end temperatures for broiled steak. Each steak rests for 3 minutes.

Doneness can also be judged by the color and texture of the meat.

8.3 Roasting

What roasting is

Roasting surrounds food with hot, dry air. The heat comes from an oven, an open flame or another source, at 300°F or more. The heat is indirect and spread out, so all sides cook evenly. The surface browns, and browning adds flavor through caramelization and the Maillard reaction.

Roasting is slower cooking, suited to a large piece of meat left whole. Meat cooked this way is called a roast. Most root and bulb vegetables roast well too. Food cooked this way is "roasted": roasted squash, roasted chicken.

The method works best for whole chickens and turkeys, and for the leaner cuts of beef, pork and lamb. Roasting shows off the taste of the meat itself. In braising and other moist-heat methods, the sauce or stew carries more of the flavor.

Racks, pans, spits and string

• Food can roast on a rack or in a roasting pan. For the most even heat, it can turn on a spit or rotisserie.
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• A pan keeps the juices. They can go into gravy or Yorkshire pudding.
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• Many roasts are tied with string first. The string holds the roast together, keeps any stuffing in, and keeps the roast round, so it cooks evenly.
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• Cooks often baste a roast as it cooks. Basting means brushing or spooning butter, lard or oil over the surface. It slows the loss of moisture.
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Three temperature plans

Collagen is the part of meat that makes it tough. A slow oven dissolves more of it. At 350°F and above, the muscle loses its water fast. Strictly speaking, 200 to 320°F is below roasting temperature, but cooks still call it slow roasting. A whole chicken can also do well at 450°F.

Carryover cooking

The goal of every plan is the same: good color and texture, and as much moisture kept in as possible. As meat cooks, its structure and its collagen break down, and juice starts to flow. Meat is at its juiciest around medium rare.

Rare meat and safety

Beef, lamb, venison and some game birds are often served pink or rare in the center. Some restaurants now serve pork pink as well. The only sure way to avoid foodborne illness is to check the temperature at the center of the roast.

Roasting a pork rib roast

• Set the oven to 325°F.
• Put the roast fat side up in a shallow, open roasting pan. The rib bones hold it up, so no rack is needed. A roast without bones does need a rack.
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• Push a meat thermometer in so its bulb sits in the middle of the biggest muscle, not touching bone and not in fat. Before using a glass thermometer, make a hole with a metal skewer.
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• Roast until the center reads 63°C (145°F).
• Let the roast stand for about 10 minutes, then carve.

8.4 Frying: shallow and deep

How much fat

All frying works on the same idea. What changes is the depth of fat. Sautéing and stir-frying use a thin film. Pan-frying uses about half an inch of oil. Deep-frying uses enough oil to cover the food completely.

Why frying is fast

Fat carries heat into food much better than air or water. So frying is far quicker than baking or boiling. It also gives food a crisp crust and a rich taste. The big drawback is health. Deep-fried food comes out holding between 5 and 40 percent of its weight in oil.

What happens in the hot oil

Frying oil is usually heated to between 350 and 425°F. When food goes in, it fizzes hard. The oil is not boiling. The bubbles are steam bursting out of the food, because water boils at 212°F and the oil may be twice as hot.

That steam does two useful jobs. It pushes the oil back, so oil stays at the surface. It also cools the oil right around the food. This gives the center time to heat through and flavors time to form, before the outside burns.

As steam leaves, the surface dries into a crisp crust. Then heat moves faster to the center. Watch the bubbles. When they become fewer and calmer, the food is almost done. Lift it out when it reaches the golden brown you want, then drain it, season it and serve it. For deep-fried chicken, check with an instant-read thermometer that it has reached 165°F.

The browning on the outside of deep-fried food is an example of the Maillard reaction.

Greasy food and soggy food

Poor draining and a long wait before serving also make food greasy. Batches can cause that wait. A wire rack set in a sheet pan drains food better than paper towel on a flat surface, because the dripping fat stays away from the food. Keep finished food in a 200°F oven until it is served. While it stays hot and steaming, oil is slow to soak in.

Coated food goes soggy as it cools. The moisture trapped between the coating and the food turns to water drops instead of steam, and the crust softens from the inside.

Batters and breadings

A coating guards the food from the fierce action at its surface. It also keeps moisture in and adds taste and texture.

