The cooking methods with a ceiling

Above it, never in it

Steaming is setting food above boiling water rather than in it. Steam carries a lot of heat and gives it up the instant it condenses on cold food, so it cooks fast — but nothing leaches into the water the way it does when boiling, and colour and flavour stay in the food. Pack the basket solid and the steam is blocked, and the middle stays raw.

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

Worth remembering When you steam, the food never touches the water.

A bowl that cannot scorch

A bowl set over — never in — a pan of simmering water can never get hotter than that water. That ceiling is the whole tool: chocolate and custards live in a narrow window between set and ruined, and a direct flame blows straight through it. Water touching the base of the bowl, or a hard boil underneath, is enough to seize the chocolate or scramble the eggs.

Worth remembering Keep every drop of water out of melting chocolate.

Fat can sit still

Fat can hold 85 °C without ever boiling. That is what lets food cook fully submerged for hours, surrounded by steady gentle heat with no agitation at all, without drying out. The tell is the left rung of the water ladder: a bubble now and then, never a stream. Fat bubbling steadily has passed 100 °C and is frying, not confiting.

Worth remembering Anything sticking out above the fat dries. Keep it covered.

A ceiling you carry with you

Coat sliced meat in cornstarch and egg white, then pass it briefly through warm oil or water: the starch sets into a thin gel skin that holds the meat’s own moisture inside during the violent heat of a stir-fry. The ceiling is no longer the pan, it is on the meat. It is what separates silky restaurant chicken from the stringy kind made at home.

Worth remembering Lift it out while the centres are still underdone — the wok finishes the job.