it was insufficiently preheated, or overloaded
with cold wet meat — then the meat stews in
its own juices until they boil off, and its
surface doesn’t brown well. (The same thing
will happen if the pan is covered, so that the
water vapor is trapped and falls back into the
pan.) The appetizing sizzle of frying meat is
actually the sound of moisture from the meat
being vaporized as it hits the hot metal pan,
and cooks use this sound to judge the pan
temperature. A continuous strong hiss
indicates the immediate conversion of
moisture to steam by a hot pan, and efficient
surface browning; weak and irregular
sputtering indicates that the moisture is
collecting in distinct droplets, and the pan is
barely hot enough to boil it off.
Predicting Roasting Times
A number of different guidelines have been
proposed for predicting how much time it
should take to roast a given piece of meat.