• Batter gives a smooth, crisp, often delicate crust. Food is sometimes floured before it is battered. High-gluten flour makes a chewy crust. Gluten-free flour, such as rice flour, makes a very thin, very crisp one. Egg or sugar in a batter makes the crust darker.
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• Batter has less surface area than most breadings, so it takes up less oil. It protects delicate food best, which is why fish is so often battered. Louisiana-style fried fish is seasoned and then coated in corn flour or cornmeal.
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• Breading gives a crunchy, textured crust. Fine crumbs take up less oil than coarse ones, but they go soggy more easily. For an extra-crisp coating, use large pieces that are already crisp, like panko or crushed cornflakes. Panko is Japanese-style breadcrumbs.
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• The usual breading order has three steps. First, flour, sometimes seasoned. Next, a wet dip: egg wash, buttermilk or whipped egg whites. Last, the outer coat: panko, cracker crumbs, white flour or corn flour.
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• Starchy foods such as potatoes, plantains and yucca root need no coating. They form a protective skin of their own in the fryer.

Deep-fryer safety

Follow these rules for deep-frying.

• A pan of oil on the stove goes on a back burner. An electric fryer goes where nobody can catch its cord.
• Keep a lid close by. Use it only if the oil catches fire.
• Put a thermometer in the oil and heat the oil to the temperature the recipe asks for.
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• Move food in and out with a slotted spoon, tongs or a basket. Never crowd the oil: one layer of food at most.
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• Let the oil drip off over the pot before the food goes onto paper towel.
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• Never walk away from heating oil. If it catches fire, turn the burner off and cover the pot with the lid. Smother any other flames with a wet towel, a fire blanket or a fire extinguisher. Never throw water on burning oil.
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• When you are done, let the oil cool, then strain it through two or three layers of cheesecloth.
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Oil also wears out. Rancidity is the off flavor that develops as oil oxidizes and breaks down.

Frying temperatures in practice

Recipes for these deep-fried foods use oil between 330 and 375°F:

Two terms come up with fried foods. A fritter is chopped food coated in batter and deep-fried. A croquette is a mixture of meat and vegetables bound with white sauce, then coated and deep-fried.

A good deep-fried product

• Appearance: a fairly smooth outside, an even golden brown. The inside is cooked all the way through and has taken up little oil.
• Texture: a crust that is crisp or tender, never soggy.
• Flavor: no greasy taste and no greasy feel in the mouth.

8.5 Dry heat for tender cuts

Tender cuts of meat, and meat that has been made tender, can be cooked in a frying pan by two dry-heat methods: pan-frying and pan-broiling. Lamb chops, pork chops, beef patties, pork sausage and bacon all cook well this way.

Both methods begin the same way. Cut through the epimysium, the connective tissue around the muscle, at one-inch intervals.

Pan-frying

• Brown both sides of the meat in a little vegetable oil or shortening. Some cuts need no added fat. Lean meat and breaded meat need enough fat to coat the whole bottom of the pan.
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• Turn the meat from time to time so it browns evenly. Set the heat so the inside reaches the doneness you want while the outside is neither too brown nor too pale.
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• Test doneness with a sharp knife: a small cut beside the bone, or in the middle of a boneless cut.

Pan-broiling

Pan-broiling cooks meat in a dry, heavy pan, with only enough fat to stop sticking.

• Brush the pan with vegetable oil or shortening so the meat will not stick. Skip this with a non-stick pan.
• Put the meat in a heavy frying pan or on a griddle.
• Cook it slowly and turn it now and then. As with pan-frying, adjust the heat so the inside and outside are done at the same time.
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• Pour off fat as it collects. If the fat stays in the pan, the meat ends up fried, not pan-broiled.
• Check doneness with a small knife cut near the bone, or at the center of a boneless piece.
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Meat that has been made tender

Meat can also be made tender with an enzyme. To test this, cut a half-pound round steak into two matching pieces. Treat one piece with a store-bought enzyme tenderizer, following its label. Pan-broil both pieces to medium, and salt only the untreated piece.

Questions to think about

• What five dry-heat methods can you name?
• What is the lowest safe internal temperature for whole cuts of beef, veal, lamb and pork? For ground meat?
• How do flavor, juiciness and tenderness change as meat is cooked further?
• Which ways of tenderizing meat by machine worked?
• Is every muscle in a single retail cut equally tender?