In 1910, chemist Louis Camille Maillard discovered one of the most important chemical processes occurring in food as it’s cooked. He found that, when food reaches a certain temperature – around 140 to 160°C – a reaction occurs between amino acids and sugars. Over time, this process instigates a chain reaction, where more and more reactions (their chemical compounds far too long and numerous to name) subsequently take place. To you and me, this means these processes ultimately create a deeper fidelity of flavour within the food.
Whether you’re toasting bread, frying bacon, roasting meat, searing steak or making chocolate, the Maillard reaction becomes clear when food turns brown – like a good crust on a loaf of bread, or the dark hues in a roasted coffee bean. With a few exceptions, this only happens with the application of ‘dry heat’ however. As Harold McGee writes in his voluminous book On Cooking, ‘If fresh meat never gets hotter than the boiling point of water (100°C), then its flavour is largely determined by the breakdown products of proteins and fats. However, roasted, broiled and fried meats develop a crust that is much more intensely flavoured, because the meat surface dries out and gets hot enough to trigger the Maillard or browning reactions.’
But before it gets a bit too scientific, the question this information arouses is this: How can we harness the power of the Maillard reaction to create a darn good steak?
