In the home kitchen, almost all pots and pans have the manufacturer’s original lids. But just because a lid is included doesn’t mean you should always use it. Here are five cooking situations in which you may want to set the lid aside.

1. Cooking broths, soups, and thick stews. In short, all cases in which it is important to let excess liquid evaporate and thus make the taste of the dish richer and more concentrated. Boiling borscht, evaporating sauces on wine, cooking rich chicken broth – all these things are important to do without a lid. The exceptions are stews and roasts that require a long stew.
2. Cooking reduced sauces. We are talking about sauces, the preparation of which includes such a step as evaporation of liquid. Typically, these are various wine-based sauces, as well as tomato sauces for pasta.
3. Roasting meat, poultry and fish until crispy. This includes cooking all kinds of steaks, fried chicken and duck breast, fish steaks and fillets, shrimp, squid, scallops, etc. And even trivial cutlets in breaded form. If you cover the pan with a lid, the crust will soften and the product will run out of juice. We can not allow this to happen. So if the product can not be fried in a pan completely, it is better to bring it to perfection in the oven, so the crust will be in place and the juices will not escape.
4. Stir-frying or grilling in a wok. As in the previous point, it is important to have a good crispy crust. The steam will be released from the food during cooking, condense on the lid and drip back into the wok, just will not let the crust form. By the way, precisely because of the release of excessive liquid in the wok, it is recommended to fry in small portions so that the pieces of food are not crowded.
5. Deep-frying. First of all, it is not safe. During cooking, any product gives off steam, which will actively condense on the lid and drip into the hot oil. You simply will not be able to get close to the pan to check the readiness of the product. We don’t need burns on the produce – and neither do we need a lid on the oil pan.

But when do we need a lid? Well, that’s easy. You need to put a lid on the pot when it’s important that the moisture
a) stays in the pot longer (like stewing tough meat for a long time) or
b) be absorbed into the product and not released into the atmosphere (as when cooking cereals).