Whether it is a simple preparation like poha or even a pulao that starts off with sautéing aromatics and vegetables in ghee, a mirepoix of onions, carrots and celery to begin preparing some chicken soup – most recipes have the technique of sautéing in common. Considering most recipes also involve other techniques like braising, boiling and stewing vegetables or meats, sautéing brings to a recipe the ability to draw flavours out from ingredients.
If throwing together the aromatics, vegetables and spices into a pot directly got to the process where they need to cook slowly and gradually, the flavours of the end product might be pungent and ‘raw’ in taste. Sautéing benefits a recipe in interesting ways as the aromatic compounds from each of the ingredients added to a fat medium like oil, butter or ghee, begin to release their flavours and combine. As vegetables contain various aromatic molecules trapped in their fibres, they begin to release these chemical precursors into the fat, from the vegetable cells.
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Depending on whether the vegetables are whole, diced, chopped or grated, the flavours of a recipe might vary vastly from one another. Applying heat and using fat rupture these cells, helping the flavours mingle with each other and have the compounds recombine into new compounds. In sautéing, time also has a major role to play, when it comes to determining the flavour of a dish. Case in point, adding whole cloves of garlic to butter might only release a mellow aroma of the pods as the fat heats up, however, adding minced garlic to butter will have a stronger smell and prominent sweet flavour as opposed to its raw pungency.
Similarly, concentration also has a part to play in sautéing ingredients for a recipe. If you have a significant amount of ingredients to sauté but a small amount of oil, chances are that the chemical release might happen in a confined area of your cooking utensil, while the remaining ingredients which haven’t come in contact with the oil may react simply for the sake of being in close proximity to each other. Hence, giving your vegetables a minimum time to ‘sweat’ in a fatty liquid helps in developing the foundational flavours for a recipe and in creating a dish that is layered in taste.