Broiling Is Grilling Upside Down

Most American ovens have a broiler and most go unused. It is the same cooking as a grill with the heat source moved above the food instead of below it.

Radiant heat from close range

A broiler element runs far hotter than the oven's normal setting, and it cooks primarily by radiation rather than by heating the air around the food.

Radiation falls off sharply with distance, so the rack position is the main control you have. Moving a pan down one slot changes the intensity substantially.

Because the energy lands on the surface, browning happens fast while the interior lags behind, which is exactly what you want for finishing and wrong for cooking through.

Its natural jobs are surface jobs

Melting and browning cheese, blistering the skin of peppers, charring the top of a casserole and crisping the fat cap on a piece of meat all live here.

It also rescues food that cooked through without coloring, such as braised meat or something finished in a covered dish, by adding the surface a closed pot cannot.

Thin items cook fully under it, which is why a broiler handles fish fillets and thin chops in minutes, provided you accept that timing is measured in those minutes.

Gas and electric broilers behave differently

Electric ovens use a heating element at the top of the cavity, and it cycles on and off to hold a temperature range rather than burning continuously.

Many gas ovens place the broiler in a separate drawer beneath the oven, which sits closer to the burner and offers less rack adjustment.

Some ovens offer high and low broil settings, which change the element's duty cycle rather than its distance, and low is the more usable setting for anything over an inch thick.

Pan choice is not optional

Broiling drives fat out of food quickly, and that fat pooling under an intense element is the origin of most kitchen smoke and the occasional flare.

A slotted broiler pan or a rack over a sheet pan lets the fat drain away from the radiant zone, which is why those pans exist and why a flat pan smokes.

Parchment does not belong under a broiler, since the element sits directly above it and the temperature exceeds what the paper is rated for.

The failure mode is inattention

Nothing under a broiler tolerates being left. The margin between browned and burned is often under a minute, and it is not recoverable.

The practical technique is to stay at the oven with the door ajar where the design permits it, watching rather than setting a timer.

Preheating the element for several minutes first matters as well, since a cold element ramps up gradually and the food spends that time drying instead of browning.