A smoking oven is never as entertaining in real life as it is on TV. When two sitcom characters are deep in conversation and one, crinkling their nose, says, “Do you smell that?” we know what to expect. The other, eyes widening in panic, will race to the kitchen with a harried, “No, no, no, no.”
In reality, a smoking oven is pretty much always stressful, and the cause is often deceptively innocuous. A syrupyapple and cranberry tart filling or some loose Gruyère from an over-stuffedcheesy cabbage gratin will spill onto the oven floor. Once there, it quickly combusts into a barnacle of carbonized schmutz, releasing plumes of black smog in the process. The dish itself might be okay, but even a scant amount of overflow can produce enough smoke to trigger a fire alarm, and, if bad enough, might compel you to turn the oven off and halt cooking entirely until the smoke clears, putting a serious wrench in your carefully plannedThanksgiving run-of-show.
But what about scenarios where shutting off the oven isn’t an option?There’s no time to wait for smoke to subside when ravenous guests are banging down your door (I mean, with thepop cultural moment that cannibalism is having these days).
This is where the “salt trick” comes in. I first learned it from my friend Ines Anguiano, BA and Epi’s test kitchen coordinator, who, when confronted with a smoldering oven the other day, opened its door and casually dashed a generous handful of salt onto the offending mess. The smoke stopped, the gurgling apple crumble continued to cook without incident, and she sat back down at her desk like nothing had happened. She told me it was one of those tricks you learn in culinary school.
I assumed then that there was some sort of miraculous chemistry involved, that when the salt made contact with the spill, it initiated some molecular interaction with the fats or the moisture, rendering them inert…or something.
It turns out I was just overthinking it. According to Gavin Sacks, a professor of food science at Cornell, it has nothing to do with salt itself, so much as it is just something to smother the mess. “You could also use kitty litter, but I don’t think anybody would want to throw that in a hot oven,” he told me over the phone. And since a three-pound box of kosher salt is often only an arm’s reach away for a home cook, this handy ingredient offers an easy solution.
The reasoning why the salt trick works, Sacks explained, is pretty simple. Oxygen is essential to a combustion reaction (which is what produces smoke) and when you smother an oven spill with salt (or baking soda, or, if in a bind, kitty litter) you’re creating a barrier between the spill and the oxygen, thus preventing a combustion reaction from occurring. It’s the same mechanism of action behind fire extinguishers and fire blankets. And since conventional ovens can’t quitereach the 1,474°F minimum temperature to ignite salt, you can keep on cooking and simply deal with the spill when you’re finished.
So if you find yourself this holiday season faced with a billowing oven and a shrieking smoke alarm, do not panic. Simply grab a handful of salt, toss it onto that mess, cover it thoroughly, open a window, and continue on. You’ll be able to feed those hungry guests on time, and live to see another day.
