Oil is Thermal Paste, but for food

my mom hates cooking with oil and i genuinely cant express how much worse everything tastes without it

I absolutely loved this video. When I was self learning how to cook, 99% people I asked had no idea nor they cared about why things are done the way the are, and it was making me crazy.

It’s interesting how folks who cook just sort of know this instinctively, but would probably not be able to put it into words or describe the role the oil plays as well as you did. You nailed it! 👍🏽

The experiment style approach to learning cooking concepts is unparalleled

One of my favorite kinds of semi-scientific tests is “do the thing no one would ever do.” Not only does it often reveal the reasoning and value behind things we take for granted, but sometimes you also find out things that are accepted as having value might not!

A true hero: used both Celsius and Fahrenheit! I'll just add that usually naan is cooked at 400 degrees Celsius (752 degrees Fahrenheit) so some things should be different in the pan!

Thanks for putting the sponsor at the end. I actually listen to the full ad knowing you left it for last and gave us what we wanted when we originally clicked on the video. No interruptions or cheesy plugs. You rule!

This video is an excellent example of "Show don't tell", I loved how for every example you said "Let's try it" and just showed the results! One of the reasons I value your channel is you get right to the point and show the action clearly

To spread some knowledge, it's not just how the brussels sprouts are prepared that makes them taste better. Just a few years ago the brussels sprout crop was transitioned over to a cultivar that was specifically bred to get rid of the bitterness once associated with the vegetable. The brussels sprouts sold today are pretty much completely different than the vegetable that was infamous for its awful taste.

I thought you were Markiplier

When I was a teen I had a bad relationship with food and I'd only ever cook my vegetables with water. This just reactivated so many memories of how mediocre food used to taste back then lol

I feel like it bears mentioning, through selective farming techniques, brussels sprouts are actually better now than they were when we were all kids 20+ years ago and demand for them has risen accordingly. The brussels sprouts we are eating today, are not the same brussels sprouts our mothers boiled for us as children and insisted we eat to clean our plates. It's an interesting topic that I would love to see Adam actually explore from a much more informed than my own food science perspective!

I remember watching a cooking youtuber who frequently told her audience, "Try frying in water, you seriously won't notice a difference!" and I wondered who she was trying to fool.

I kinda tested this on my own a couple weeks ago, was running low on my cooking oil and didn't want to take the time to cook the bacon to replenished it so I tried just winging it. I thought I noticed it was taking longer to cook, definitely noticed the difference in flavor

You have a great ability to communicate. Very articulate and well thought out in your delivery.

The oven having a smaller difference than the pan actually makes sense since with an oven, you're relying on the surrounding air to transfer heat to your food. Since it's able to flow around to any of the exposed surface area, it already serves as a thermal interface you can rely on!

This series really scratches the same scientific food itch as good eats and I love it!

My mom uses no oil or as little oil as possible to cook because she’s afraid I might “develop unhealthy eating habits” if more oil was added. So growing up I thought fast food such as Domino’s, McDonald’s and Popeyes were very luxurious because a. I only got to eat them once or twice every year. b. They tasted soooo much better than the food we had at home or those healthier restaurants we frequented. Now I’m in my 20’s, still craving fried chicken and oily pizza more than anything else. But sadly, as much as I yearn for them in my head, when I actually buy, say, a 8 pc KFC chicken bucket, I could never manage to consume more than 2 pieces without feeling so full that I have to eat purely vegetables for the next several days. The food my stomach can handle aren’t the most desirable in my head, while the food I crave in my head are rejected by my stomach. Sure, I’m able to stay lean without any efforts, but at what cost.

I believe the reason there is less of a difference between the pan and the oven is mentioned but not applied. Early in the video it is mentioned that oil will cover more of the surface area and induce a heating effect between the pan and the surface of the veggie, this is because oil is a fluid, this is also true of air in the oven. The air in the oven will circulate and interface with more surface area. The reason we get the unevenness on the bottom of the nonoiled veggies is because there is a higher density of metal atoms heating the veggie compared to the air. The air and the tray are the same temperature but the heat transfer is different. This is partially due to the difference in thermal conductivity, but primarily (I think) due to the shear density of the material. More atoms per square inch, the more points on contact on average meaning more conduction and thus more heat.

