Understanding how [link https://www.chefsteps.com/control-freak-home the Control Freak™ Home] works makes it easier to use. We’ve put together a brief visual guide to help you to start cooking with this powerful machine.
Induction cooktops are powerful and energy efficient alternatives to electric or gas cooktops. However, unlike electric or gas cooktops, they require specific cookware to work. To that end, we’ve put together a list of our favorite induction-compatible pans, pots, and accessories that work well with both the Control °Freak and the Control Freak™ Home.
A stack of beautifully browned, fluffy, and fat flapjacks is iconic. A mound of pale, dense pancakes ... not so much. The key to good pancakes isn’t just the right formula or the right technique, it’s both. This is why there’s that old adage about the first pancake never turning out right—typically, you need a tester or two to dial in the pan temperature just right. But with precise temperature control, every pancake is a winner. The temperature of the pan has to be calibrated to the way the batter puddles or spreads, providing enough heat for the baking powder to kick in, giving the pancakes the appropriate loft, and to brown the cooked sides evenly. Too hot a pan, and your tender pancakes will not only be overbrowned, they’ll also end up dry and chalky. Too cold a pan, and you’ll dry out the pancakes before they take on sufficient browning. We found a precise pan temperature of [f 320] to be ideal for cooking pancakes of all kinds. Using that temp as a starting point, we dialed in the formula for these buttermilk pancakes so they’re plenty lofty, beautifully browned, and oh-so-delicious, thanks to that tangy buttermilk, which we double down on with the inclusion of buttermilk powder.
Sometimes you want pancakes for breakfast, and nothing but a stack of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/buttermilk-pancakes buttermilk pancakes] will do. Other times, you want those ultra-fluffy, souffléd, jiggly Japanese-style pancakes you’ve seen on your IG feed. This recipe is for those other times. Unlike “normal” pancakes, this towering masterpiece of fluff isn’t straightforward; you aren’t just mixing wet into dry and puddling the batter in a pan. This pancake recipe is all about technique—mixing, whipping, folding, cooking temperature, portioning, steaming, flipping. It’s a challenge, but the challenge is worth it. The key to all that loft is a meringue. You create an egg yolk base with your standard issue pancake ingredients, but then whip egg whites (with sugar and cream of tartar for added stability) into a stable foam. Once incorporated into the batter and cooked, the air trapped in the foam pushes the pancake into angel food cake territory: super light, super tall, like eating a cloud in every bite.
Imagine a tender, paper-thin crêpe. Now imagine it with tons of <em>flavor</em>. And what you get is ... buttermilk crêpes! Sitting right in the middle between the blank canvas of regular sweet crêpes and earthy buckwheat galettes, these crêpes have a pronounced tang of buttermilk that adds an extra bit of oomph that complements whatever you want to serve them with. Making crêpes is a technical challenge more than anything else. Even with the right batter formula, spreading the batter out thinly and evenly on the cooking surface requires finesse and practice. However, if you can dial in the temperature of the pan exactly, you have a leg up in the perfect crêpe game. [f 320] is the perfect temperature for tender and delicate crêpes with just the right amount of browning (the same goes for all kinds of [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/buttermilk-pancake-parametric pancakes]), and they’ll still be resilient enough to fold or roll around fillings. Dial it up a notch more to [f 340] and you can have crispier, more browned crêpes that are still tender and springy enough for filling and folding. With a little practice, you’ll be able to repeatedly churn out beautifully mottled tender crêpes like a pro.
Flapjacks, slapjacks, hotcakes, silver dollars, crêpes, blini ... whatever you call ’em, pancakes are delicious. A pancake is a deceptively simple preparation: Mix flour with some kind of liquid and leavening agent and puddle the mixture into a greased pan, and you’ll get a light cake-like foam that serves as a perfect canvas for everything from maple syrup and honey to caviar and sour cream. But, as we all know, there’s a lot of pancake varieties. Depending on the ingredient ratios and methods, you can make a filigree-thin crêpe, a stack of fat flapjacks, or a soufflé-like cushion that’s closer to an actual cake than anything else. What does that mean? That’s right: Pancakes are a perfect candidate for our signature parametric analysis! Specifically, we wanted to demonstrate how ingredient quantities and cooking techniques can yield pancakes of different thicknesses and, consequently, eating experiences. Let’s get into the stacks!
Good schnitzel is all about the “puff.” Unlike other breaded and fried cutlets, like our updated take on [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-chicken-kiev chicken Kyiv], the crust on schnitzel should separate from the cutlet during cooking, which encourages it to become crispier. Since the cutlets are quite thin and the focus on cooking is the crust, they’re easy to overcook. By dialing in the precise temperature of the frying oil (like the chicken Kyiv, we use [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/clarified-butter-ghee clarified butter] for extra flavor) to [f 335], you can get the crust golden brown, puffy, <em>and</em> crispy without overcooking the meat.
It’s hard to beat a well-made duck confit. Rich, fork-tender meat encased in crisp, mahogany-hued skin, it’s in the running for the bistro classic G.O.A.T. race; for our money, it might even rival [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-steak-frites steak frites]. The process for making duck confit is super simple: Lightly cure duck legs with salt; gently cook them in fat until tender; and crisp the skin. Getting these steps just right requires precision. Go too heavy on the seasoning and you’re left with hammy, salty confit. Confit the legs at too high a temperature and they turn dry and stringy. And, if you rush the crisping step, you risk tearing and burning the skin. Building off our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/brining-guide poultry brining testing], we settled on curing the legs with 1% salt for 24 to 36 hours. We dialed in the temperature of the duck fat at [f 195] to cook this confit, deviating from our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/easy-crispy-duck-leg-confit sous vide confit], which cooks at a lower temperature for a much longer time. Just like with sous vide, precise control allows to choose your preferred doneness for the confit—in this case by simply extending the cook time rather than changing the cook temperature. And when you can dial in the exact temperature of your pan for crisping the skin for serving, you’re guaranteed perfect results. It’s classic confit, without the guesswork and hassle of juggling a vat of hot duck fat in and out of the oven.
