While reducing red wine and olive oil in a flat frying pan on the stove, the mixture exploded with an audible pop, spraying the wine – but not the oil – up to 2 metres away from the pan. Significantly, the wine was not hot enough to scald me. I hadn’t stirred the pan for at least a minute, and the wine and oil had separated. What happened?
Alan Gammons, Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK