The product we used:
What the heck is a drop lid?
Drop lids–“otoshibuta” in Japanese–are a lid that’s placed on top of food in a pot or pan. Drop lids are a good tool for the following situations:
- You want to boil food, retaining moisture, while also allowing some moisture out to prevent overflow messes
- You have a pot well-packed with food, as in a stew pot, that you want to evenly cook and season without stirring (to avoid breaking up the food too much)
- You don’t want a “skin” on top of your food after it stops cooking and cools down
- You want to place some weight on top of your food to get even cooking, a pleasant appearance, and some other special properties
The problems that drop lids solve
In Japanese cooking, beef stew is usually made by simmering beef, potatoes, onions, etc. in a pot with not quite enough liquid to completely cover the top. If you leave it like that, then the food at the top won’t season and cook at the same rate as all of the other food. However, this method of packing and placing the food will allow the food, especially the potatoes, to maintain their shape and consistency.
No problem, right? Just stir the stew! That works at the beginning, but what happens if you stir those stew potatoes too much? They’re gonna start falling apart–the exact problem the pack-and-place style of cooking is meant to prevent.
That’s where drop lids come in. By placing a drop lid on top of the food, you can gently hold the food down, preventing it from being pushed up by bubbles, and hold in the steam for a short time to help cook the top of the stew. The liquid of the stew can also flow up and over the sides of the lid, partially evaporating, preventing overflow messes. In some types of drop lids, the liquid will also partially flow back over the top of the food, seasoning and cooking it.
The drop lid, if left on top of the food as it cools before eating, will also prevent any unpleasant “skin” from forming on top.
Drop lids allow you to make delicious, beautiful stews with greater efficiency (no need for larger pots with more liquid and seasoning).
Kinds of Drop Lids
There are mainly three kinds of drop lids:
- DIY parchment paper ala the French cartouche
- Silicon sheets
- Wood, typically cypress wood
- Perforated metal
Parchment paper is great if you don’t need any extra weight on top of your food, you’re new to drop lids and just want to try them out, or you don’t need a drop lid enough to justify buying a specialized tool. Silicon sheets are similar to parchment paper, with the added benefit of being a more permanent solution.
Wooden drop lids are great because they are simple and be multi-functional. For example, a wooden drop lid with two handles can be placed upside-down, acting as a pot mat as well. Wood won’t transfer heat as readily as metal, so the wood won’t cool the top of the boiling pot of food or burn your hands when you handle it.
Metal drop lids are great because they are usually adjustable, so you can have one and use it for multiple sizes of pots and pans. They also are perforated, allowing more even evaporation and lower chances of messes.
Using a Metal Drop Lid
Using a metal drop lid, like the one sold by our good friends at Shimomura, is easy. Open the lid to the size you want it, then place it on top of your food. One of the downsides of metal is that it will heat up, making it difficult to handle with your bare hands. The Shimomura Safety Free Size drop handle conveniently has little hooks on the top of the lid, allowing you to lift the lid with a pot ladle.
Other foods
Drop lids can be used for more than just stew. Wooden drop lids can be used to make crispy, evenly cooked bacon. You can use a drop lid in place of a typical burger press, getting more even cooking on burgers and helping keep them flat. And as I mentioned before, the double-handle wooden drop lids can double as pot mats or trivets. Parchment and silicon drop lids are useful for preventing skins on sauces and helping to caramelize onions. With a little lift from below, metal drop lids can be used for steaming vegetables. Choosing the right drop mat for you will come down to how you plan to use it.
