ChefSteps is a team of chefs, writers, and food lovers who develop recipes, techniques, and guides to help people cook better at home.

ChefSteps

Pressure infusion is a simple technique for preparing flavorful infusions. The technique was <a href="http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/08/11/infusion-profusion-game-changing-fast-%E2%80%98n-cheap-technique/">first popularized</a> by Dave Arnold of Cooking Issues fame, and the idea spread quickly from there. And why not? It’s simple to do and it makes it possible to create a flavorful infusion in seconds or minutes that would otherwise take hours or days.But how does it work? The technique of pressure infusion relies on the phenomenon of cavitation to open the microstructure of solid ingredients and extract flavorful molecules into the surrounding liquid. We’ve seen cavitation at work before, recall that it’s <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/the-physics-of-blending-cavitation">secretly assisting the blades of a blender</a> each time you prepare a smooth puree. Looking at the process a bit closer, here is what happens: when a liquid and aromatic solids, like the charred oak chips shown here, are sealed inside a whipping siphon, which is then pressurized with nitrous oxide, some of the gas will dissolve into the liquid and then diffuse into the solids. When the gas is suddenly released from the siphon, the sudden pressure drop causes gas to come out of solution in the liquid and solids as bubbles. As these bubbles rapidly swell in size they rupture the microstructure of the solid ingredients, releasing aromatic molecules into the surrounding liquid. The result is a remarkably flavorful infusion in mere minutes.