Flambe

Flambe, French for flamed, adds alcohol, usually a spirit such as cognac or rum with roughly forty percent alcohol content, to a hot pan to produce a brief burst of visible flame; wine and beer do not contain enough alcohol to ignite this way. The alcohol must first be warmed in the hot pan, since it needs to reach its flash point before it will catch fire from an outside flame such as a match, and the resulting fire burns at a temperature above 500 degrees Celsius, though only briefly. Despite its dramatic presentation, flambeing has a fairly modest effect on flavor, since it reduces the dish's alcohol content by only around a quarter and does not run hot enough at the pan's surface to drive the Maillard reaction or caramelization; controlled tastings have generally found little consistent difference between flambeed and non-flambeed versions of the same dish.