Everyone knows duck confit. But chicken confit? What’s that? Think of a cross between those super-tender brined and roasted chickens at your favorite members-only grocery store, but with a beautifully crisped skin that’s more reminiscent of fried chicken, with more concentrated chicken flavor. Confit might just be the best way to prepare a chicken leg. And if you dial in the cooking and searing temperatures with precision, you also have the ability to determine the final texture of the cooked chicken meat lying just beneath that crispy skin. This method was developed side-by-side with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-duck-confit Precision Duck Confit]. The only difference lies in the cook time, because chicken legs aren’t as tough as duck legs, and they don’t have nearly as much subcutaneous fat, so they only need to cook for a couple of hours. And, since there’s no trappings of tradition to worry about, you can just use neutral oil for the confit, instead of rendered chicken (or duck) fat. It’s easier and quicker to prepare than duck confit, and it might just be as delicious.
Pan searing is a fundamental cooking technique that is perfected with practice. Line cooks can turn out steaks, chops, crispy-skinned fish, and chicken breasts cooked to specific serving temperatures all day, because they’ve cooked thousands of them before. Cook 50 steaks a night, and you’ll get pretty good at temping them by touch. But if you’re not working the meat station at a bustling brasserie, what’s the best way to nail seared steaks consistently? By having complete control over cooking temperature, of course! No, we’re not talking about cooking meat [link https://www.chefsteps.com/sous-vide sous vide] and then giving it a flash in a hot pan. We’re talking about pan-searing proteins with precision induction cooking. We’ve dialed in the details for pan-seared chicken breast, steak, pork chops, scallops, and salmon, leveraging the unmatched temperature and heat control of high-performance induction cooktops so that you can sear like a pro, even if you haven’t hit 10,000 hours on the line.
There are few things that are as delicious as properly pan-seared scallops. Crispy and browned on the serving side, silky, tender, and luscious within. With the right technique, you can sear scallops like a pro, dialing in the exact texture you want, while achieving an even, beautifully browned sear. The key to searing scallops properly is to cook them mostly on one side, a technique known as unilateral cooking, which allows you to build a deeply browned crust. To prevent the scallops from scorching around the edges, the pan temperature needs to be just right ([f 385] if you want to be exact). Moving and lifting the scallops around as they sear ensures that fat is evenly distributed beneath them, and that every part of the seared sides make even contact with the pan. Our method leans into precision pan temperature control to widen the finishing window: Once we’ve achieved a good sear, we kill the heat, add butter to the pan, flip the scallops, and then let them rest in the foaming butter until the core temperature rises to the perfect doneness. Give it a try, and you’ll be searing up perfect scallops in no time.
There’s nothing like a perfectly pan-seared steak: a burnished crust giving away to a rosy interior that extends from edge to edge. The challenge pan-searing presents is all the heat is coming from the pan’s surface, instead of being applied evenly (with [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-steak sous vide]) or not-as-evenly (in an oven) through [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/types-of-heat convection]. You also have two goals that exist in tension: creating that browned crust, which requires intense heat; and gradually bringing up the internal temperature, which requires more gentle heat. Focus too much on one goal and you end up sacrificing the other. The solution? Part of it is rethinking what “high heat” means. Unlike a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-pan-seared-pork-chops lean pork loin chop], steaks are well-marbled and relatively dry; you don’t need to crank the heat as high as it can go to get a good sear. By using the right pan temperature ([f 385]) and flipping the steak very frequently—every 30 seconds—we distribute the application of heat between both sides, drying out their surfaces and kickstarting [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/mastering-the-maillard-reaction Maillard browning], without creating bands of unappetizing gray under the sear. With the time and temperature cues we provide, this technique frees you up to focus on heat levels, pan temperature, and internal temperature; with a little practice, you’ll be pan-searing perfect steaks like a pro in no time at all.
The perfect pan-seared chicken breast is tender and juicy on the inside, with an actually crispy golden skin on top. Our method relies on a two-stage cooking process similar to how you would cook duck breast. Start the breasts skin-side down over medium-high heat to render fat and slowly crisp the skin while gently cooking the meat. Once the skin is golden brown and crisp, add a knob of butter, flip the breasts, and finish them over low heat, gradually cooking them to your preferred doneness. The heat on the finishing step is so gentle that you don’t even need to account for [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/carryover-cooking-why-you-should-let-meat-rest carryover cooking]. And you’re rewarded with super-tender chicken and seriously crispy skin. With the temperature control of precision induction cooking, this whole process is a breeze—you never have to worry about your pan being too hot that it’ll scorch the skin, and with the gentle heat finish, you can cook chicken just the way you want it, every time.
A nicely seared pork chop, with a deeply browned crust and a rosy and juicy interior with a minimal temperature gradient, is a deceptively simple preparation. Unlike [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-guide-to-steak well-marbled steak cuts], pork loin chops are lean, which means they’re easy to overcook, especially with a high-heat method like searing. The challenge searing presents is you’re juggling two goals with only one source of direct heat: getting the deeply browned crust and gently bringing the inside of the chop to the perfect serving temperature. Focus too much on that crust, and you’ll overcook the inside; focus on gently bringing up the internal temperature, and you’ll sacrifice on browning. Our solution is to use a two-stage sear with two resting periods to account for [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/carryover-cooking-why-you-should-let-meat-rest carryover cooking]. By using a very high pan temperature ([f 420]) for the first stage, we kickstart [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/mastering-the-maillard-reaction Maillard browning], giving both sides of the chop a nice, base golden crust. To even out the temperature on the inside and prevent ugly gray bands of meat forming just under the crust, we rest the chop and let the pan cool down. We lower the pan temperature to ([f 350]) and add butter, return the chop to the pan, and baste it with the foaming butter to gently bring up the internal temperature—so gently that it gives you ample opportunity to temp the interior and monitor its progress—and build on the crust we started building with the initial sear. Well before the chop hits its serving temperature, we pull it out of the pan again, so that carryover cooking can take it up to whatever your target serving temperature is.
