Food for Thought with Alex Bielak- Heat in the Kitchen

We all know the adage “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” I can imagine it being yelled at the height of a dinner service in a French restaurant in the days of Escoffier. The yeller would have been Chef, immaculate in his whites and toque; the yellee some hapless apprentice wilting at the stovetop as a result of his exertions during a long shift.

The title of this week’s column is a nod towards the remarkably-titled book by Bill Buford, “Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany.” It’s a great read, and gives true insight into what passions can drive those who are obsessed with food.

My nephew, a talented pastry chef, once told me that when he was cooking in a Michelin-starred restaurant,
the frying pans went on the heat at the beginning of the night and came off once the last main course had been sent to the pass. Skin-searing stuff, literally, if one’s attention lapsed.

The fact is commercial kitchens have industrial ranges that far surpass the BTUs emitted by most residential stovetops. And, in my view, this is one of the key reasons why food in restaurants seems consistently tastier than what we cook at home. Oh, there are other reasons for sure, but heat is a key, one, believe me.

Over the past five years, thanks to my membership of a cooking fraternity (more about this in the future), I’ve had the opportunity to cook under the tutelage of something in the order of 30-40 chefs, some practicing their craft in the finest restaurants from Toronto to Niagara, others providing personal chef services, working as instructors, or even running food trucks.

The food we’ve prepared has spanned the gamut from Indian and Thai to German, French and Italian. I hold these artisans in huge esteem, not only for their skills and passion, but also for their congeniality and willing generosity in sharing both craft and recipes. I’ve learned something from every one of them. But the consistent message has been “heat, more heat”.

A hot pan is one of the most common ways of generating the Maillard reaction, whereby proteins recombine with sugars in food to produce an array of flavour molecules. It is those which are responsible for the browning and tastiness of any number of dishes ranging from toast through to a perfectly-seared, juicy scallop or fillet mignon. To see what I mean, see the photos of the perfectly-seared dry-aged Wellington County striploin, as presented by Chef Ryan Crawford of Gastrohomestead (and previously the Stone Road Grille, aka The Rest, in Niagara on the Lake) at a recent event I attended.

You can read more about the science of Chemist Jean-Camille Maillard’s reaction here, but practically it means this: Ensure you heat your pan hotter than you thought before searing your meat. (Cooking meat in a cold pan virtually ensures that you will stew it. Ditto if you overcrowd any food in the pan.) So heat the pan (for up to several minutes providing you have a good heavy pan), and then add your high smoke point oil (e.g. canola, grapeseed). When the oil shimmers and begins to give off tiny wisps of smoke, add your steak. Then let it brown. Don’t fiddle with it and it will release easily after a couple of minutes, allowing you to turn it over at the appropriate moment.

And after you’re done those crusty bits left in the pan are full of flavour too. You can deglaze the pan with some stock or wine to make a great pan sauce.

So stay in that kitchen dear readers, and make sure you turn up the heat. Yes Chef!

For more pictures, click here.

Alex (Alex can be reached at fft@thehamiltonian.info ) or on twitter @AlexBielak

Food for Thought logo, designed and kindly donated by Ninka Bielak. Ninka can be reached at ninka.bielak@gmail.com.