Shelf · Water & steam · No heat
Shocking in ice
Dropping just-cooked food straight into ice water to stop it cooking at that exact moment.
- The temperature band
- The liquid · 0 to 4 °C
- The time
- About 5 min
Why it works
Food carries enough stored heat to keep cooking itself for minutes after it leaves the pot. Ice water pulls that heat out faster than air ever could, so the doneness you pulled it at is the doneness you get.
The tell
The bubbling stops instantly and the food is cold to the middle within a minute or two — not merely cool on the outside.
No ladder here: the cue is a temperature under your hand, not a shape in front of your eye.
How it fails
A bowl of cool tap water warms up and just slows the cooking rather than stopping it. Use real ice, use more water than food, and lift the food out as soon as it is cold — leaving greens to soak waterlogs them.
In the app, the card opens on the recipe step that names it, with the tell drawn.
Learning is free on every plan.