【英文报刊翻译080505】厨房里的隐形配料

The Invisible Ingredient in Every Kitchen
厨房里的隐形配料（王琳梅 译）
By HAROLD McGEE
NY Times

OF all the ingredients in the kitchen, the most common is also the most mysterious.
我们日常在厨房所使用的所有配料中，有一种是最常用的同时也是最神秘的。

It's hard to measure and hard to control. It's not a material like water or flour, to be added by the cup. In fact, it's invisible.
它难以测量，难以控制。它不像水或面粉那样的东西可以用量杯来添加。实际上，它是肉眼看不到的。
It's heat.
它就是热能。
Every cook relies every day on the power of heat to transform food, but heat doesn't always work in the way we might guess. And what we don't know about it can end up burning us.

We waste huge amounts of gas or electricity, not to mention money and time, trying to get heat to do things it can't do. Aiming to cook a roast or steak until it's pink at the center, we routinely overcook the rest of it. Instead of a gentle simmer, we boil our stews and braises until they are tough and dry. Even if we do everything else right, we can undermine our best cooking if we let food cool on the way to the table - all because most of us don't understand heat.
我们为了使热能做它做不到的事情而浪费了大量的天然气和电能，更不用提金钱和时间了。通常烤肉或牛排的时候，为使它中心的部位能变成粉红色，其它部位的肉都会被过分的烘烤。炖菜或肉的时候，我们也没有及时将菜出锅，而是会一直炖到肉变的又干又硬才罢休。即使我们所有别的事情做的都对，如果饭菜在端上饭桌的时候变凉，我们也破坏了我们精心烹制的佳肴-所有这一切都是因为我们对热能知之甚少。
Heat is energy. It's everywhere and it is always on the move, flowing out as it flows in. It roils the chemical innards of things, exciting their molecules to vibrate and crash into each other. When we add a lot of heat energy to foods, it agitates those innards enough to mix them up, destroy structures and create new ones. In doing so it transforms both texture and flavor.
热是一种能量。它无处不在，且总在流动，流出又流进。它激活物质的内部化学构造，使它们的分子震动，然后碰撞在一起。当我们对食物加热时，其内部被充分的搅动、混合，原有结构被破坏了又形成新的。同时食物的质感和味道也改变了。
There are, however, uncountable ways to misapply heat. In most cooking, we transfer energy from a heat source, something very hot and energetic, to relatively cold and inert foods. Our usual heat sources, gas flames and glowing coals and electrical elements, have temperatures well above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Boiling water is around 212 degrees.
但又有无数种错误的热能使用方法。在大部分的烹饪过程中，我们把从某种热源转变出的热能，转移到温度相对低的食物上。我们通常使用的热源，像天然气的火苗，燃烧的煤或者某种电器，温度都会超过华氏1，000度。而烧开的水大约只有212度。
Cooks typically heat food to somewhere between 120 degrees (for fish and meats that we want to keep moist) and 400 degrees (for dry, crisp, flavorful brown crusts on breads, pastries, potatoes, or on fish and meats).
厨师们通常加热食物的时候，温度一般在120度（我们想保有水份的鱼类或肉类等）到400度（面包、油酥点心、土豆等的干脆、美味的外皮，或鱼类、肉类等食物）之间。
At the bottom of that range, a difference of just 5 or 10 degrees can mean the difference between juicy meat and dry, between a well-balanced cup of coffee or tea and a bitter, over-extracted one. And as every cook learns early on, it's all too easy to burn the outside of a hamburger or a potato before the center is warm.
在这个范围的底线，5或10度的温差就意味着很大的差别，带汁的肉会变的发干，一杯恰到好处的咖啡或茶会变得又苦又过分的浓缩。并且就像所有厨师一开始就会发现的那样，汉堡或土豆的外皮在它的中心变温之前很容易会烤焦。
That's the basic challenge: We're often aiming a fire hose of heat at targets that can only absorb a slow trickle, and that will be ruined if they absorb a drop too much. Are you ever annoyed by pots that take forever to heat up, or frustrated by waiting for dry foods to soften? A kitchen that becomes hot enough to be a sauna? Big jumps in the utility bill when you do a lot of cooking? The problem, as you will notice if you pay more attention to your kitchen's thermal landscape, even in terms of what you can feel, is how much heat escapes without ever getting into the food.
这是最基础的挑战：我们经常给予只会吸收少量热能的目标大量的热能，并且这样的目标一旦多吸收一点就会被毁掉。你是否为总是热不起来的锅烦恼过，或者为等待发干的食物变软而沮丧过？或者厨房太热像个桑拿室？烹制饭菜多的时候用热帐单也往上窜？这个问题，如果你注意你家厨房的用热，甚至只根据你的感觉，你就会发现，有多少热能没有被吸收进食物中而被白白浪费掉了。

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