If there’s one dish that captures the spirit and finesse of Cantonese cooking, it’s whole steamed sizzling fish: a whole fish steamed with aromatics, topped with julienned green onion, anointed with smoking hot oil, then doused in a slightly sweetened soy sauce. It’s a simple but dramatic preparation, but it’s tricky to get just right. The sauce is minimalist, ditto the aromatics, so there’s not a lot to mask the quality of the fish or how it’s been prepared. The key (after [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/selecting-fish-for-purchase selecting the right fish]) is all in the steaming technique: cooking the fish so its flesh is perfectly tender and silky, not chalky and overdone. In many classic Chinese seafood restaurants (the ones with the galleries of fish tanks in the windows), the fish is typically cooked in giant steam ovens, which give cooks two options: fast, vigorous steam and low, gentle steam. Typically, home cooks only use the latter option in their steaming setups, letting the water simmer or boil for the duration of the cook. But if you dial in the precise temperature of the pan—and thus the water inside the steaming setup—you can regulate both the temperature and the amount of water vapor that will cook your fish, creating a far more gentle cooking environment than a steamer with billowing heads of steam. The internal temperature of the fish will consequently rise more slowly, giving you ample time to monitor its progress with a probe thermometer and reducing the risk of overcooking significantly.
Ever since Julia Child burst onto the food scene, Americans have been in love with boeuf bourguignon—beef braised in red wine. As she notes in the inaugural episode of <em>The French Chef</em>, the dish offers a crash course in French culinary technique: How to brown and braise meat, how to sauté mushrooms, how to cook vegetables, and how to make a “wonderful” sauce. For the same reason, beef bourguignon is a great dish to demonstrate how precision temperature control can yield spectacular results. Not just how to brown meat, but how to brown it and then gently simmer it so the collagen in [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/decoding-tough-and-tender-cuts tough stewing cuts] transforms into gelatin without hammering the meat into chalky shreds. Not just how to make a sauce, but how to regulate the temperature of the liquid so that once the meat is cooked, it will reduce into a silky, gelatin-rich sauce without overcooking the meat. With the temperature control of precision induction cooking, you can choose the final texture of the braised beef simply by extending or shortening the cooking time, just like with sous vide. Since the exterior of beef pieces braised in red wine can take on an unappealing texture and muddy appearance, we reduce the wine separately at the start and incorporate it into the braise toward the end of the cooking process. To ensure the sauce has enough gelatin to produce a silky sauce, we fortify the braising liquid with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-bouillon-cubes Ultimate Beef Bouillon Cubes], which also add tons of browned beefy flavor and a healthy dose of seasoning in the form of salt and MSG. Once you get the braise started, it’s almost entirely hands-off, and you’ll be rewarded with one of the best beef stews in the world. We’re sure Julia Child would approve!
Steamed lobster is a New England summer classic that more often than not turns out rubbery and tough. But there’s a much better way to cook lobster and all that’s required is precision temperature control. In a lot of fine dining restaurants, instead of getting dunked whole into a steamer or pot, lobster is carefully taken apart and its disparate pieces are par-blanched and shocked in ice water to cleanly release the meat from the shell. The meat is then gently cooked the rest of the way—not boiled, not steamed, but poached. Not in water, not even in a fancy court bouillon, like the one we use in our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/coctel-de-camaron-mexican-style-shrimp-cocktail cóctel de camarón]. It’s poached in beurre monté—emulsified liquid butter. The beauty of beurre monté is that it only stays emulsified <em>and</em> liquid within a narrow temperature range, which happens to be a great temperature range for poaching delicate proteins. That’s also its primary drawback. Making it can be a little fussy, and keeping traditional monté at the right temperature is fussier still. We use our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bulletproof-beurre-monte Bulletproof Beurre Monté], which is stabilized with xanthan gum and can be heated to much higher temperatures without breaking, which means all you have to worry about is getting it to the exact temperature you want your lobster to cook at: [f 145] for the most tender and succulent lobster meat; [f 155] for firm, juicy flesh that’s closer to (but way, way better than) the stuff that comes out of a boiled or steamed lobster. As a bonus, you can nappe the precision butter-poached lobster in reduced beurre monté for a silky sauce! That’s lobster done right.
Beurre monté—a warm butter emulsion—is a secret weapon in French kitchens. It’s a cooking medium, a welcome addition to almost any dish, and a sauce in its own right. The tricky bit about beurre monté—and the reason why its use is largely confined to professional kitchens—is that it needs to be kept warm. Too hot and the emulsion will break and the milk solids and butterfat will separate from the water. Too cold and it’ll just be warm, spreadable butter. The key is to set it somewhere where the temperature is right in the Goldilocks window and all the beurre monté magic can happen, which is why it’s often used as a precision temperature-controlled cooking medium for poaching delicate proteins, like shellfish and fish. But if you’re working with an emulsion, there’s a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/unlock-your-hydrocolloid-starter-pack hydrocolloid] out there that can stabilize it. This recipe for beurre monté uses [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-science-of-xanthan-gum xanthan gum] to heat-stabilize the fat-in-water emulsion, which means it’ll stay emulsified within a much larger temperature range. You can even chill this beurre monté down, stash it in the fridge for a couple weeks, and warm it back up again. That’s right: It’s bulletproof, and, as a result, super-convenient to have around. The secret’s out. Use it to make [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-butter-poached-lobster Precision Butter-Poached Lobster] and spoon it over at the end for a silky and delicious sauce. Add a spoonful to some sautéed vegetables for a shimmery shiny glaze. Add a spoonful to a broken pan sauce to bring it back together and zhuzh it up a little. The world of beurre monté is yours.
Ever wonder what happened to the crullers at ye olde local chain [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-to-make-bulletproof-fluffy-yeasted-doughnuts-at-home doughnut] shoppe? Us, too! It’s not just that they don’t make ’em like they used to; at most shops, they don’t make ’em at all! Well, we took matters into our own hands. The key to making crullers that are even better than the classic ridged eggy O’s of fried dough? Nailing the precise frying temperature for the pâte à choux, the eggy dough used to make things like éclairs and gougères. Like all choux-based recipes, this one is rooted in fundamental proportions and techniques. For example, a 1:1:1 ratio by weight of water to milk to butter gives an ideal balance of crispness, tenderness, and richness respectively; and a 4:1:1 ratio of eggs to volume of liquid and flour is standard for most choux dough. Most importantly, cooking the flour-liquid paste gelatinizes starches and partially breaks down [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/gluten-seitan-and-vital-wheat-gluten gluten], which renders the dough less elastic. Once the pre-gelatinized starch paste gets dropped in the fryer, the dough will rapidly expand as water converts to steam. But frying crullers can be tricky. If the oil is too cold, the gluten network won’t set and the crullers won’t maintain their shape—the doughnuts will collapse as soon as they cool. Too high a temperature, and the moist and eggy interior will disappear, turning dry and chalky instead. We found [f 340] to be just right, and when you can dial in that frying temperature with precision, you’re rewarded with perfect crullers, every time.