*flipping meat with his hand when the cooking oil splashing* Me : “wow, *BRAVE* ”

This video is a great example why I love Adam's work. He addresses the "why" questions so you can find your answers to the "how".

I loved all of the different tests you did. You pretty much covered every question or curiosity I had.

Loved this video. It answered all those questions which were bursting in my head since so long. The best part- more action, less talking. It was to the point, honest and compact. 😘

I literally just thought it was to make it nonstick but now my brain hurts. That makes so much sense

In an oven, the enclosed space and long cook times enable heated air to act as a thermal interface. That's why oil helps if you're using a pan; the flat metal blocks the veggies from exposure to the thermal interface of the air. A wire rack would result in perfectly roasted veggies due to maximum air exposure, although you'd likely be missing caramelization still.

I'm so glad to see someone else cook Brussel Sprouts properly

i love how you just show me what happens rather then telling me. makes it way easier to follow

In an alternate universe, where Adam does computers instead of cooking, he asks "Why do we put thermal paste on the cpu?" and then proceeds to melt a processor.

So I accidentally tested this video by myself making pancakes. I always start with a bit of oil, but as the pancakes cook and absorb some of it, eventually the pan runs dry. Sometimes I'm too lazy to put in more oil, so I get some pancakes that are very evenly brown and others that... well, aren't. And that was when I realized the difference between cooking in oil and no oil. But great video explaining the actual reactions and the reasons why!

Great video. Started with a question, got right to the point with answers. No filler. Superb job creating content for people to enjoy.

I remember the first time I cooked scallops in a pan. I was utterly shocked that it had so much natural fat. It browned fast and was almost butter-like.

"Ever wonder what would happen if you just didn't?" I do, it's called "all the food I ate growing up". It was horrible.

The first time I had Brussel sprouts, they were properly sauteed and I loved them. I immediately asked myself why so many people use them as THE proverbial disgusting veggie. As with a lot of green stuff, it really is down to people not knowing how to cook and just boiling stuff that shouldn't be boiled.

0:15 - "a little of olive oil" dude are you like i dunno BLIND this is an ocean

I can't imagine how happy I am seeing someone with 1.5M subscribers making videos like this and not a combo of "I made wagyu burgers with gold" and "Yet another 7 $3 dinners" just to have more content and appease the algorithm.

Finally, a sequel to “Vinegar leg is on the right”, in “Oiled food is on the right”

I think the difference in importance of oil between oven and pan is because the oven heats from all directions instead of just from beneath. The enclosed space traps hot air and creates a more even temperature overall.

Beautiful videography and presentation. Thank you!

Adam Ragusea, you said what the world needs to hear: “The results are objective; whether or not you like them is subjective.” Dear man, I want to greet you with a kiss and shake your hand.

I'd love to see you cover is how much of the oil used in a pan ends up being ingested with the food, for calorie counting Also, there's actually an entire cultural cuisine that didn't use oils for frying or sautéing: Mesoamerican civilizations like the Aztec and Maya: They steamed, grilled, roasted on hot stones/ceramics, made sauces, smoked, salted etc food, but as far as I'm aware (and I even double checked this with presenters during a recent lecture series on Mesoamerican cuisine from a month ago) there was no intentional rendering of fat or oils to then use to saute or fry. To an extent this makes sense, since those civilizations didn't have nearly as many domesticated animals for foodstuff (just Turkey and Dog, though more was kept tamed/farmed for foodstuff in some cases) but it's still pretty interesting. And I want to reiterate here that this WAS a well developed culinary tradition: The Conquistador Bernal Diaz describes the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II, for his meals, being brought over thirty dishes, across hundreds of plates for his meals, thousands including guards, attendents, other officials, etc, all on fine plates and platters, on coasters or with a large fireplace behind a screen using scented woods to prevent things from getting cold, with the tamples and stools being engraved and on fine tablecloth,es, etc. The Aztec captial of Tenochtitlan itself also had 200,000+ denizens by most estimates, in the same ballpark as the then largest cities in Europe like Paris and Constantinople, with the city also mostly being made out of artificial islands with venice like canals between them, with many palaces, temples, large plazas, a royal library, zoo, and aquarium, etc. Civilization in the region also dates back almost 3000 years before the Spanish arrived, the Aztec were among the very LATEST Mesoamerican societies: There's of course also the Maya, but also the Olmec, Zapotec, Teotihuacanos (who had a massive metropolis where nearly all it's denizens lived in fancy palaces with painted frescos, some even toilets; and had a massive planned urban grid covering nearly 2 dozen square kilometers, all 1000 years before the Aztec) Classic Veracruz, Mixtec, Totonac, Huastec, Otomi, Tlapenec, Chatino, Purepecha (who had the third largest empire in the Americas as of Spanish contact after the Inca and Aztec), etc.

