How to Boil Water, and Other Tips

I’m about to dominate Recipe Week, guys. Not with actual recipes, mind you, but with the tips, tricks, and overall lesson plans that will get you in and out of the kitchen in one piece. I would have started on Monday, but I was busy studying for the chemistry experience of a lifetime. Instead we start today on Tuesday with the simple act of boiling water.

It’s the clichéd expression that people use when referring to their many kitchen-related ineptitudes: “I can’t even boil water.”

This is an absurd statement. Everyone can boil water. However, many people struggle with harnessing the energy needed to conduct heat into food and transfer flavor. Boiling water effectively for cooking has a lot to do with how closely you paid attention in your chemistry class. After all, a wise man once said, “Cooking is just science for hungry people.” If you didn’t pay attention, here are the relevant facts about water.

1. Boiling is the phase change from liquid to gas. It occurs at 212°F (100°C) for pure water. If the water is boiling, you will know exactly how hot it is and can adjust cooking time accordingly.
2. Water is a very efficient conductor of heat. It takes a while to heat up because of its large heat capacity but transfers the heat energy quickly and more intensely than air does. Boiling foods cooks them more quickly than baking them does. This means that boiled food is done faster but you have to work harder to control the outcome of the final product (i.e. smoldering mess vs. delicious gooey heaven).
3. Water is a polar molecule; therefore, it is attracted to other electrically charged molecules. This means that substances like salt dissolve easily in water, making for more flavorful foods.
4. Simmering is the pre-stage to boiling, occurring at approximately 185°F. In contrast to the rolling motion and constant bubble popping of a good boil, a simmering pot of water has tiny bubbles rising to and breaking the surface. Simmering is a method of controlled heating and is used to cook more delicate foods, like eggs.

The basic foods that can be cooked with boiling water are pasta, eggs, and vegetables. Of course there are the fancier boiled items, like lobster, but the aforementioned make up the foundation of many more complicated recipes. If you can master these three items then you will be golden for more complicated recipes.

Pasta

Making good pasta depends on adding salt to the water after it has reached a rolling boil, and before adding the uncooked noodles. The salt dissolves into the water, and the pasta absorbs the water (and therefore the flavor) as it cooks. The saltiness of the water should match that of the ocean, which has a salinity of approximately 35 g of salt per liter of water. I don’t feel like doing the math to turn it into cooking units, so I’m just going to call it a test of your worthiness of being a cook. If you can figure out how much salt belongs in your pot of water, then you can be considered a competent cook. (ed note: We use a heaping tablespoon of salt to boil a pound of pasta.)

Eggs

Hard-boiled eggs are finicky things. It’s far too easy to overshoot the sweet spot that leads to a buttery yolk and yielding whites and leave your eggs on the stove, ending up with something resembling a superball more than food. Boiling eggs requires vigilance, as the protein in them denatures quickly and at a low temperature. Egg protein typically coagulates at a temperature of approximately 190°F, which means the key to the perfect hard-boiled egg is simmering the egg gently. Let me repeat that: A good hard-boiled egg is never boiled.

An easy hard-boiled egg-making method is to add your eggs to a pot and cover them with room temperature water (the room temperature water is key, because pouring hot water over cold eggs will crack the shells). Place the pot over high heat and bring the water to a simmer. When the water is about to boil, remove the pot from the stove and set a timer for 10 minutes. When the ten minutes are up, dump the hot water from the pot and rinse the eggs for thirty seconds with cold water. The eggs can be eating immediately or kept for up to a month in the refrigerator.

Vegetables

The key to delicious vegetables is to stop cooking them at the right time. You hear me? Stop cooking! The best method for preserving the greenness, flavor, and texture of vegetables is to blanch and shock them. To blanch a vegetable, you must immerse it in boiling water for a few minutes. To shock a vegetable, you must pull it from the pot and plunge it into ice-cold water in order to stop the cooking. Green vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, artichokes and brussels sprouts hold up well to the blanching-shocking process.

This crash course in boiling should help you guys master a few recipes coming your way, both this week and hopefully far into the future. Tomorrow we tackle baking, or frying, I haven’t decided yet.

Are you good at boiling things?

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