Hollandaise is one of the most temperamental of all French sauces. Many cooks have tried to make hollandaise—tried and failed, cursing the heavens as they stare at a bunch of greasy [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-scrambled-eggs scrambled eggs] instead of creamy, hot mayonnaise. Over the years, we’ve come up with different methods to get from raw eggs, acid, and butter to a beautiful hollandaise—[link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/an-instant-way-to-an-even-better-hollandaise using a blender], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/foolproof-sous-vide-eggs-benedict using sous vide], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bright-fluffy-whipped-hollandaise and even a whipping siphon]. This one might just be the best yet, and it also happens to be the easiest we’ve ever used. The key? Precise temperature control, on your stovetop. Classic techniques for making hollandaise rely on gentle heating of the egg yolks and acid using a double boiler, which limits how hot the mixture can get because [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/should-you-steam-it-or-boil-it-the-difference-matters steam] won’t exceed [f 212] at normal atmospheric pressure. Even with that approximate temperature regulation, each method requires the cook to understand and respond to visual and other sensory cues to produce a silky sauce—and not a curdled mess. But if you can precisely control the temperature of the saucepan so it sits at [f 185], you can literally just dump all the ingredients in there, stir, and watch as the emulsion forms and thickens, transforming from a runny liquid into a rich, spoon-coating sauce. When you dial in the pan temperature, the process is dead simple, which frees you up to notice elements of it that you'd otherwise be too harried or stressed to appreciate, like the phase change that occurs as the emulsion slowly forms and thickens. Do it several times, and you’ll find that even the fussiest of classic hollandaise techniques won’t be intimidating at all. You’ll have a solid reference point for the exact texture you want to achieve, and you’ll have the experience of watching, as if in slow motion, the sauce form. Put simply, you’ll understand the nuances of regulating temperature control when dealing with temperature-sensitive emulsions.
These savory mushroom turnovers might just be the best pastry snacks, since they sound delicious at any time of day, from breakfast through to midnight snack—with midmornings, afternoons, and cocktail hours in between. These flaky, crispy pastries boast a rich and herby roasted mushroom and cream cheese filling that pairs just as well with a coffee or tea as it does a glass of wine. While making turnovers is pretty easy, you have to pay attention to a few details to make them exceptional. You can start by making [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/puff-pastry puff pastry dough] from scratch; in the words of a famous shoeless contessa, store-bought will work fine, but homemade puff pastry will yield flakier, more buttery layers. But the real key to good turnovers is taking into account the moisture content of the filling. If it’s too wet, it’ll sog out the puff pastry, preventing it from baking up into distinct, flaky layers. Roasting the mushrooms gets rid of a ton of excess moisture and produces browned, caramelized notes that intensify their savory qualities and make them all the more delicious. Blitzed up with cream cheese, tender herbs like parsley or chives, and a splash of sherry vinegar for brightness, the filling is rich and balanced, the earthiness of the mushrooms offset slightly by a little lemon zest and black pepper. They’re a perfect snack to have around at all times, but they also work wonderfully as passed appetizers for the holidays (you can make them more bite-sized if you’re worried about guests getting flaky puff pastry crumbs all over your furniture). And this method can be used with other fillings, too, like sweet [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-frangipane frangipane]. For those with dietary restrictions, you can also whip up a plant-based puff pastry and whip up a dairy-free filling!
Layers of plush and buttery yeasted bread and slightly bitter dark chocolate, sweetened with syrup, twisted up and baked in a Bundt pan ... that’s right, it’s our take on chocolate babka! Babka comes in many forms—sweet, savory, and everything in between. The main pitfall of chocolate babka in particular is it can bake up a little dry. We solve for that by intentionally underbaking the bread. Starches gel at [f 185], so cooking the dough to just under that temp ([f 175]) amplifies the gooeyness of the bread, which, when combined with the rich dark chocolate, makes a super-gooey, chocolatey treat, perfect for breakfast or a midday or midnight snack, any day of the week. Sure, it’s basically a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-chocolate-cake chocolate cake], but with none of the stigma attached to eating chocolate cake for breakfast! To preserve the distinct layers of bread and chocolate filling, you have to be a little careful when twisting the dough—too tight and you run the risk of smooshing all those layers together. Once you’ve got the coil of dough and filling twisted tight—but not too tight—we found that setting it in a Bundt pan increased the caramelly browned notes, thanks to the increased surface area. We also reduced the proof and bake times significantly when compared with versions proofed and baked in loaf pans.
Think of the best [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/if-croissants-and-cinnamon-rolls-had-a-baby cinnamon roll] you’ve ever had. Got it? Now imagine the best [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/coffee-cake-with-a-european-twist coffee cake] ever. Great. Now dial up the cinnamon flavor, make it more buttery, add in pecans and a heavy dose of caramel, and picture it coiled into a Bundt pan. There you have it: the best cinnamon babka. There are all kinds of babka—sweet, savory, and in any flavor combination you can imagine. This babka leans into the sweeter side of the babka universe and takes advantage of the fact that enriched, sweet doughs can be underproofed and underbaked and still produce exceptional results. Since starches gel at [f 185], cooking the dough to just under that temp ([f 175]) amplifies the gooeyness of the bread, making it all the more delicious to eat. The key to success is twisting the dough tightly but not too tightly. Using the classic twist for the shaping gives you tons of layers without running the risk of smushing them together (be gentle!). Using a Bundt pan increases the surface area of the exterior, yielding more caramelly, browned notes in the final pastry, with a speedier bake time than babka that’s baked in a loaf pan. It’s also helpful to plan on making the babka over two days. Make the dough and the fillings on the first day, then assemble, proof, and bake it off on the second day.