I asked my mom this exact question when I was learning to cook and insisted we try cooking in water, and she just laughed at me without explaining. Now I know. I was insisting on using water, because oily pans and plates were harder to clean.

I really appreciate that he's willing to say, "I don't know," or "I'm not sure,"

I just started experimenting to cook without oils yesterday! This video came right on time, thanks 🙌🏻

This is actually my introduction to my students whenever I teach Kinetics of Heat Transfer in my Materials Engineering Classes. Glad that I have a well-made video to support my lecture. Edit: for the oven thing, I think it's because the heat is radiating from all sides and the oven has a more equal heat profile compared to stove top where the heat gradient decreases much more as you go from stove to pan.

wow this video is a masterpiece! great visuals, explanations, demonstrations, and topic. more please!

thank u markiplier 🙏🏻

This is exactly why I cook with the same thermal paste I use on my CPU.

We have an excess of KZfaq cooks who basically do the same thing, sometimes with variations. And then we have Adam.

Love the scientific approach to cooking techniques.

As a Chemist, i couldn't be more luckier to find this channel, i always thought cooking a complex chemistry. Great Demonstration!

4:49 is actually one of my favorite ways to steam a lot of vegetables. Just enough water to get the job done, then take the lid off and hit things with some soy sauce, butter, or whatever I'm feeling that day. One pan does it all

My parents rarely used oil when cooking. I'm finally starting to explore the food world myself. I thought oil was 90% calorie dense non-stick, 10% browns the outside faster. I have a whole new world to explore

Very informative. All of AR’s presentations are clear, and to the point. Thanks.

You can think of oil like the thermal paste you put on your CPU, it allows for much better contact between the CPU surface (IHS) and your CPU cooler surface, and it is a material with a high termal conductivity for more efficient dissipation. With cooking oil it's the same thing, it allows for more efficient heat transfer between pan and food by being highly conductive of heat and filling in the gaps between food surface and pan surface.

Adam, I would love to see a video about food dyes! Especially ones like the notorious red 40 that are banned in other countries.

When the sprouts were cooking without oil it was disturbingly silent in the background; when I watch Adam Ragusea videos apparently I'm used to the sound of crackling or bubbling underneath Adam talking

i really appreciate your sort of.. realistic approach to cooking. too many of modern recipes have that secret ingredient known as magic. which is really only the writers ignorance or secret

Great content! Good cinematography, good sound, excellent presentation and information. That fact about naan in the dry pan makes soooo much sense! Thanks for sharing!

In the oven, you have a different thermal interface: air. So that's why the oil only makes a difference under the veggies/meat, because that's where the oil can help improve the thermal interface between the food and the plate, where air doesn't play a role but the temperature of the plate does. Oil improves the thermal interface only there; on the top and sides, it just makes the food more oily and lets the heat through the same way the air would have done directly. I think the reason why you saw a difference with the chicken was because of its skin that isn't permeable. The oil must have had some effect on the chicken skin, making it more heat-transmissive than the air did since air was not able to go through the skin. But my guess is as good as yours! One test that would be worth doing: three chicken breasts, one with oiled skin, one with unoiled skin, and one with unoiled skin but you use a fork to poke holes in the skin, making it permeable to air. I'm guessing the one with poked holes will cook better than the unpoked one, even with no oil.

