Dry heat

Browning is flavor

When food goes above about 300°F on its surface, sugars and proteins react and make hundreds of new flavors. Cooks call it the Maillard reaction; you call it the good part. It needs three things: a dry surface, high enough heat, and time without being moved. Pat meat dry with paper towel, get the pan properly hot, and leave the food alone until it releases on its own.

The methods

• Sear: very hot pan, a little oil, food dry and in one layer, no moving. For a crust on meat and fish. Usually the first step of something else.
• Sauté: medium-high heat, a little fat, small pieces, kept moving. Onions, mushrooms, greens, a stir-fry.
• Roast: the oven, 400°F or hotter, food spread out on a sheet pan or in a roasting pan. Vegetables, whole birds, big cuts.
• Grill: direct heat from below. Hot zone for searing, cooler zone for finishing. Oil the food, not the grate.
• Broil: direct heat from above, the oven’s grill. Fast, close, and never walk away.
• Pan-fry and deep-fry: cooking in hot fat, 350°F to 375°F. The fat has to be hot before the food goes in or it soaks instead of crisping.

Reverse sear

For thick cuts, cook them low first and sear last. A thick steak, chop or roast goes into a 250°F oven until it is 10 to 15 degrees under the temperature you want, then into a screaming-hot pan for a minute a side. You get an even pink all the way through, a hard crust, and almost no gray band. Three recipes on this site use it.

The full Reverse sear lesson →

Temperatures to know

• Poultry: 165°F in the thickest part.
• Ground meat: 160°F.
• Whole cuts of beef, pork and lamb: 145°F, then rest three minutes. Steak lovers pull beef earlier: 125°F for rare, 135°F for medium-rare, and it climbs while it rests.
• Fish: 145°F, or until it flakes. Salmon is better at 125°F to 130°F if you trust your source.
• Use the thermometer. A cut into the meat lets the juice out; a probe does not.

Rest it

Meat keeps cooking after it leaves the heat, and the juices settle back into it as it cools a little. Cut too soon and the juice runs onto the board. Five minutes for a chop or a chicken breast, ten for a steak, twenty or more for a roast or a whole bird. Use the time to make the pan sauce.

When it goes wrong

No browning

Wet food, a cold pan, or a crowded one. Dry it, heat it, and give it room.

Burnt outside, raw inside

The heat was too high for the thickness. Finish it in the oven, or use the reverse sear.

Dry meat

It went past its temperature. Pull it a few degrees early and let the rest finish it.

Juice all over the board

It was cut too soon. Rest it first.

A full lesson on each method

This page is the big picture. When you want one method all the way through, the steps, the temperatures and the fixes, go here.

• Pan-searPut a real crust on meat and fish, on your own stove.
• Sauté and stir-fryCook small pieces fast, and keep them crisp instead of soggy.
• RoastLet the oven do the work, and get brown edges every time.
• Reverse searCook a thick steak pink from edge to edge, with a hard crust.
• GrillRun a fire with a hot side and a cool side, and stop burning dinner.
• BroilUse the grill you already own: the one in the top of your oven.
• SmokeTurn a cheap, tough cut into the best thing you have ever made.
• Air fryGet crisp food fast from a small box, without a pot of oil.