What does reduce to simmer mean

Slow Simmer: A low heat with very little activity in the pot. By simmering a braise, soup, or other liquid, you can thicken the consistency and end up with a more concentrated and intense flavor. The main trick to reducing in cooking is to give your liquid enough time to simmer in an uncovered pan. Simmer: Medium-low heat, gentle bubbling in the pot. Most often used for soups, sauces, and braises. To "simmer" is to heat to a temperature point just off boiling, generally acknowledged as somewhere around 95 degrees C or something like degrees F.

Hence, my question: What does "simmer" mean? Does it differ per recipe or is it universally defined? Best Answer. Personally, I would argue that 2 and 3 are actually the same, and they are your answer. Related Question. For something in a regular pan that is too wet to be considered to saute then I would usually consider a faster pace.

Reduce heat and simmer: reduce it to WHAT? Factual Questions. You reduce the heat until the item is no longer boiling. Generaly, it is the LOW setting. First, a confession: I work in software, so I'm probably paying way too much attention to the state of liquid that is "a simmer". That written, I love to cook, and no recipe direction gives me more confusion, sadness, and googling than "bring to a simmer".

Accept no substitute. I find this to be the most vague direction in all of culinary science, and it drives what's left of my organized mind insane. So here's the setting. I'm making vichyssoise, because I'm intrigued by the possibility of making a dish that has no color at all.

I've been instructed to "bring to a boil and simmer the soup for 35 minutes. The internet is filled with unsatisfying and at times contradictory answers. My research yields a few prototypical examples:. Each of these examples mean fundamentally different things. As far as I can tell, a "simmer" is a phase transition whereby the suspension in question, whatever the soup, sauce, or solid apparently you "simmer" bratwurst, you never boil it may be, cooks in a way that only years of experience or training can identify.

Hence, my question:. If you heat a pan of water you'll notice the bubbles forming before the water is actually boiling, hence the talk of between not bubbling and full on roiling.

Also, when you're making your soup, it isn't pure water, so the boiling temp will not be a perfect degrees C in any case. So, I would say, that simmering is when you keep it just under a full boil. Watch what you're cooking, there should be gentle movement, but not a full roiling pan of whatever it is you're cooking. To get something simmering away, you need to bring up to a full boil, then reduce the heat until you're getting movement, but not full bubbling.

Colloquially, simmer means to maintain a liquid at a temperature where relatively few, small vapor bubbles form, while boil means to maintain a liquid at a temperature where relatively many, large vapor bubbles form. If the liquid is not being stirred, a liquid that appears to be simmering may have reached its boiling point near the heat source, causing vapor bubbles to form, but may not have reached its boiling point distal to the heat source. Thus the average temperature of the liquid may be below the boiling point.

Practically, food in a liquid that is simmering will be cooked at the same temperature or near the same temperature as food in a liquid that is boiling. Adding more heat to a liquid at its boiling point will not increase the liquid's temperature, but will increase the rate of vaporization, and hence the number and size of bubbles at an extreme, detonating an atomic bomb next to your stove would cause the liquid among other things to essentially instantaneously vaporize.

This leads to two differences in the cooking methods:. It is very simple. A simmer is when the liquid at the very of the bottom of pan boils, but not all the liquid. You get little bubbles, no roil.

The difference between simmering and boiling water can mean the difference between a chunky vegetable soup and a bowl of mush. Water reaches its boiling point and starts to evaporate at degrees F, while a simmer is generally between and degrees. Take a look at a phase transition diagram for water :. The important idea contained in the chart is that in order to get water or any material, really to switch from one phase to another e.