Burning questions: How to cook with fat

In a recent column, you mentioned you like to put fat into an already hot pan. Why? -- David Silverman, Hicksville

Because it takes longer for a pan to heat up than the fat in it. A heavy cast-iron or stainless steel pan will take a few minutes to get really hot. But many fats (e.g. extra virgin olive oil, butter) don't do well at high heat for very long. The olive oil will lose a lot of its marvelous character; the butter will burn. So, by getting the pan hot and then adding the fat, you minimize the time the fat spends alone in a hot pan.

There is an adage, "hot pan, cold oil, food won't stick," that I have not been able to prove. Frankly, if your pan is hot, the oil won't stay cold for more than a few seconds, anyway.

And speaking of temperature, when I am sauteing onions or garlic or any aromatic vegetables destined to form the base of a dish, I put the fat and the vegetables in a cold pan and then turn on the heat. This is how my cooking idol, Marcella Hazan, does it, and her reason is this: If you want to seal in the flavor of a food, you cook it in an already-hot liquid - think of plunging green beans into boiling water. If you want to extract the flavor of the food, you use cold water - think of slowly bringing the components of a soup to a simmer.

In the case of onions, garlic, etc. (soffritto, in Italian), the object is not to cook them so that they retain their flavors; the object is to pull that flavor into the fat because the fat is what's going to flavor the rest of the food. If you are using both onion and garlic, start off with just the former and add the latter once the onion is soft. Otherwise the garlic may burn.

Regarding your column, "Feeling right at home in Hong Kong food markets," there's no need to take an expensive vacation to Hong Kong.  Have you visited the food markets along Canal Street in Manhattan and Main Street in Flushing? -- Richard Sterlini, North Bellmore

I certainly don't regret my vacation, but Sterlini makes a great point. While I was in Hong Kong I was constantly remarking (no doubt to the annoyance of my hosts) how much it reminded of New York's Chinatowns.

Unlike the markets and restaurants of, say, Italy, which can't be even approximated in the United States, the sights, sounds and smells of Chinatown are remarkably similar to their counterparts in Asia, right down to the shoppers' pink plastic bags. There's very little - not the live fish, not the dried fish, not the gorgeous greens, not the neck-hung roast ducks - that I couldn't find here. I wonder if the Chinese people's connection to food culture is so powerful that they manage to bring it along when they emigrate.

One day, my (British) friend and I were having fantastic dim sum in a cavernous restaurant full of noisy Chinese families. Ours were the only non-Asian faces. "This feels just like home," I said.