Flash Boiling in Cooking
There is also a cooking technique called flash boiling, in which a smaller amount of water is used so as to quicken the process of boiling. An example of this technique is used to melt a slice of cheese onto a hamburger patty, whereby the cheese slice is placed on top of the meat on a high-heat surface (e.g., a hot frying pan), and a small quantity of cold water is thrown onto the surface near the patty. A vessel (such as a volume-rich small pot or frying-pan cover) is then used to quickly seal the steam-flash reaction, which disperses much of the steamed-water on the cheese/patty. This results in a large release of heat, transferred via vaporized water condensing back into a liquid (a principle also utilized in refrigerator and freezer production).
Read more about this topic: Steam Explosion
Famous quotes containing the words flash, boiling and/or cooking:
“Tom: All right, boys. C’mon. Why don’t you say I’m a yellow belly and a big mouth at that?
Shep: You yellow? Who thinks you’re yellow? Did you hear what he said? A guy who’s got the nerve to marry? That’s more than Flash Gordon ever did.”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“‘Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch,
That nearer, every Day,
Kept narrowing its boiling Wheel”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“... cooking is just like religion. Rules don’t no more make a cook than sermons make a saint.”
—Anonymous, U.S. cook. As quoted in I Dream a World, by Leah Chase, who was quoted in turn by Brian Lanker (1989)