The cooking that happens after

Heat keeps moving inward

When a piece leaves the pan its outside is far hotter than its centre, and heat flows toward cold until they even out. A thick roast can climb another five to eight degrees on the counter. Pull it at the temperature you want and you overshoot; pull it below and it arrives exactly right.

1. Cut now
2. Halfway
3. Rested

Worth remembering Take it off before it is done. It finishes itself.

Resting is not just waiting

While it rests, two things happen at once: the temperature evens out, and the contracted muscle fibres relax enough to hold on to their juice again. Cut a steak straight off the heat and the board floods; give it ten minutes and the same steak keeps that liquid inside. It is the cheapest improvement in cooking.

Worth remembering Ten minutes of doing nothing is a technique.

Or stop it dead

Sometimes you do not want carryover at all — bright green vegetables, a soft-boiled egg, a custard on the edge of curdling. Ice water pulls heat out faster than air can, so the doneness you pulled at is the doneness you keep. Real ice, and more water than food, or the bath just warms up and slows the cooking rather than stopping it.

1. Sitting on top
2. Half in
3. Fully under

Worth remembering Carryover is a tool when you plan for it and a fault when you don’t.

Or remove the problem

Carryover exists because the outside is much hotter than the inside. Cook gently enough and that gap never opens: a low oven or a water bath brings the whole piece up together, so there is almost nothing to carry over and almost no grey band under the crust. Then you sear at the very end, fast, for colour alone.

Worth remembering Gentle first, hot last. The crust takes a minute; the inside takes care.