There are countless ways to break down poultry, depending on the culinary tradition you’re working in and/or the way you plan to use the various parts. For example, breaking down a bird [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-to-butcher-turkey-yakitori-style yakitori-style] requires a different approach than breaking down a chicken for [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chili-fried-chicken Chili Fried Chicken]. This method for breaking down a chicken yields 10 bone-in pieces—two drumsticks, two thighs, two wings, and four breast pieces—plus a back that can be used to make [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pressure-cooked-blond-chicken-stock stock]. It’s commonly referred to as a “country-cut,” and it’s the best method to use for making classic Southern-style [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-ultimate-guide-to-fried-chicken fried chicken] or a stew. The process is designed to produce serving pieces of relatively consistent size, which makes it easier to nail cook times, and it also preserves the integrity of the skin, particularly on the bone-in breast pieces. Let’s get into it.
Pâté en croûte is the pinnacle of charcuterie. Endlessly variable and brutally difficult to prepare well, it’s a test of a cook’s ingenuity, skill, and creativity. Few preparations involve as many intertwined elements and processes, every one of which can go drastically wrong, and every wrong move often means ruining the entire preparation. The pâté en croûte maker is part butcher, part pastry chef, part technician, and part engineer. But to be a master, they need to be a bit of an artist, too. That’s because a pâté en croûte is meant to be visually stunning. Carve off a slice and it should look like a rosy-hued mosaic made of meat instead of tile. Any blemishes or unintended inconsistencies in the interior are immediately apparent, each one evidence of deficiencies in technique. The pastry may look gummy and underbaked, or brittle and too brown; the farce, if overcooked or badly ground, will look mottled and smeared; uncentered inlays point to laziness or haplessness, or both. And if it looks beautiful? Great. But how does it taste? Not everyone can do it well, and not everyone can make it even more delicious than it looks. And the only people who can do it have had to practice it. A lot! There are very few resources for the aspiring pâté en croûte artisan, even in this day and age, where the internet appears to know all. Much of the technique has been hidden behind the pass of brigade kitchens in France. So, we turned to Kevin Smith of Seattle’s Butcher & Cleaver to demo his method for us. This is a deluxe version that Kevin sells at his shop and at his restaurant, The Peasant. Every element is dialed in, including his innovative <em>seamless</em> pastry crust, an impressive bit of pastry architecture that both minimizes leakage and looks incredible. It is, of course, a lot of work. Yes, this recipe is <em>very</em> long. You do not, however, have to make it exactly as written. You do not need the optional (and delicious) inlays of boudin noir and foie gras; you do not need to make pastry braids or apply activated charcoal tuile paste to the exterior; and you do not need to make cute chimneys to prettify the vents in the pastry. But the method described here offers all the wit and wisdom Kevin has accumulated over years of mastering this difficult dish, and it is entirely doable in a home kitchen, provided you have a pâté mold. Don’t believe us? [link https://www.instagram.com/the_english_butcher/p/Cj6D5jnvDOJ/?img_index=10 Kevin took home third place] in the World Pâté-Croûte Championship - Americas competition in 2022—and he did it all in an Airbnb kitchen! Let’s get into it.
Italian beef? Yes, chef! Ever since <em>The Bear</em> came out, everyone’s been running around calling each other chef, and everyone and their <em>cousin</em> have been asking us to put out an Italian beef sandwich recipe. Remember when Carmy had to use all his fine-dining cheffy skills to transform the wrong cut of beef into even-more-excellent Italian beef than the shop usually served? Yeah, we did that. Carmy just used a straight braise, but when you can dial in the exact braising temperature using sous vide or [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/how-induction-works precision induction], you can guarantee great, stress-free results without having to kick anyone off the line in a fit of blind chef rage. Both methods will get you perfectly cooked beef—firm enough to slice thin, tender enough that strips of beef won’t slide out of the sandwich, with a little herbal lift from a spice mix of ground fennel seed, coriander, black pepper, red pepper flakes, paprika, oregano, and thyme. Italian beef is sort of an odd duck of a sandwich meat, since it’s served hot, like [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-pastrami pastrami], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/oven-barbecue-brisket brisket], or shaved ribeye in cheesesteaks, but it’s usually made from bottom or top round—tough, lean cuts that are best served in cold, thin slices in sandwiches because they don’t have a ton of intramuscular fat. The reason why Italian beef is warmed in the beef braising liquid (jus for most of us, “gravy” for you Chicagoans) is because it helps season the meat <em>and</em> makes the naturally lean meat seem “juicier.” For home cooks, the main obstacle to a good Italian beef sandwich is a deli slicer—it’s tough to get super-thin slices of round using a knife. Over the years, we’ve shown countless times that you can transform traditional braising cuts into sliceable roasts that eat like steaks cooked to a perfect medium-rare just by harnessing the power of a long, low-temperature cook, so we applied that method to a series of cuts—round, but also brisket and short ribs—and we found that short ribs gave us the most delicious <em>and</em> most consistent results. Cooked for 24 hours and chilled, you can easily carve off super-thin slices that are perfect for piling into a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/italian-sandwich-rolls soft Italian roll]. The beef is so tender and beefy that it doesn’t need much else. It could be served in a “dry” sandwich with some [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hot-giardiniera hot giardiniera] and you’d be perfectly happy. But because we use [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-bouillon-cubes Ultimate Beef Bouillon Cubes] in the braising liquid, you’re going to want to at least serve it “wet”—dousing the sandwich generously with the glutamate-packed gravy.
If you’re going to make a proper [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-italian-beef Italian beef sandwich], you need the right roll. A roll that’s soft and squishy with a tight, even crumb that can stand up easily to a generous splash of gravy or a full dip. A roll with a tender crust that doesn’t shatter into a million little shards like a hoagie roll or a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/banh-mi-bread bánh mì]. This is it. Using a relatively short proof time helps with that soft crumb, but it also means the bread isn’t as tasty as bread made with an extended proof time. To boost the fermentation and flavor, we give you the option of adding diastatic malt powder. For an even, tight crumb that can absorb the gravy dunk without disintegrating into mush, we use a relatively extended mixing process and then vigorously degas the dough during shaping.
