I have always been told that cast iron skillet should be well seasoned and HOW to keep it seasoned but I never knew it had a name for the black non-stick layer that developed over time AKA Patina. I also had no idea that a wok was judged heavily on its patina along with the material makeup.
Have have you ever played with an AccuTemp Griddle? I think they are really fascinating but have a feeling they are incredibly expensive.
Also going back to Roasting...I am confused about they way heat is "acting" when they talk about heat varying at the inverse square of the source. This is the picture I have in my head as to what I think they are talking about. Am I right? and if so could you explain and if not could you also explain lol.
Hi honey, sorry for taking so long to respond, its been a trying week. 3 massive catered parties (2 of them off-site), 2 cooks flirting with jail time, and, oh yeah, freakin Mother's Day. Its been an ordeal. But anyway, in response to your excellent and interesting questions:
ReplyDelete1) I have never worked on an accutemp griddle. I've never even seen one. I get the idea they are really new. I bet there isn't one in SC at all... Maybe someone like Sean Brock might have one. I took a second and looked online, and they are like $5000, about 10X what a similar-sized traditional griddle would cost, so I highly doubt I will be getting to use one anytime soon.
2) As for the sweet spot, I had trouble with that myself. Physics was never my best subject, but I'll give it a rip. I think your model is not right. It's not that there is one perfect 'sweet spot,' but that the sweet spot is a circle of a certain size at every height over the grill. The 'narrowing' you see between the curves is not about the heat lessening, but rather the sweet spot narrowing in diameter.
The sweet spot is not about a section of intense or ideal heat, but rather a disc where the heat is the same over the diameter of that disc. It gets wider the further you get away from the heat source. Consider waving your hand over a candle. When you are right over it, you feel a spot of high heat when you are right over it, but an inch to the side and you feel almost nothing. The sweet spot is narrow. A foot over the candle, your hand feels a little warm, six inches to either side. The sweet spot is wide, but less intense.
So what matters for the sweet spot is the diameter of whatever you are cooking. If it was a whole pounded out turkey breast, in order to cook it evenly, you would have to calculate a distance from the flame where the entire surface got even heat. That, or move it constantly. If you were doing the same treatment to a single quail breast, you could deal with a narrower sweet spot, and therefore go closer to the flame.
I WANT TO CLARIFY THAT I DON"T KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.
I am no physics professor, this is just me doing my best to make sense of some science that is kind of over my head.
Thoughts?