Topic: Oh, I give up

[Secret Santa]

The temperature of the sauce must be getting ridiculously hot

The temperature of the sauce is 100 degrees C. If you think differently you should maybe go back to school and learn some physics.

Clue: Heat is not the same as temperature.

Au contraire Mr Brasco 'tis your good self that needs the learnin'.

This isn't water and it isn't homogeneous - and those are only two of several variables that need to be taken into consideration. I'll let you hit those physics (and chemistry) books now and figure out just how  high the heat can go.

[Donald Brasco]

You mean how high the temperature can go?

[Secret Santa]

None of us have a commercial burner, but many seem to profess to having made curries better than restaurants/TAs.

Ah yes but just how good are the takeaways they're comparing against?

Oh, many of us do have commercial burner; including haldi I believe.

[Peripatetic Phil]

The temperature of the sauce is 100 degrees C. If you think differently you should maybe go back to school and learn some physics.

Maybe, oh most abrasive and immodest one, you should go to school and learn that "the sauce" is not distilled water and will therefore almost certainly attain a temperature other than  100^oC before boiling.

** Phil.

[Secret Santa]

You mean how high the temperature can go?

No I mean exactly what I said, heat - but you'd know that because you rightly quoted that "Clue: Heat is not the same as temperature."  :

Now hit the books and find out why I'm right (Clue: temperature is average kinetic energy of the molecules).

[livo]

If I go anywhere near one of 10 or so Indian Restaurants / Takeaways within my general roaming area, the aroma greats you long before you step over the threshold, and quite a distance away if your coming from downwind.  The weight of the smell, and what it does to your appetite triggers, is undeniable, although I'm sure there are a number of people who hate it.  Poor buggers really. Like people allergic to crustaceans, they need and deserve a telephone assistance number.

When cooking my base gravies, and dishes at home there is no doubt that I obtain a similar aroma, and it even lasted a day or so last week after a big days cooking, but it isn't anywhere near the pungency and character of the shops.  Is it just the shear volume and variety prepared in one place?  I'm not convinced of this, but it could be.  I still feel that something is missing.  I just don't know what it is. 

I've never heard it referred to as the 5% but I guess it's as good a name for it as anything.

[RingStinger]

The temperature of the sauce is 100 degrees C. If you think differently you should maybe go back to school and learn some physics.

Maybe, oh most abrasive and immodest one, you should go to school and learn that "the sauce" is not distilled water and will therefore almost certainly attain a temperature other than  100^oC before boiling.

** Phil.

The best way to find out would be to stick a thermometer in the pan whilst getting splattered    The temperature of smoking oil is 200^oC +, so the sauce must get pretty hot with a decent burner.

[Donald Brasco]

@phil @SS @RS So do you concur with Haldi that "the temperature of the sauce must be getting ridiculously hot"?

If so I'm wondering what the water molecules which comprise the majority of the sauce are doing about that, and why they hang around and don't bugger off in the general direction of the ceiling?

[Gav Iscon]

... you should go to school and learn that "the sauce" is not distilled water and will therefore almost certainly attain a temperature other than  100^oC before boiling.

But surely having a high water content it would be there or thereabouts. You can't heat 'open' water past 100^oC. More heat would just make more steam.

[Peripatetic Phil]

@phil @SS @RS So do you concur with Haldi that "the temperature of the sauce must be getting ridiculously hot"?

(1) There is no commercial-at in my name.  It is "Phil", not "@Phil".
(2) Just because I point out the inaneness of your own post does not mean that I necessarily concur 100% with the message to which you were responding.

If so I'm wondering what the water molecules which comprise the majority of the sauce are doing about that, and why they hang around and don't bugger off in the general direction of the ceiling?

"Reduction is the process of thickening and intensifying the flavour of a liquid mixture such as a soup, sauce, wine, or juice by boiling.  Reduction is performed by boiling liquid (whether stock, wine, whisky, vinegar, or sauce mixture) rapidly and usually without a lid (enabling the vapour to escape more easily) until the volume desired is reached by evaporation.  Different components of the liquid will evaporate at slightly different temperatures, and the goal of reduction is to drive away those with lowest points of evaporation.  It thus can be seen as a form of distillation, capturing those components that have the highest boiling point."

** Phil.