When Sautéing, How Hot Should You Heat Your Pan?
I recently received an email from a reader asking how high the heat should be while sautéing and when you return the pan back to the stove after deglazing. Great question so I wanted to share my response with you.
When I sauté, I have the heat as high as it goes because I have a very low performing cook top. How high you want to sauté at depends on your stove, your sauté pan and your cooking experience.
What I mean is if you have a lot of experience and can cook fast, you can sauté at the highest heat possible, remove pan, deglaze and reduce again on high heat. But this takes practice, a lot of it.
Just like your chopping skills that take time to develop and get better the more you work at them, sautéing skills are the same. In the beginning you start off slowly while improving your technique and as you get better, you can build up speed.
Most home cooks who don't sauté 100 meals a night, six nights a week don't have the skills to work at the highest heat even if they are not working at a monster commercial range. For us mere mortals, it's best to start off using medium high heat until you build up your speed.
With some dishes, where there is a lot of liquid to reduce, it's fine to crank up the heat to high, but as you get close to finishing the dish or when the sauce is at the right consistency, you may want to turn the heat down a little so it doesn't get away from you. And by all means, don't walk away from the stove.
There have been times when I am finishing a pan sauce and something else that needs to be done distracts me and the sauce reduces too much. If this happens, you can try to save it by adding a little more stock but it will turn out better if you stay with the sauce from start to finish. If you must walk away, (like when one of the kids need immediate attention) just remove the pan from the stovetop and finish it later.
The other factor is the sauté pan. If you are using a well-made, heavy bottomed sauté pan, there is more room for error. That's because when the pan is doing it job properly, it disperses the heat evenly throughout the bottom and sides and the heavy bottom will prevent burning. With less expensive pans that are thin and made of inferior materials, hot spots develop that cause one part of the reduction to heat faster than another resulting in uneven cooking and burning.
A good example of how to sauté quickly is Chef Ricco's Garlic and Oil.
For More Sauté Techniques......
