Last week, Monica Bhide appeared on the NPR show Talk of the Nation to discuss the American love affair with cookbooks. She recently published her cookbook Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen. During the course of the radio show, she discussed questions she often received from people about cooking. One of the most popular questions: What does is mean to “simmer” ?
At first, I thought it was an odd question. She pointed out, though, that some people have a very small base of cooking knowledge and experience, so the word simmer does not immediately connect to a mental image. She recounts how she describes simmer to people who have no idea what it means, and how difficult it can be in recipes to convey the exact meaning in the instructions.
If simmer, a word used so frequently in recipes, is a mystery to novice cookers and bakers, it is no wonder there are so many stories of kitchen catastrophe. When I first started cooking, I encountered a mental block when a recipe for fudge called for a “full, rolling boil.” I remember peering over the pot, asking myself “is it rolling now?”
Of all the search queries directing people to this site, simmer is by far the most popular term. Before this anecdote, I wondered why people searched for this term. Though I frequently use the word in my recipes, it occurred to me that I have never described what it is to simmer. So, for the record, here is a thorough and complete definition for the term simmer:
Simmer: when liquid is in a state just slightly below a boil. The easiest way to simmer, and this is usually part of the recipe, is to first bring the liquid to a boil. Once the liquid is boiling (bubbles are rising and moving rapidly to the surface and popping), reduce the heat until the liquid is just wavering at the surface with small bubbles that do not quite breaking the surface.
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