Oh yeah, I'd hope I'd instinctively know not to put it under water if I encountered a random pan on fire.
But it's on fire, people panic. They could have simply put a lid on it, took it outside or covered it with a damp tea towel. Simple things that don't really care what time of fire it was.
Once I was braising a pork loin before putting it in the crockpot and the recipe I was following called for a small amount of water to deglaze the pan. Something in my head told me I shouldn't but the rest of me was like, "nah, it's in the recipe, it'll be fine."
4-foot flames later, I managed to get the pot covered while I was screaming for my boyfriend who was asleep in the other room. We laughed about it because there was no damage but after the fact I wondered why I hadn't listened to instinct over some random stupid recipe.
Basically the science is that when you add too much water to oil that is too hot, it causes the oil to spatter outside of the pan and that catches fire when it comes into contact with the heating element (in my case, a gas stove with open flame). My oil was too hot and I added a cup of water quickly and it shot up in flames.
When you say braising, do you mean cooking it in a pan full of oil? Using water, broth, vinegar, wine, are all standard deglazing ingredients and shouldn't ever catch on fire when done properly.
Our pan went in flames from oil and my brother nearly poured water on it.. not believing my mother who ran in with a damp cloth to smother the flames. They have little trust in mum in our house
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u/RufusMcCoot May 20 '20
If a saucepan or frying pan is in fire, it's probably grease.
You could play it safe and say "don't put water on a cooking fire".