Smoke, Pit and Skillet: Nine Ways Cooks Build Flavor With Fire

In a Hawaiian imu, hot stones and a bed of banana and ti leaves cook a salted pig under a layer of soil for several hours. The page credits the hardwood smoke and especially the ti leaves for the flavor, so the path begins with the pit as both oven and seasoning.

Mexican barbacoa uses a pit lined with agave leaves to slow-cook whole sheep, goats, cows or beef heads into fatty, strongly flavored meat served with onions and cilantro. The page notes that similar pit traditions such as pachamanca, curanto and hangi exist elsewhere, and that barbacoa is unrelated to the Taino origin of the word barbecue.

Moving from the pit to the grill, this technique keeps food beside the heat source instead of over it, at roughly 135 to 177 degrees Celsius, with a drip tray to stop fat igniting. That moderate heat is why the page recommends it for pork shoulder, brisket and ribs, and for adding wood smoke.

Before a fish such as salmon goes into a smoker, air-drying it forms a tacky protein skin called a pellicle. The page explains that smoke particles cling to this surface more readily, improving flavor and color, which makes it the preparation step that smoking depends on.

Cold smoking holds food at about 20 to 30 degrees Celsius for as long as several days, so it absorbs smoke flavor but stays raw. The page points out that this is why the United States National Center for Home Food Preservation advises against cold-smoking meat at home.

Hot smoking is the cooked counterpart, run at about 52 to 80 degrees Celsius for one to twenty-four hours. Because the food finishes fully cooked and moist, the page says it is typically safe to eat without further cooking, unlike cold-smoked food.

Leaving smoke behind, dry roasting heats nuts, seeds, spices and even edible crickets in a pan or roaster with no oil or water, stirring so the food heats evenly. The page says the heat alters proteins to deepen flavor and aroma, and that it is an early step in making peanut butter.

Tempering, also called tadka or chhonk, briefly cooks whole spices in hot oil or ghee to release their essential oils before the oil goes into the dish. The page notes spices are added in sequence, longer-cooking ones first, and that the step can come at the start of a curry or at the end over a finished dal.

The path ends with the extreme-heat skillet. Blackening dips fish in melted butter, coats it in spices and cooks it in a very hot cast-iron pan, and the page attributes the dark crust to browned milk solids and charred spices. It names the chef Paul Prudhomme and the original redfish recipe.