The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

morning, the pot I usually reduced the cream in was being
used. Rather than wait for it to free up, I just grabbed one of
the thinner stockpots off the shelf, poured in my cream, and
heated it as usual.
What I ended up with was a pot full of greasy, broken
cream, with a broken ego to match (the ego has since been
repaired, but the cream was a lost cause). Tipping it out into
the sink revealed a ½-inch-thick crust of brown crud on the
bottom. The problem? My pot was too thin and its
conductivity was too low. Rather than distributing the heat
evenly over the bottom of the entire pot, the heat was
concentrated in the areas directly above the flames. Those
areas got overheated, causing the proteins in the cream
directly above them to coagulate, stick to each other (and to
the pot), and eventually burn. Without the emulsifying effect
of the proteins, the fat in the cream separated out into a
distinct, greasy yellow layer. Ick.
Obviously, it was the pot’s fault, right? Well, not exactly.
You often hear the expression “A bad cook blames his
tools,” and it’s true: bad food is rarely bad because the pot
was too thin or the blender was broken. But I think this is
often misinterpreted. Nobody is saying that a good cook
should be able to cook any dish regardless of the quality of
their equipment. Reducing cream without a heavy,
adequately conductive pot or an adequately low flame is
nearly impossible, no matter how good a cook you are. Thin
pots don’t burn cream—people burn cream. But I think the
thin pot helps.
In reality, bad food is often bad because the cook chose
to try and cook something that he didn’t have the proper