Take it off!

We made omelets this morning. I made mine first trying to get it as perfect as I could. Then I watched Marty make his. As I was watching him while I was eating, I started thinking about this blog post.

Now I know when some people read this, they are going to say, ”Oh my goodness, I never thought of that!” or “It makes so much sense!”  Other people are going to read this and say, “No shit Sherlock.”

I’m referring to the situation when you have a pan on the stove and things start cooking too quickly or brown too fast and burn. Garlic is a perfect example of this, it only takes a few seconds until it becomes fragrant, and is done. Taking it anything further than light, golden brown makes the garlic become bitter ruining your dish.

I like my scrambled eggs and omelets the French cooking method with absolutely no brown on them. The smell and the thought of a browned omelet or scrambled eggs make me sick. I can’t tell you how many eggs I threw out in a fit of frustration because they cooked too quickly.  

I am not a food snob, but I like what I like.  I never order scrambled eggs or omelets out unless the menu says explicitly French style eggs, which is rare, by the way. 

The French omelet vs an American omelet requires its own blog post. There is so much to talk about, but here is a quick photo for a quick visual to demonstrate what the hell I am talking about. 

“I hate my electric stove,” so many people say. You can’t control the heat and I burn everything.

If any of this sounds familiar to you then I’ve got solution that is so simple but life-changing.

When you have a pot or pan on the stove whether it’s a gas range or electric and you see whatever is in the pan is cooking too quickly, you simply move or slide the pan off the burner. It takes the pan off the heat immediately, then you don’t have to worry about residual heat from your electric range or gas burners. 

So simple it’s stupid right? The next time you’re watching your favorite cooking shows see if you can catch them doing this. I started noticing the chefs on Top chef moving their pans on and off the heat. I also watched my chef friend Martin do this as well. I tried it myself and was like, damn, how come no one tells you to do this? 

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Gordon Ramsay screams at the poor MasterChef competitors, “Take the pan off the heat for bloody hell! Oh my God!”  Then he starts rubbing his eyes right out of his head in complete frustration. The frazzled looking contestant looks at him like, “Duh, how can I be so stupid.” Heard chef!

There isn’t much out there on the internet telling home cooks about this little trick. Why not? That’s why I am telling you. 

I bring up Gordon Ramsey again because in his recipe and video for perfect scrambled eggs, Chef Ramsey uses this on and off the heat technique. We do too!  Look it up on youtube and try making his eggs. They are delicious, so are chef Wiley DuFresne’s!

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A lot of recipes instruct to remove the pan from the heat. Most cooks just turn off the burner.  They told you to remove it for a reason! So it doesn’t continue to cook from residual heat. 

I can think of dozens of examples of when you should slide your pan off the burner even if it doesn’t tell you to in a recipe. 

For example, when you are adding a liquid or tomato sauce to a saute pan with let’s say olive oil, onions, and garlic and it starts boiling and splattering immediately.  Move the pan from the heat, lower the burner and replace the pan. 

If a pan starts getting too hot when you are making chicken cutlets, you don’t want the breadcrumb that are left in the pan to burn. Take it off the heat for a few seconds, and check your temperature. If there are some very dark breadcrumbs left in the pan, wipe them out and add more oil for your next batch. If you don’t your cutlets will taste bitter. 

You lift the lid of a pot or saute pan and didn’t realize things are just starting to overcook. Get it off the heat for a few seconds.  This happens with rice very often.  Scored rice is not crispy rice, it’s burned.

Making custard is tricky, but not when you move the pot on and off the heat.   Most recipes will tell you to remove your pot from heat when you are tempering your eggs before adding them to the hot milk and sugar.  If you don’t you will end up with scrambled eggs. In the same recipe, they don’t tell you to move the pan on and off the heat while the custard is thickening, this is why so many custards end up being scorched. So annoying to go to all that trouble and have the custard scorch at the end. 

So take it off for bloody hell! Who knew that just a small kitchen secret can save thousands of ruined meals, and why the hell is no one else talking about it?