Anyone who has ever built a PC should realize the answer to this question immediately. It's thermal paste, but between your pan & your food rather than your CPU & your heat sink. It's fluid so it spreads, viscous so it has sufficient surface tension to get a good coverage on the food, it's heat-tolerant, and most importantly, it can reach temperatures high enough for caramelizing & maillard reaction..ing while staying in its liquid state, rather than boil off like water. LOOK AT HOW SMART I AM FIGURING OUT THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION BEFORE WATCHING THE VIDEO HURKADURK

I've always wondered why we cook food in oil. Thank you so much for the thorough explanation. Now I'll make sure I add enough oil for proper cooking.

Just the simple act of "Let's try it out!" is such a simple and fundamentally genious way of teaching!

Another reason why browning doesn't occur with water, even at higher temperatures (pressure cooker) is that both caramelization and maillard reactions involve the chemical loss of water. The presence of water shifts that reaction to the left, while temperatures above the boiling point of water shift the equilibrium to the right, as water leaves as steam, and is thus unable to participate in the reverse reaction.

This was covered in your elementary school science class! There are three types of heat transfer: Conduction, Convection, and Radiation. Putting food in a pan with no oil only gets you conduction, metal-on-food contact heat transfer. Oil and water and steam give you convection, the fluid transfers the heat to the food and it circulates a bit, giving the results described here which are highly dependent on the temperature of the fluid. Your oven uses convection as the air is heated, and it can also transfer heat via radiation on the top of your food if you turn the broiler on.

I enjoyed this program.

I didn't have well-made brussel sprouts before as a kid, but once I did, they became on of my favorite vegetable sides. Something about light oil cooking makes everything taste more alive in my opinion

You mentioned in an older Q&A that you were considering attempting a burger recipe- is that in the works at all? I know you’ve mentioned your reservations about it but I’d love to see your take on burgers :)

My hypothesis on why the oven cooked food didn't show nearly as big a difference between oil and no oil is because in an enclosed oven the hot air envelops the food in the same way water does when you boil food. You don't see this effect on the pan because the hot air directly above the pan just escapes into room temp kitchen air around it instead of lingering.

This was very interesting. I usually cook beef in the oven with no oil and it comes out beautiful, so that part didn't surprise me. But it did surprise me to see how much difference it made to the vegetables in the oven, and to the stove cooking.

Very interesting! I really enjoyed the mix of cooking and science, good job!

I have to say I’ve not seen that many “good” cooking videos but this sir, this was a masterpiece

Lots of veggies have enzymatic reactions under moderate heat that convert starches to sugars (this is why roasted sweet potatoes are so incredibly sweet, but raw they're much milder). I suspect that is part of why veggies actually do okay in the oven without oil - enzymatic actions provide sugar for browning. Similarly, the relatively low energy density for a 350 degree cube of air in an oven (vs a 350 degree chunk of metal on a stovetop) gives veggies the opportunity to become tender before enough moisture is evaporated away to allow browning where it touches the pan. I once roasted some cut up fingerling potatoes without oil - the color was actually fantastic, a quick glance wouldn't tell you at all that they had been dry roasted. The texture was bizarre. The exteriors desiccated, becoming dry and slightly leathery, and each potato puffed up where steam tried to escape that touch exterior without being able to - oil not only keeps the exteriors pliable, the speed with which the outside cooks causes it to split in some places for steam to escape. Not so in the dry roasted potatoes. A little hotsauce to moisten the outsides and they were quite good

It's interesting. A lot of Japanese cruisine let's us cook in a pan with a piece of parchment paper. For example: Cooking salmon on parchment paper in a stovetop pan allows the fish to cook using only its own oils without intaking additional unnecessary oil.

Fantastic video! Thank you!

Around 2000ish I bought this really really expensive "Oil-less" pan/pot set.....long story short, I used oil anyways 😉

Let's take a moment to appreciate how many times he had to brillo that pan between takes after burning one of everything in it.

