Below the Boil: Twelve Ways Cooks Work With Water, Steam and Slow Heat

Boiling immerses food in water or stock at its boiling point, 100 degrees Celsius at sea level, and the entry names simmering, blanching, steaming and poaching as neighbors on the same heat scale. It is the fixed point the rest of this path moves away from.

The boiling point is not fixed. The entry says the effect is noticeable from about 2,000 feet and that water boils at only about 92 degrees Celsius at 8,000 feet, so food needs longer unless a pressure cooker raises the boiling temperature again.

Parboiling pulls food out of boiling water as it begins to soften and finishes it another way. The entry ties the technique to rice cooking in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and West Bengal and in West African and Afro-Caribbean kitchens, and says that unlike blanching the food is not chilled afterward.

Shocking is the cold half of a hot-and-cold pair. The entry describes plunging food into iced water or holding it under cold running water right after cooking, which stops the cooking and generally preserves color, taste and texture.

Simmering holds liquid just under a boil, roughly 71 to 99 degrees Celsius depending on the kitchen, with only gentle bubbling. The entry says cooks usually bring the liquid to a boil first, then lower the heat, which suits delicate ingredients and long cooking that a hard boil would toughen.

Coddling cooks food, usually eggs, in water held below the boil, but the food sits in a small dish inside a hot water bath instead of touching the water. The entry says it takes longer than boiling an egg and gives a more tender result, and that the word descends from caudle, a warm drink.

Steaming surrounds food with steam instead of immersing it. The entry notes that it needs far less water than boiling, that the condensing steam drips away, and that it is widely regarded as keeping more texture, color and nutrients than boiling.

The Moroccan tagine vessel has a shallow clay base and a conical lid that returns condensed steam to the food, so a dish braises, steams and bakes at once. The entry says this made it valuable where water was scarce and that the vessel originated in Tafraout, Morocco.

Smothering is a covered stovetop braise from Cajun and Creole Louisiana. The entry describes browning the main ingredient, deglazing with stock or water, then simmering covered over low heat in a cast-iron pot or Dutch oven, with crawfish etouffee prepared the same way.

Dum pukht seals a clay handi with a ring of dough so no steam or aroma escapes. The entry traces it to Mughal kitchens and the Awadh region, credits the Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah, and says the sealed simmer after an initial bhunao roasting step can run as long as twenty-four hours.

Low-temperature cooking holds food at roughly 60 to 90 degrees Celsius for a long time, covering sous vide, slow cookers and a low oven. The entry credits Benjamin Thompson, who found a joint tender after a night in a drying oven that Nicholas Kurti later showed never passed 70 degrees Celsius.

Thermal cooking ends the path with no ongoing heat source at all. The entry describes a heavily insulated vacuum flask cooker that keeps cooking food with the heat already in it, and calls it the modern equivalent of the haybox, which packed a pot in hay or straw.