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When to add oil to pan?


leviathan

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I've noticed in some recipes, they'll tell you to heat up the pan for a couple of minutes and then add oil and/or food. But, in other recipes, they recommend you to heat up the pan and oil together before adding food. I'm confused when you do the former vs. the latter.

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I've noticed in some recipes, they'll tell you to heat up the pan for a couple of minutes and then add oil and/or food. But, in other recipes, they recommend you to heat up the pan and oil together before adding food. I'm confused when you do the former vs. the latter.

But why? This is a piece of advice I always follow, but without understanding it.

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I can think of a couple extreme examples. If you're going to be sauteing some minced garlic, it could be better to start the oil in a cold pan, add the garlic, then turn on the heat - that will allow the oil to absorb more garlic flavor without burning the garlic.

Conversely, real wok cooking uses very high temperatures, where every second counts. To start the oil in a cold wok, then bring it all the way up to the right temperature to cook, would burn off most of the oil and create a ton of smoke. Adding the oil to a hot wok right before the food ensures it doesn't degrade into sticky byproducts before it does its job.

-- There are infinite variations on food restrictions. --

Crooked Kitchen - my food blog

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I think it depends on the temperature that you're going for. If you're cooking at a high temperature, the oil is more likely to burn, or get superheated & then splatter, if you have it in the pan from the start. You may forget to watch it closely while you're doing something else. Adding the oil after the pan is heated makes it easier to stay focused on the pan and add the food to be cooked at the optimal moment.

If you aren't starting out at a high heat, you have more leeway.

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea!

- Sydney Smith, English clergyman & essayist, 1771-1845

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Since recipes may not take into account a nonstick pan.....

Always add oil before heating a nonstick pan - you can damage the coating and send fumes into the kitchen

tracey

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Thanks for the answers. So, would it be correct to assume, if we're talking about cast iron, then you should heat up the cast iron for a few minutes before adding oil and/or food to it.

And, Restorer,

Wouldn't your example with the garlic end up burning the garlic? If you heated up the pan and then added oil and garlic, woudn't the garlic have less exposure to high heat and therefore less likely to burn?

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Any pan other than non-stick you heat up, then add oil/fat, allow that to heat, then add food. The goal is to stop/reduce food sticking to the pan. While I'm not a metallurgist, I believe the heat causes the metal to expand and seal small pours in the pan. The hot fat may flow easier into an crevices that remain.

On a non-stick pan, you have to worry about the non-stick surface and it's inability to withstand high heats. The oil would tend to spread out the heat load and offer "some" protection to the surface.

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As I understand it, you heat the pan first and add oil after if you are sauteeing, and heat the oil and pan together if you are frying.

Marlene

Practice. Do it over. Get it right.

Mostly, I want people to be as happy eating my food as I am cooking it.

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Thanks for the answers. So, would it be correct to assume, if we're talking about cast iron, then you should heat up the cast iron for a few minutes before adding oil and/or food to it.

And, Restorer,

Wouldn't your example with the garlic end up burning the garlic? If you heated up the pan and then added oil and garlic, woudn't the garlic have less exposure to high heat and therefore less likely to burn?

In that example, my idea was that, not only would you have more time and leeway to ensure the garlic doesn't burn before you add the next item, but the garlic will actually have more opportunity to flavor the oil before it begins to darken than if the garlic had gone straight into hot oil. This isn't an especially useful technique on its own - you could accomplish the same thing by sweating the garlic at a lower heat, then upping the heat before adding the next item - but if you're trying to multitask it can save a bit of effort.

I don't use this technique, since I rarely saute garlic without onions, and onions take longer than garlic, so they go first into the hot oil (because they don't burn so easily).

-- There are infinite variations on food restrictions. --

Crooked Kitchen - my food blog

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You have to step back and think about what you're trying to achieve. When you are sauteeing meat, what you want is to develop the maximum amount of fond and browness for maximum flavour. As the temperature you are cooking at increases, the rate of browning becomes faster, however, too high and the oil will start to break down and get bitter. Thus, the goal should be to keep the pan in that narrow range between 350F and 450F as much as possible.

Cold meat coming into contact with a hot pan is going to cause a significant temperature drop, if you heat up the oil in the pan, then you can only push your pan up to 450F or so otherwise the oil will start smoking. Then, when you add the meat, the temp will drop out of your optimum range and you'll have to wait for the slow recovery time to bring it back up.

If you have a dry pan, you can bring the pan up to something like 600F, 800F or so or even higher. Then, if you do it right and add the oil and then very rapidly add the meat, the entire thing should come into equilibrium right at around 450F and you can achieve a superior saute.

The problem is if you do it wrong, you can get a lot of variability in your result. If you only heat the pan up to 300F, then dumping the meat in is going to cause the entire thing to stew, if you heat it too far then things could start burning before they brown. There's nothing wrong with the oil first method, its reliable and simple to do and it certainly produces an adequate sear. But the pre-heated pan just takes things to the next level.

Of course, if you don't want high heat cooking like when you're sauteeing garlic or onions, then none of the above advice applies.

PS: I am a guy.

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I usually just coat the pan very lighly with the oil whether its stainless or non-stick. I bring the pan up to temperature and then I take it away from the heat and wipe it down very lightly with a paper towl. Then I put the pan back on the stove with a little bit of oil for cooking and let it come up to temp. After that, I add whatever I'm cooking. It seems to work very well especially for keeping the ingredients from sticking too much to the stainless steel pans.

Why do I do this? When I was learning how to make omelets and crepes, the instructor told us to do this with the non-stick pans. It really helps in creating an oil base that the food seems to "float" on as it cooks and, therefore, it is less likely the food will stick to the pan. So, your crepes come out really well.

So, I thought, why not try the same method with my stainless pans? I tried it and it seems to work really well. So that's what I do. It's kinda like making your non-stick pans completely non-stick and making your stainless pans semi-nonstick. It's been really helpful to me.

--- KensethFan

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