/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>Is it true that cooking with the lid off lets flavors escape
Flavour doesn't evaporate. The steam is entirely water, if anything leaving the lid off will make the flavour stronger since what's left will be a more concentrated.

What leaving the lid on does it help whatever is inside the pot cook more evenly.

>>13257138
You wanna leave the lid on till everything inside is cooked to your liking (meat tender, vegetables soft), then remove the lid to intensify the sauce due to evaporation
so, in answer to your question, its both

>>13257138
>cooking with the lid off lets flavors escape
kek the stuff you morons come up with

>>13257138
>american education

Aroma IS flavor. If you can smell food in the air you're losing flavor.
Now if the temps are low the moisture should be mostly water and retain most of the flavor so lid isn't necessary.

>>13257138
Depends. If you want your stew to be more watery, you leave the lid on. If you want your stew to be thicker, you leave the lid off. If the flavor tries to escape, you tell it to get the fuck back in the stew like a real man.

>>13257158
>Flavour doesn't evaporate. The steam is entirely water

This isn't true. Some flavors don't, but things like the volatile oils in herbs will.

>>13257138
>Is it true that cooking with the lid off lets flavors escape or is that a myth

This is actually true but not to the extent people think. As we all know, taste is mainly created by "smelling" the food while you chew it. Therefore generally the more aromatic compounds (that the nose can pick up) a food has, the more flavourful it is.

Now lets consider boiling/evaporation. When you boil a stew for example, do you smell something? You do? Thats because tiny amount of those aromatic compounds "escape" with the water vapour. Therefore the more you boil something, the more you lose aromatic compounds and the more flavorles the dish becomes. In reality this process is so slow that boiling something for a couple hours has no discernible effects. Besides unless you add the evaporated water back the reducing and consequent concentrating of the liquid makes up for the loss of aromatic compounds

Tl;Dr yes you lose flavor by boiling/evaporating but its so slow it doesnt make a difference

That being said to answer your original question i prefer lid-off because it reduces the sauce making the stew thicker

are you trying to dense the liquids?
lid off
otherwise on
keeping the lid also doesn't let the heat disperse

>>13257731
>oils
>evaporate