— Sue Baker

So the mercury ball test, uh, is, uh, first of all, intended to be used a few times, right? As you learn to heat your pan on your range or your stove top. And once you get to this point where you are comfortable, then you can sort of push aside that mercury ball test per se, and just start cooking right, with a little more control. Okay? So that's the overview. So the mercury ball test is one where we ask you, uh, to use a stainless steel pan, put a little bit of water in there, just a little bead of water, and you will slowly heat the pan up. And as it goes through this range of temperature, the water will act in a different way, and it'll get to this point where, you know, it just sits, it'll start out as just sort of sitting as a small puddle of water as you, you can probably imagine if you just pour water into a pan, and it'll get to the point where that ball of water will roll around and bounce around like a ball of mercury, if you've ever seen that. Hopefully not played with it, um, not with bare hands anyway, but have seen that. And then it'll eventually get to the point, uh, when it's really hot where the water goes in and it, it sort of explodes because there's so much heat and some steam is released, and these smaller little balls of water will bounce around. They might coalesce as they catch up with each other, but, um, there's a little, um, uh, a little violent reaction, okay, to start with. So we're trying to find that sweet spot, okay? Where the mercury ball stays intact and sort of does its thing, rolls around on that surface, and it works best with stainless steel, um, uh, cookware if you're not using stainless steel. So sue, bear with me here, I'm taking a little bit of a tangent. I'll come back around with, you're not using stainless steel, like, in other words, anything else, you can do a similar test, but it's not gonna look the same. Okay? So I'm, lemme get back to stainless steel here while you're doing the mercury ball test. Your goal, right as the, as the, the, uh, learning cook is to pay attention to the heat that's being given off by the pan, and you're gonna feel it with your hands, right? You're gonna feel it on your face as that radiant heat comes up to you. And you're also going to observe what happens when you put food in the pan. So at these different, um, stages of heating, you also want to add some food, whatever that is. You know, it could be diced onion. I recommend something large, like large dice, you know, maybe medium dice. Could be carrots, could be something else. Something with, with some sugar in it, like onions, uh, or carrots is helpful because you can start to visually see, um, the browning take place relatively quickly, okay? And if the sugar content of the food is high like onions, I think we recommend onions in our, in our, uh, lesson. Then you're also gonna see at the top end when the pan gets too hot because it'll burn pretty quickly, okay? And so you want to start to connect these dots between your temperature dial the temperature setting, the heat you're feeling, and visually what you're seeing on the food as it transforms. And then find that spot. Uh, it's not, it's not a spot, it's a temperature range with your cookware on your stove top that works the best for sauteing. And also keep in mind that you will need to adjust that range based upon what it is that you're cooking to some extent, okay? I suppose if you identify a comfortable range, you can just stay within that range and adjust it for the, the food item, okay? Um, so you're gonna get to the point where you don't need to do the mercury ball test anymore. You'll be able to just feel and get some food in there. You'll use your, your hearing as well. Listen for the sizzle, okay? Aroma, you, you'll use all your, your senses here, but, um, uh, primarily you wanna start to feel the heat. And when it comes to the glass top, the, in terms of what's relevant here in this issue, as I revisit your question, Sue, is that I can think of is that, well, maybe there's a couple of things. A glass top, uh, a a range is, is gonna be electric. So if you need to cool your pan down quickly, then simply pull the pan off of the heating element. That's gonna be the quickest and safest thing to do. And I'll, I'll give, I'll share a story with you, okay? I've had the opportunity, um, a few times in my professional, uh, uh, career to cook on, uh, electric stove tops in, in restaurants. And these are gonna be in places where the building code does not permit, um, an open flame, right? So it's probably the insurance company, right? That's making these rules. But, so you've got these, um, you know, big fat electric coils and the, and the way that we would cook on them is because we don't have time, right? In a restaurant to wait for the electric coils to warm up. So you just turn 'em on, uh, on high or something. You know, you, you, you've got, you know, a few, these six different, uh, uh, coils or, or, or cook cook places. And so you can set most of 'em on high and maybe a couple of 'em on a, on a lower temp. Um, and so you can start doing your saute work right away. The pan's gonna heat up as quickly as it can without waiting for the corals to heat up. But if the pan gets too hot, then we can move it to a cooler setting or we just pull the pan off. Okay? Now also, when cooking on gas, this is gonna be in a commercial setting where we have high BTUs. It could be at home too, right? That this, that's where the, I'm going with this. If you're pan gets too hot, just very simply pull it off the fire and it's gonna cool down as quickly as it reasonably can, okay? Please do not immerse it in water. You know, I have seen folks do that, and it will warp your pan. Now, the pan's not gonna do this, but the surface will work. Um, and, um, and what I've seen it, uh, um, happen to is gonna be stainless steel pans, uh, you know, like all clad or any of these other stainless steel pans that have multiple layers of construction, which is the way that the pans are made today. If they're shocked like that, then you are gonna, you're gonna permanently damage the pan. So don't cool it down that way, just pull it off. Um, the other thing to do is also like simultaneously, if necessary, get more food into the pan because that food is gonna cool down the pan very quickly as well. So keep all that in mind, Sue, right? As you're doing your cooking and everybody else too, if you face this situation, okay? The other thing that I was thinking of with a glass top, uh, you know, cook, uh, range, is that you might not wanna toss your food, you know, by flipping it, because if you hit the stove top, that glass surface, you could crack it, right? So, in which case, don't worry about flipping the food when you're sauteing, just use a utensil, whatever's appropriate to move the food around or to flip it over, right? It could be chopsticks, it could be, um, you know, wooden spoon or whatever your choice is. Um, so you don't risk damaging, uh, or prematurely scratching that surface as well. Okay? So, again, a few things to think about.