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Char is a trending flavor enhancer at restaurants - here's how to do it at home - CT Post
As he fans them, the coals redden and shoot out sparks. The 1,000-degree heat from deep within the firebox lashes out with angry blasts, but the chef's glasses don't fog, and his bearded face betrays only a light misting of sweat. He reaches in, barehanded, to spread some baby vegetables in a wire basket set on the coals, and keeps fanning.
"They'll stick at first, so we'll leave them alone for now," he says. "Wait for when they start to glisten."
What Langhorne is going for is a good char. Char, often confused with burn, is the dark edge on a cube of roasted butternut squash, that deep brown bubble on your pizza crust and the dark crosshatch marks on your perfectly grilled steak. Char is a trending flavor enhancer at restaurants and in processed foods, but home cooks often end up burning foods instead.
"A caramelized, paper-thin char layer gives you this smoke and wood flavor in the mouth, then suddenly disappears," explains chef Francis Mallmann. "Then the beauty of the flesh of the fruit or meat appears." His open-fire cooking inspired chefs worldwide when Mallmann was featured on the premiere season of the Netflix series "Chef's Table."
As he fans them, the coals redden and shoot out sparks. The 1,000-degree heat from deep within the firebox lashes out with angry blasts, but the chef's glasses don't fog, and his bearded face betrays only a light misting of sweat. He reaches in, barehanded, to spread some baby vegetables in a wire basket set on the coals, and keeps fanning.
"They'll stick at first, so we'll leave them alone for now," he says. "Wait for when they start to glisten."
What Langhorne is going for is a good char. Char, often confused with burn, is the dark edge on a cube of roasted butternut squash, that deep brown bubble on your pizza crust and the dark crosshatch marks on your perfectly grilled steak. Char is a trending flavor enhancer at restaurants and in processed foods, but home cooks often end up burning foods instead.
"A caramelized, paper-thin char layer gives you this smoke and wood flavor in the mouth, then suddenly disappears," explains chef Francis Mallmann. "Then the beauty of the flesh of the fruit or meat appears." His open-fire cooking inspired chefs worldwide when Mallmann was featured on the premiere season of the Netflix series "Chef's Table."