When you order an Italian beef sandwich, you can get it hot, sweet, or both. Getting it hot means you want it with [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/hot-giardiniera hot giardiniera], the pickled mixed vegetables condiment used in so many iconic Chicago foods, including [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/tavern-style-pizza tavern-style pizza]. Sweet means you want some sweet peppers—roasted until meltingly soft then skinned and seeded—to take the edge of the salty, juicy beef. For our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/precision-italian-beef Italian beef sandwich], we wanted to give you the option of going hot, sweet, or both, but we also wanted to kick up the flavor and texture for the sweet option. (You could, of course, bump up the sugar and omit the hot peppers in the hot giardiniera, if you like.) Instead of just using roasted bell peppers, we came up with a roasted pepper condiment that borrows a little of the pickled flavor profile of giardiniera. By roasting the peppers and the onion briefly, then allowing the latent heat to steam the vegetables, their texture is closer to the tender crispness of a nice pickle. We like the way the crisp, lightly sweet vegetables play with the beef, along with the hot giardiniera and the soft and plush bread in an Italian beef sandwich, but it’s also a great all-purpose condiment, as good on pizza slices as it is draped on a cracker with some tinned fish or tucked in a cold cut sandwich.
Dirty rice is an iconic Creole dish of seasoned rice mixed with chopped up, cooked down offal, often chicken livers and giblets. The “dirty” in the name refers to the speckled brown coloring the rice takes on once the livers and giblets have been mixed in. Deeply savory, with a pronounced minerality from the liver and other offal, it’s one of the all-time great side dishes. Fried rice is an iconic Chinese dish of rice tossed in a wok with finely cut vegetables and proteins. The best fried rice consists of cooked rice, coated in fat so that each individual grain is distinct, tossed in ripping-hot wok over the flames of a high-output gas burner, which periodically ignite aerosolized fat to produce the inimitable smoky flavor known as wok hei. What this recipe asks is: What happens if you made dirty rice, but with Chinese fried rice technique? It’s one of the most popular sides that we serve alongside our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chili-fried-chicken Chili Fried Chicken] at [link https://www.peckinghouse.com/ Pecking House]. We borrow “the scrape” technique from Cajun cuisine, in which a purée of chicken liver is smeared onto a cast iron griddle and cooked until deeply browned on the bottom, and then it’s scraped off the griddle and chopped up into fine bits with a spatula. We also use the Cajun “trinity”—celery, green bell pepper, and onion—to hit that distinct flavor profile. But we cook everything in a ripping-hot wok, and we use the standard techniques for making great fried rice: cooking, cooling, drying, and fluffing the rice beforehand, so the grains of rice remain distinct; cutting the vegetables into the finest of dices, so they cook to “tender-crisp” in seconds; and, of course, using a high-output burner so the flames lick the fried rice as it’s tossed just over the lip of the wok, for wok hei. Each grain of rice is coated in oil (and a little butter, for richness), and each bite has a little minerality from tiny speckles of charred chicken liver, a little sweetness from the onion, and a little grassiness from the celery and bell pepper. Seasoned with salt and a little MSG, it’s a side that works incredibly well with strongly seasoned mains (like our Chili Fried Chicken) but can also stand on its own as a light meal.
Break out your [link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WDW8XKEGgU cornballer], folks, because it’s time to fry some cornballs! Hush puppies are basically fried cornbread nuggets. Packed with cubes of smoky tasso ham, cheddar, and sliced scallions, these nuggets are crispy, light, salty, tangy, and slightly sweet from the corn—the perfect side dish. Our batter uses a mix of cornmeal and all-purpose flour, enriched with buttermilk and eggs and leavened with baking powder. Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in stages helps prevent overmixing, which would develop the gluten in the flour a little too much, and it keeps the crumb light and almost cake-like. To boost the sweetness, we serve the hush puppies with “apple honey.” No, it’s not honey made in an apiary on an apple orchard—it’s a syrup made from freshly pressed, unpasteurized apple cider that has the same viscosity as honey at room temperature. Pasteurized cider—or cider that has been treated with enzymes to remove pectin [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pectin-free-juice to improve the product’s clarity]—won’t work in this application. Since the texture is produced by [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/science-of-pectin pectin’s gelling qualities], the cider needs to start with an ample concentration of pectin. With the added sugar and the natural acidity of cider, gently reducing the liquid will transform it into a golden, flowing syrup that tastes distinctly of apples. Call it “vegan honey”! Serve the crispy, golden hush puppies up with a pot of apple honey and a honey wand alongside, so you can drizzle as little or as much as you like, and you might just forget about anything else on the table.
We’ve been hard at work producing a series of recipes for the ultimate versions of standard muffin flavors: [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-blueberry-muffins blueberry], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/lemon-poppy-seed-muffins lemon-poppy seed], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-corn-muffins corn], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/double-chocolate-muffins double-chocolate], [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-banana-nut-muffin banana-nut]. Each one treats muffins like the little cakes they are, and we spared no effort in making those cakes as delicious as they can be. However, we realize that most people just want to throw muffins together as quickly as possible. Maybe for special occasions, like hosting a bonkers brunch, you’d be happy to whip up a meringue and fold it into muffin batter or pull out your blender just to grind cornmeal so fine it performs more like cake flour. But if you want to wake up on a lazy Saturday and put together a sweet breakfast treat in the time it takes to drink a couple cups of coffee? You probably don’t want to get out the stand mixer—you want to use this recipe. If you make this recipe without any mix-ins, you’ll have four perfect jumbo muffins: sweet, with a cake-like crumb, but with none of a cake’s more involved technique. We’ve streamlined the method for tempering the liquid phase of the batter by incorporating hot melted butter, which means you can stir it into the dry ingredients and produce a nice emulsion. (You also have the option of browning the butter first, for the added flavor boost brown butter brings to any sweet pastry). But what this recipe really offers is a base batter that can accommodate all kinds of different flavor variations. We put it to the test and developed 11 flavor combinations to illustrate how you can modify the recipe. You can use these variations as written, of course, but you can also use them as a guide to come up with muffins of your own.
