Bondepige med Slør

Whipping a meringue 40 recipes

• Bowl and whisk are clean and dry with no trace of fat or yolk. Grease prevents the foam outright, and there is no recovering a bowl that had it partway through.
• The sugar went in gradually once the whites were already foaming, rather than all at once at the start.
• No grit: a little rubbed between finger and thumb feels smooth, so the sugar has dissolved into the foam rather than sitting in it.
• Stiff peaks means the tip stands with a slight bow when the whisk lifts, and the bowl can be tipped without the mass moving in it.
• Glossy and smooth rather than chalky or dull, with no liquid gathering underneath it in the bowl.

Where it goes wrong It was whipped past stiff peaks. A minute beyond glory the protein network tightens and tears, the foam turns grainy and matte, water weeps out beneath it, and folding that into anything gives a mixture that collapses on the way to the oven.

Steaming: basket, leaf and lid 130 recipes

• Steam was running before the food went in: the water at a rolling boil and vapour coming steadily through the basket, rather than the whole thing warming up together.
• Nothing touches the water at any point: the food sits clear of it throughout, and the level neither drops enough to boil dry nor rises enough to wet it.
• The lid stayed on. Every lift costs the chamber its heat, and the number of lifts should be as close to none as the dish allows.
• Lifted out, the surface is glossy and plump with its colour heightened rather than dulled: greens brighter than they went in, not olive.
• Cooked through with the shape intact: it yields at the centre without having slumped or split, and there is no more than a spoonful of clean condensate beneath it.

Where it goes wrong The lid was loose or dripping and the condensate fell back onto the food, so it arrives waterlogged and pale with its seasoning washed down into the bottom of the dish.