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By Root 639 0

by a touch of sweetness. White peppercorns are mature berries that have been dried and rubbed from their skins. They are less pungent than darker pepper. Green peppercorns are brined or freeze-dried and have a slightly sour character, similar to capers. Whole peppercorns can be stored up to a year in a cool, dry place, but their essential oils disperse quickly when ground, so use a pepper mill rather than a pepper shaker. (For more on spices, see Spice Rubs.)

CHAPTER 1

Searing

The fastest way to get heat into food short of dipping it in hot lava...tastes better, too.

King Sear

This method creates a flavorful brown crust on the surface of many foods, the mere mention of which has been proven to activate saliva production in human test subjects (a fact not lost on the food service industry). What searing does not do is “seal in flavors” or “seal in juices.” If you feel it necessary to seal in juices you should buy a laminator.

HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED

A source of high heat. The average electric cook-top coil tops out at 2000° F. A gas flame—my personal favorite—can reach 3000° F. Searing can also be executed in a pan on the floor of a hot oven or on the exhaust manifold of a Formula One racing car (yes, it’s been done).

A perfect vessel

Not only does the ideal searing surface (pan, skillet, and so on) have to get very, very hot, it has to get evenly hot all over and it has to be able to maintain that heat even in the face of foods. Several materials are ruled out from the get-go. Wood and paper make lousy searware because they tend to become fuel before they get hot enough to actually sear anything. Glass and ceramics are such lousy conductors of heat that they’re called “insulators.” Come to think of it, all the really great heat conductors are also great electrical conductors and they’re all metal. What’s so special about metals? Besides the fact that they can be molded, cast, and forged, they have a unique, crystal-like molecular structure. The atoms are locked in a uniform geometrical pattern, which makes metals (except mercury) pretty darned tough to bend or break. But their outer electrons are so weakly bound that they just wander around throughout the surface like quantum Flying Dutchmen, which is exactly what makes metals such good conductors. So when the electrons meet the heat on the bottom of the pan, they vibrate through to the other side, thus conveying the hot stuff to the cool stuff. Of course, this leads to the question: Which metal sears the best?

Copper is the hands-down winner when it comes to conductivity—that’s why we make wire out of it (that, and the fact that it’s easily extruded). Trouble is, purchasing copper cookware often requires taking out a small loan. And since copper is toxic in large amounts it has to be lined with either steel or tin, which tends to wear off. Save copper for where it’s really needed: a bowl (see Reactivity).

Aluminum is also a righteous conductor. It’s economical and it’s light, but that’s a problem, because being light it lacks the density to hold a lot of thermal energy. That means it’s going to need some recovery time when something cold comes to call. Aluminum also reacts chemically with certain ingredients and eventually warps, so I’d skip it altogether.

Stainless steel is bright and shiny, durable, relatively inexpensive, and relatively easy to clean. Did I mention that it’s bright and shiny? But it’s not a great conductor because it’s an alloy, a mixture of several metals. And that means that instead of a neat and tidy molecular structure it looks something like this:

This makes it tough for electrons to get around. I still think stainless steel makes a swell sauté pan, but for searing I’ll hold out for iron.

Iron is dense—really dense—which makes it a relatively slow conductor. But that density also allows for even heating, and once it gets hot it stays hot.7 Iron is very economical, and cooking with it supplies dietary iron, which a lot of us (especially women) tend to run short on. Cast-iron pans must occasionally be seasoned,