Who wants [link https://youtu.be/gBLX3bcZzXk?si=FVftEO2AkNPat8Lp&t=110 chocolate cake for breakfast]? Maybe the better question is: Who <em>doesn’t</em> want chocolate cake for breakfast? With a super-tender crumb, cocoa powder and dark chocolate chunks in the batter, and a chocolate glaze on top, these rich muffins blur the line between muffins and cakes more than any other muffin recipe. Add in a layer of streusel in the middle and on top, with the option of spiking the streusel with cocoa powder for an extra hit of chocolate, and every bite of these crazy chocolatey cakes will be crunchy, gooey, and pillowy soft, all at the same time. The key to the recipe’s success is properly emulsifying the batter. By tempering the eggs and buttermilk with hot browned butter, we bring the liquid portion of the batter up to a nice warm temperature, which helps create a stable emulsion. That browned butter also helps to give an extra dimension of flavor, rounding out the sweetness of the sugar and the richness of the chocolate.
Banana-nut muffins are S-tier muffins. They're one of the tried-and-true flavor combos that most anyone would welcome at breakfast, so good that even when the muffin itself is kind of dry or bland, you’re still pretty happy. If they've got got nuts and bananas, they're fine. But we wanted an “ultimate” banana-nut muffin! And while we basically took the same tack as with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-blueberry-muffins Ultimate Blueberry Muffin]—dial up the banana flavor, dial up the nuts—we also wanted to improve the muffin itself. Matthew turned to his grandmother’s banana bread recipe and its secret ingredient: orange juice. The acidity from the juice (and an extra bump from some malic acid) offers a nice counterpoint to all the sweet stuff, and it also happens to boost and complement the flavor of the banana. We tried all kind of methods for intensifying the banana flavor by cooking the fruit—pressure cooking with baking soda for more Maillard browning; roasting them in their skins, like we do with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/roasted-banana-pudding Vegan Banana Pudding]—but using large chunks of fresh banana yielded muffins with some really nice big pieces of fruit. So instead of cooking the fruit, we just worked in some freeze-dried banana powder into the batter and some banana extract into the icing. And while there’s nothing wrong with the walnuts usually used in banana-nut muffins, we figured if we’re going to do an ultimate version, we might as well kick it up a notch with pecans. The key step for success here is emulsifying the batter properly, and it helps a lot if you’ve got your ingredients at the right temperature. The recipe calls for warming the eggs but be careful about using orange juice straight from the fridge or chunks of frozen bananas. For the best results, you’ll want to warm the juice and bananas to about room temperature.
Christmas pudding is a classic holiday dessert with medieval roots that serves as a great introduction to the wild world of British cuisine. It’s a pudding but not a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/custard-parametric-analysis custard]. It’s a dessert, packed with beef fat. It’s (sort of) a cake that’s steamed, not baked. If you’re going full medieval, you make it a year in advance, wrap it in a pillowcase, and hang it over the fireplace until <i>next</i> Christmas. And then you douse it in booze and set the whole thing on fire. Christmas pudding defies logic and definition, but one thing is for sure: When done right, it’s downright delicious. In terms of texture and flavor, Christmas pudding gives off [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pure-24-carrot-cake-with-fresh-carotene-cream-cheese-frosting carrot cake] vibes with a baba au rhum boozy kick. It’s at once dense and moist, rich and delicate, sweet and spiced. Finished with a flourish of flaming brandy and a generous pour of lightly sweetened cream, this is a holiday dessert worth celebrating, without being a [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/classic-panettone-in-one-day panettone-level] project. Take it from the pudding pro himself, Kevin Smith: “This is the easiest dish in the world to make.” Hold on a sec, you may be saying, puddings and cakes are never <i>easy</i>. What’s the catch? Well, the thing about Christmas pudding is that the process of making it is nothing like making a delicate batter or temperature-sensitive custard. You don’t need a stand mixer or a double boiler. In fact, in terms of composition and procedure, this pudding more closely resembles meatballs, just with a mix of brandy-soaked dried fruit standing in for ground meat. Like a meatball farce, the pudding is bound together with eggs and a breadcrumb panade. Just like a good meatball, the pudding base is enriched with extra animal fat, in this case beef suet, the hard fat that surrounds the cow’s kidneys. Grated fresh quince is folded into the mix, which keeps the pudding moist and light, just as grated daikon does in [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/xiu-mai-vietnamese-meatballs Vietnamese xíu mại]; they’re even both steamed! But unlike with meatballs or cake batter, the mixing method for Christmas pudding is completely foolproof because there’s no worry of overmixing. There’s no myosin to develop, and there’s so little flour in the base that gluten development isn’t a concern. Just stir everything together, pack it in a mold, steam it, then set it on fire. No wonder this is our favorite butcher’s favorite dessert! And now it’ll be your favorite, too.
Porchetta—a whole boned out pig, seasoned, and roasted until the skin is crisp and the meat is meltingly tender and juicy—is almost impossible to get right at home. We say almost impossible because it can be done, it’s just a project. We enlisted the help of master butcher Kevin Smith to show how it’s done with our [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/ultimate-roast-porchetta Ultimate Roast Porchetta], replete with tips and detailed butchery demos so you can confidently execute it yourself. But we also wanted to develop a porchetta recipe that’s more approachable and forgiving. Unlike our roast porchetta, this sous vide version doesn’t require a special order cut of pork from a craft butcher, there’s no five-day minimum waiting period to air-dry pork skin, and you don’t need an advanced degree in butchery or knot-tying. This is delicious, easy, hands-off porchetta that you can start tonight with a piece of pork belly from the grocery store and have it on the table for an epic dinner tomorrow, without ever breaking a sweat. It gets you most of the payoff of great porchetta—succulent, juicy, well-seasoned pork—with a fraction of the effort.
