One should cover a pan while heating?
The legend
You should always cover a pot of water you want to boil, so that it boils faster.In other words, if you're heating water (or anything else), boiling is achieved more quickly if the pan is covered than if it's not.
How to check?
Boil 1 liter of water in a covered pan, timing the time, then 1 liter of water in an uncovered pan, again timing the time.Comparing the times will show whether you really need to cover the pot to go faster.
Let's check:
We measure 1 liter of water and place it in an uncovered saucepan on a hotplate, into which we dip a thermometer.
Turn on the stove and start the timer, reaching 100°C (210°F) in 9 minutes and 30 seconds.The stove is left to cool down for about an hour, returning to room temperature.
Another 1 liter of water is measured and placed in a covered saucepan on the stove, still using a thermometer.
Turn on the stove and start the stopwatch, reaching 100°C (210°F) in 9 minutes and 27 seconds.
The result is even more obvious if you compare the temperature curve, with the uncovered pan in red and the covered pan in green.Conclusion
The time difference is too small to be significant: covered or uncovered, it's practically the same thing.Some people have pointed out to me that if we were using a (much) larger volume of water, it wouldn't be the same; the lid would be effective, but in home cooking, we only use small volumes.
To sum up:"You should always cover a pot of water you want to boil, so that it boils faster", is not true.
Lasts posts
Oven height
When we put a dish or cake in the oven, we naturally tend to put it on the middle shelf, and that's what we usually do. But in some cases, this position and height can be a little tricky, so let's find out why.October 8th 20251,6595
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?September 3rd 20256,9843
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...August 26th 20256,4425
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?August 25th 20256,5345
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...August 8th 20254,6605
Other pages you may also like
The so-called "nervous" meats
You've probably heard this before, we're talking about "nervous" meat, or meat with nerves, to describe what is indicated by the blue arrow on the left. This is a piece of beef, and what we call a nerve is not a nerve, it is in fact collagen (chemists sometimes call it a "collagen sink"), a...April 16th 202136 K4.5
Cleaning endives
If you buy your endives elsewhere than in supermarkets, and in this case the best is of course from a market gardener, he or she is the one who planted and harvested them, in this case you will have endives full of earth or sand, depending on where they were grown, which is normal and reassuring, we...March 24th 202026 K4.6
Candied fruits: don't get ripped off
Do you like candied fruit? You might like to nibble a handful or add it to a recipe, like a classic fruit cake or delicious Italian specialities like panettone or sicilian epiphany pie.June 21th 201766 K 24.2
Egg yolks and caster sugar
We often come across recipes where we need to mix egg yolks with caster sugar. This would appear to be a very ordinary and simple thing to do but, be warned, these two ingredients can behave oddly together.February 15th 201882 K 24.3
The art of the charlotte
In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...February 27th 201346 K4.3
Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.
The 1 comment already posted on this page