• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

½ tablespoon peppercorns

1 whole broiler-size chicken

Hardware:

Heavy-bottomed pot (or electric

skillet) large enough to fit

the whole chicken

Probe thermometer

Tongs

Rack

Baking sheet

Simmering

Master Profile: Simmering

Heat type: wet

Mode of transmission: 80:20 percent ratio of conduction to convection

Rate of transmission: moderate to high

Common transmitters: any liquid

Temperature range: narrow 175-200° F (depending on who you ask)

Target food characteristics:

• Dehydrated starches: rice, dry beans, oats, barley

• Hearty greens: collards

• Foods that can stand up to high heat and some physical convection

Non-culinary application: Jacuzzi on “kill”

Time and sub-boiling temperatures are the Lerner and Loewe of the kitchen world, a team capable of converting simple culinary notes into remarkable opuses (or is that opi?). Unfortunately, two factors conspire to prevent the cook from hearing the music: dropping below the visual benchmark boil is like flying on instruments; there’s not much to see and what there is can rarely be trusted. Also, the sub-boil lexicon is a nomenclatural netherworld where terms like simmer, poach, braise, coddle, stew and scald create connotative chaos. Consider the most oft-mentioned cooking term in the English culinary lexicon: simmer. There are two common definitions:

1. To heat water (or a water-type liquid) to about 195° F or until tiny bubbles form on the bottom of the pan then travel to the surface.

2. To cook foods gently in a liquid held at the temperature mentioned above.

Already we’ve got problems. First there’s this word “about.” The reason so many cookbooks use “about” is that nobody seems to be able to pin simmering (or any sub-boil technique) down to a single temperature.

Then there’s the trouble with bubbles. The temperature at which water will produce “tiny” bubbles depends a lot on the pot, the weather, even the water itself (See Boiling in the Microwave). And what if there’s more in the water than just water? Salt, starch, dissolved meat proteins (maybe oatmeal) can elevate the actual boiling point of the liquid. As stew liquid thickens, its sheer viscosity can impede bubble production. And yet how many stew recipes have you read that refer to those Don Ho bubbles?

Finally, there’s the word “gentle.” Since simmering liquid lacks the physical turbulence of boiling water, it is physically gentle. (Anyone who’s canoed down a river knows that white water will beat you up a lot quicker than flat water.) But when it comes to heat, there are only a few degrees difference between a simmer and a full rolling boil. A “simmer” may not tear your fish to shreds, but it will squeeze the life out of it lickety-split, which is why you should never turn your back on a simmering pot.

So we’ve got all these cooking methods that depend on maintaining water or a watery liquid at relatively low temperatures, in some cases for a prolonged period of time. Now, where should the pot itself go? Well, I’ll tell you where it shouldn’t go: the cook top.

Most ranges, whether gas or electric, have large burners or eyes and a smaller “simmer” eye. The idea here is that since the burner is smaller it will generate less heat, which is true—sort of. The way I see it, natural gas burns at one temperature no matter how much of it there is. Place the tip of a thermometer into the flame of your oven’s pilot light and it’s going to read in the neighborhood of 3,200° F. Now crank your biggest burner and take its temp. They’re the same, right? So what we’re talking about here isn’t so much a matter of the temperature of the heat but the rate at which it’s being produced. That simmer eye, hot though it is, can’t pump out enough heat to bring a large pot of water to a boil in less than a day or two. It can, however, maintain sub-boiling temperatures—but not effectively. That’s because all the heat is being poured into a very small part of the pan (see figure A). Since the metal directly over the flame is very hot