The oven may have to do with consistent heat surrounding the meat in a layered effect naturally. Where the stove is using the pan base as a fulcrum, the oven gets hot all around.

Naan is usually made in a dry setup as opposed to the flat pan. For a thermal interface, in India, some foods can be cooked using heated sand with salt as an interface.

All those baby cabbages could've been great adult cabbages, poor baby cabbages.

9:02 - your eyes light up when tasting the oil fried bread. that was wholesome

In an oven, the heated air can get into all the crevices of the food, so that's why you might see more similarity, the places where the veggies hit the metal plate, however, have more of the localised heat going on, and passing the heat onto the food or to the surrounding metal is often 'easier' than passing it to the air, so the heat near where the metal and food touch likely doesn't go as much into the air as it does elsewhere. The oil might, however, help to trap some of the moisture in the food (or replace it with fat) which keeps it from drying out a bit, whereas without oil, the water in the veggies just evaporates

such an informative and concise video. well done.

It's so cool you actually look into strange questions like this, i was wondering this

I am hypothesizing that in the oven, especially if it is a convection oven, the heat interface isnt a single flat surface but the hot air that circulates through food, much like oil or water.

I kept getting recommended this and I thought "I already know why", regardless still an entertaining video to watch and I'm sure it is informative for a lot of people. Nice video adam

this video had no right to be as massively entertaining as it was. good stuff

This is such a good video, everything is so neat and clear

10:35 "oil wouldn't make big of a difference in oven as i woulve guessed. Why I'm not entirely sure" The first thing we need to understand is how oven works. Oven uses air to transfer the heat. Hot air is channelled through the oven with help of fan. What we need to understand is air is a fluid just like water and oil. What happes in oven is basically the same what happens when you boil or deepfry your food. Hence you can not absorve much difference in cooking but there is definitely alteration in sear pattern. Food coated in oil and contact with pan are well seared and foods not coated in oil aren't. Explanations for this sear behaviour is due to the surface tension between food and the oil in contact with the hot pan has been mentioned in my comment about why foods do not stick to pan. Check that out too.

This is why I love your channel; shaking up what I've always accepted as factual when cooking in the kitchen and making it both easier on me as a home cook, and making the end result much tastier than before. Bravo, good sir.

THIS is what I needed!

When I was in my college dorm we had to check out kitchen supplies from the front desk. It was surprising to see how much I was forgetting when I couldn't just reach into cabinets for what I needed! Oil being one of them (turns out I should have gone to the store beforehand to prep for this one sweet potato I wanted to cook). Took like an hour to cook the dang thing and it still wasn't done. If only I had learned about microwaving baked potatoes before moving out of the dorm. That was the second time I cooked in the dorm. The first time I did, I just wanted to make spaghetti. Forgot salt and a colandar. And the pot I checked out was too small and I BURNED THE PASTA IN THE POT OF WATER. I was dumbfounded.

Last Friday was literally the first time I cooked duck breast and while reading the instructions I was confused why it mentioned no oil was needed. I inferred the answer myself which is the same as this video. What an odd likelihood of events.

What a beautifully executed video!! Having an experiment to every option was amaaazing. Add a well-spoken, kind-looking, enthusiastic host and you've got this great piece of a video. *chef's kiss

I learned from a Chinese cookbook a method of cooking chicken in water, and loved it This may be weird but I tried it on my breakfast sausage and found that I actually really liked it. I found that the links would cook in the time that water in a shallow pan would evaporate,I would check the links and if for some reason they weren't done I'd let them continue to fry in the pan

You touched all the right points by moving from coating of oil on the food, using water instead of oil, and steaming!

My take on it, heat in the oven is relatively omnipresent, it surrounds the food and heats evenly from all sides, a little oil on the sheet helps on the unexposed sides, so oil or turn regularly. In the pan, heat comes directly from the bottom.

Thank you, Adam, for providing answers to questions I’ve always had but haven’t cared enough to figure out for myself

Very extraordinarily explained!❤

Great video never really questioned something many people use on a daily basis and with tests and situation that would cover every subject on the matter well done