Cooking what does reduce mean

Rate It! Add A Review Now! Comment on this. Follow Us! Beef Cooking Times. Chicken Cooking Times. Cooking Temperature and Time. Food Substitutions. Oxidation is defined as the loss of one or more electrons by an atom.

Reduction is defined as the gain of one or more electrons by an atom. In reality, oxidation and reduction always occur together; it is only mentally that we can separate them.

This is a good marker for you to tell if you are at your goal or if you should continue boiling. Other useful 0. Baking soda contains sodium, which, in high amounts, can affect the heart. One A reduction sauce can be made of just one ingredient.

For example you can get a balsamic or a red wine reduction by reducing a cup to a half cup. The goal is to thicken the liquid to a sauce-like consistency. Basically, you want the liquid to cling to the back of your spoon. Be careful not to over-reduce your liquid. This also goes for dishes such as soups and stews that are likewise made from stock.

Any liquid that is simmered will reduce to some extent, as the heat evaporates some of the water in it, especially if the pan is uncovered. Most sauces are simmered for at least a brief time as a final step before seasoning, to fine-tune the consistency.

But a reduction is something else. The goal of a reduction is to drastically reduce the amount of water in a liquid. In other words, a reduction is made by reducing. But reducing is not always done for the purpose of making a reduction. A typical reduction will call for reducing by half or three quarters.

And in addition to reducing stocks and sauces, sometimes individual ingredients are reduced themselves before adding them to a sauce. Examples of this are wine or vinegar.

Indeed, the procedure for making beurre blanc , a rich, butter-based emulsified sauce, involves reducing a given amount of vinegar until it is almost dry, which is referred to as au sec.

The procedure for making bordelaise sauce, for example, starts with simmering red wine along with various aromatics—herbs and spices—until the wine has reduced by three-fourths, and then adding the reduction to a prepared demiglaze.

Reductions are also used in making dessert sauces. One of the simplest reductions is a balsamic glaze, which is made by reducing balsamic vinegar until it is thick and syrupy and then drizzling it across fruits, vegetables, or desserts. Demiglaze, sometimes called demi-glace , is the basis for innumerable classical sauces and, is itself, the product of several reductions.

Demiglaze is comprised of half brown stock and half brown sauce, with the resulting mixture then reduced by half.