I'm Just Here for the Food_ Version 2.0 - Alton Brown [64]
Such situations require constant management. We have to fiddle with the heat, which is a pain, and we have to stir to keep the heat distributed throughout the pot, which is also a pain because not all foods enjoy being smacked around by a big wooden spoon.
Those of us with high-end electric burners have it a little easier when it comes to sub-boiling because the coils generally have a wider diameter, which makes for more even heating. Still, I’ve yet to meet an electric eye I felt I could trust any more than the average rattlesnake.
So what’s a cook to do? How are we to enjoy those soup beans, that beef stew, or that pilaf? Where can the heat be evenly applied and easily controlled?
The Oven
When it comes to sub-boil cookery, here’s what I believe: Simmering (including the second act of braising and stewing) means cooking in a water-type liquid held just below the boil, and the best way to maintain that temperature is in an oven. With some exceptions, I do all my simmering in a 250° F oven for the first hour, and then 225° for the rest of the cook time. The oven can maintain sub-boil temperatures for long periods of time (and I’ve got a thermometer to prove it). The heat moves into the vessel from all sides rather than through a small spot on the bottom, so the food inside cooks evenly, with little if any stirring.
Good simmering candidates include dried beans and other legumes, hearty greens, rice dishes, and meat stews and braises. Soup beans are the perfect example. Here’s a very simple food that’s darned good and good for you but that often comes out of the pot smushed to mush. Salt often takes the blame for cracked skin and spilled guts, but I’m not buying it.
With the exception of black beans and lentils, dried beans need to be soaked before cooking. The argument for dumping the soaking liquid has to do with liquid gas—the kind that leads to unfortunate social mishaps. Legumes contain gigantic sugars called oligosaccharides. The human machine lacks an enzyme capable of breaking these megamolecules down into pieces small enough for the intestine to absorb. So they move downstream to the colon. Now, the colon is very different from the small intestine, it’s rather densely populated with bacterial clans, all roaming around in search of a meal. When the oligosaccharides come floating by, the bacteria have themselves a feeding frenzy. One of the by-products of this frenzy is gas, which gathers uncomfortably, gurgles loudly, then, much to the delight of eight-year-old boys everywhere, seeks an exit.
CLAD PANS
Manufacturers of fine cookware are always trying to figure out how to construct pots and pans so that they evenly distribute the heat of a stove top to food. It’s a tough nut to crack. As we discussed earlier, no one metal is ideal for cooking. Iron holds heat, and aluminum and copper conduct it, but all three are vulnerable to the kitchen environment. Stainless steel is tough and easy to care for, but it’s a pretty lousy heat conductor. The answer: a metal sandwich. Take a sheet of aluminum or copper, wrap it in a protective layer of stainless steel, and you’ve got clad cookware. Some manufacturers are content to weld a clad disk onto the bottom of a nonclad, stainless-steel vessel, which does result in better (that is, more even) conduction across the bottom of the vessel, but not the sides. The very best clad vessels are actually formed from the clad metal. That means that everywhere there’s pan, there’s a core of highly conductive metal surrounded by stainless steel. Heat can therefore move easily up the sides of the pan, for more even heating throughout.
The downside of clad cookware is the cost. These are not cheap vessels to make, and you can easily shell out a hundred