Real-deal porchetta is a beautiful thing: A whole, boned-out pig, seasoned with fennel and garlic, roasted until the skin is crispy and glassy and the meat is meltingly tender and juicy. Chop it all up for a delicious mix of lean and fatty meat with shards of crunchy skin, stuff it into a sandwich, and you’ve got one of the most iconic Italian street foods. Making it is obviously a chore—like whole hog barbecue, it’s almost exclusively done by professionals who sell to large crowds. And a lot of places choose to go with a more manageable preparation, using pork belly and loin to approximate the blend of meat, fat, and skin of a whole pig. But even the smaller preparation is extremely hard to do well, and it’s often done poorly. This recipe gets all the details right, but it’s a project. It requires a special order cut of high-quality pork, time to properly dry out the skin, some butchery technique, a sharp knife, and a two-stage cooking process. <b>The skin:</b> Nothing can ruin a beautifully roasted pork belly and loin like hard, impossibly chewy skin. There are two keys to getting pig skin super crispy in an oven: getting it dry and cooking it hot. The less moisture in the skin, the quicker it dries out and crisps in the oven, and using an intense blast of heat right at the start of the cooking process rapidly converts any remaining moisture into steam, puffing the skin up so as it dries it forms a glassy, crunchy crust. <b>The meat:</b> Porchetta should have assertively seasoned meat, and it should be luscious and juicy, both of which are challenging because it consists of a lean, whole muscle that’s technically “overcooked” and dry above [f 140] encased in a very fatty, tough cut that’s only palatable when thoroughly cooked through to a higher internal temperature of [f 170]. Our process is engineered to nail every one of these goals: -Using a specific cut of pork—skin-on belly with the loin attached—guarantees that the loin will nest neatly in the belly, with enough skin to completely the entire roast. <br> -Air-drying the pork in the fridge dries out the skin and intensifies the flavor of the meat.<br> -Trimming the belly guarantees that you have enough skin to fully encase the roast.<br> -Butterflying the loin maximizes surface area for seasoning.<br> -Scoring the skin encourages fat rendering during roasting.<br> -A high-heat start puffs and crisps the skin, and a low-temperature roast gently brings the meat up to temperature. While it isn’t a whole pig, we get that it’s still a big endeavor, but there’s no arguing with the results. This is the ultimate roast porchetta.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that caramelizing onions takes way longer than any recipe would have you believe. Until now. The issue most cooks have with following instructions for caramelizing onions is that the process is deceptively simple. Three ingredients—onions, butter, salt—cooked in a standard-issue pan ... how complicated could it be? But as soon as you get the pan on the hob, complications set in. How high is “medium-high” heat? Does it matter if you use a 2-quart pan instead of a 3-quart pan or a Dutch oven? When you read that the onions should be “thinly sliced,” how thin are you going to cut them? 1/2-inch slices? (Please, no.) 1/4-inch? All of these variables affect the rate at which the onions release water, break down, and the sugars they contain slowly start to caramelize. But even if you use a recipe that eliminates these variables (and you follow it exactly), one variable will still remain: the amount of heat you apply. And that’s because most cooks are working with imprecise sources of heat: gas or electric burners of various sizes. However, if you set the cook temperature precisely and regulate it so that it stays as close to constant as possible, the amount of time it takes to transform the onions from raw to any cooked stage you like will stay pretty much constant, as well. (There will be slight variation depending on how closely you follow the recipe’s procedure and, say, the exact water content of your onions.) With a Control Freak Home induction burner, you can do that. We took the process a step further to generate this caramelized onion visual doneness guide. The procedure for each level of doneness is essentially the same: Cook sliced onions gently, covered, and stir occasionally until they’re cooked to your liking. The only variance between types of onions is the frequency with which you have to stir them, but even for the darkest caramelized onions, the process is almost entirely hands-off. Aside from providing visual references for the different degrees of caramelization you can achieve by cooking onions in butter, it also illustrates how the steady application of heat at a set temperature can produce wildly different textures and flavors by adjusting the cook time.
Chicken Kyiv is a classic, if dated, dish consisting of pounded chicken cutlets wrapped around cold compound butter packed with garlic and herbs, breaded, and deep fried—essentially a chicken cutlet that sauces itself once you cut it open. It’s a little bit of old-timey culinary sleight of hand, a way to elevate a breaded cutlet into a performance on a plate. This is our take on it. Sure, it doesn’t look like a deep-fried butter bomb, but it is! We turned the fussy butter gusher preparation into a straightforwardly delicious cutlet. To preserve all the buttery flavor of the original, we fry the cutlet in clarified butter (this is the best way to fry cutlets, even if it’s a little pricier than using oil). We also confit garlic in clarified butter and blitz it into a purée, which we use as a garnish on the cutlet. A double dredge in panko yields a super-crispy crust, and a generous amount of parsley chiffonade over the top helps cut through the butter. It’s crispier, super buttery, and plenty herby: It’s chicken Kyiv reimagined (and way better).
Clarified butter is a staple of kitchens all over the world, prized for its rich flavor and relatively high smoke point. Unlike whole butter, clarified butter is cooked until the fat, milk solids, and water separate and the water is boiled away, leaving you with milk solids and fat. Once strained of milk solids, clarified butter can be heated to much higher temperatures than whole butter can: The water content in whole butter puts an upper limit on the temperature it can achieve ([f 212]) until it’s cooked off, and raising the temperature beyond that point can make the milk solids burn and turn bitter. While making clarified butter is as simple as heating butter until its water evaporates, using precision temperature control makes the process consistent and entirely hands off. It also allows you to control the degree to which the milk solids brown. Increase the cook temperature on clarified butter for a few minutes, and the milk solids will become lightly browned, lending the liquid fat toasty notes—this is, essentially, ghee, the clarified butter commonly used in cooking in the Indian Subcontinent. Increase the temperature a bit more for a few minutes, and you’ll have darkly browned butter, which is darker in color and has an even more pronounced toasty flavor and aroma.
For a long time, you only had two options for cooktops: gas or electric. You probably have your preference, and you’ve probably engaged in endless debates with the partisans of the other side. “Gas is more powerful!” “Electric is more reliable!” “Nobody says, ‘We’re cooking with electric, now, baby!’” Etcetera, etcetera—you know the drill. However, there’s a third option: induction. As appliance manufacturers have embraced this technology, home cooks and professional chefs can now choose from a range of induction cooktops. But how is using an induction burner different from using a gas one? How is an induction cooktop, which uses electricity, any different from the electric burners we see in Airbnb cabins and college dormitories? What does “induction” mean, anyway?