A real sear needs a hotter pan and more patience than you think

Grey meat in a wet pan is the commonest disappointment in home cooking, and it has two causes.

Browning is not cooking. It is a separate set of reactions between amino acids and sugars that only get going properly above about 140 degrees Celsius, and they are what produce the flavours people mean when they say something tastes roasted, seared, or caramelised.

Water boils at 100. So as long as there is water on the surface of the food, the surface cannot get hot enough to brown, and everything you put in the pan steams instead.

That gives you the two rules. Dry the food, properly, with paper towel, right before it goes in. And do not crowd the pan, because every extra piece adds moisture and drops the temperature. Cook in two batches and both will be better than one batch of everything.

Then leave it alone. A crust forms by contact over time, and food released from the pan cleanly when it is ready. If it is sticking, it is not done; moving it early tears the crust off and leaves it behind.

Heat the pan before the fat, and the fat before the food. A pan that is properly hot will shimmer the oil in a few seconds. If the oil goes straight to smoke you are too hot for most things, and if it sits there looking thick you are too cold.

Photograph: Prayitno, Los Angeles, USA — CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons