How do I avoid my food becoming brownish/dark while cooking?

Question

I recently encountered a few recipes where food is not allowed to 'get colour', or become brownish while baking. A few examples of what I mean:

• Chicken turns a golden-brown colour.
• Burgers get a very dark crust.
• Onions turn brown.

How do I avoid my food becoming this colour when cooking? Is there a way that works in general or if not, a way to find out how to do this for the food I am cooking today?

Specifically, in this recipe for white asparagus panna cotta, a brown colour is undesired.

Bak de asperges een minuutje of 5; ze mogen niet kleuren!
Cook the asparagus for less than 5 minutes; ensure they don't change colour!

Answer 1

The "browning" or "coloring" of food during cooking and baking¹ is a reaction of temperature and/or time. As a rule of thumb, the hotter your pan or oven, the faster the food will brown.

There are two chemical reactions (or rather chains of reactions) that play a significant role in cooking:

• The Maillard reaction, which affects proteins (-> browning a steak)and
• Caramelization, which affects the carbohydrates, i.e. sugars (-> baking a cake).

Both require temperatures well over 100°C (212°F), so one of the easiest preventative measures is to add water to the food you are cooking, which should keep the food at 100°C (212°F) until all water is evaporated - for example blanching or steaming vegetables instead of stir-frying them or poaching a piece of fish or chicken breast vs. pan-frying or grilling. For "dry" preparations, just don’t heat up your pan too much - often 25% or so of the maximum power will suffice- and simply stop cooking before you see browning. You may have to finish cooking it by a low-temperature method, if it's not done at that point.

In your sample recipe, this happens when you add the cream and simmer the asparagus for another ten minutes or until soft.

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¹ Browning as oxidizing (e.g. leaving a cut apple exposed to air) is not part of your question, hence ignored.

Answer 2

Cook your food sous vide and ensure it is safe while never approaching the temperatures at which carmelization or the Maillard effect take place.

For example, the safe temperature for chicken is 165 deg F (74 deg C). If the vacuum sealed pouch containing the chicken is placed in a bath of circulating water at that temperature long enongh to have the same internal temperature, it will be heated through and safe to eat, but never brown