Methods of Cooking

Here are the most basic cooking techniques to help you survive your first
culinary year as a university student.
#1 Baking
This involves applying a dry convection heat to your food in an enclosed
environment.
The dry heat involved in the baking process makes the outside of the food
go brown, and keeps the moisture locked in.
Baking is regularly used for cooking pastries, bread and desserts.
#2 Frying

1
This means cooking your food in fat – there are several variations of
frying:
Deep-frying, where the food is completely immersed in hot oil
Stir-frying, where you fry the food very quickly on a high heat in a oiled
pan
Pan-frying, where food is cooked in a frying pan with oil; and
Sauteing, where the food is browned on one side and then the other with a
small quantity of fat or oil.
Frying is one of the quickest ways to cook food, with temperatures
typically reaching between 175 – 225ºC.
#3 Roasting
2
Roasting is basically a high heat form of baking, where your food gets
drier and browner on the outside by initial exposure to a temperature of
over 500F.
This prevents most of the moisture being cooked out of the food.
The temperature is then lowered to between 425 and 450F to cook through
the meat or vegetables.
#4 Grilling
This is a fast, dry and very hot way of cooking, where the food is placed
under an intense radiant heat.
You can use various sources of heat for grilling: wood burning, coals, gas
flame, or electric heating.

3
Before grilling, food can be marinaded or seasoned.
A similar method to grilling is broiling, where the heat source originates
from the top instead of the bottom.
#5 Steaming
This means cooking your food in water vapour over boiling water.
For this, it’s handy to have a steamer, which consists of a vessel with a
perforated bottom placed on top of another containing water.
Steam rises as the water boils, cooking the food in the perforated vessel
above.
#6 Poaching

4
This involves a small amount of hot liquid, ideally at a temperature
between 160 and 180F.
The cooking liquid is normally water, but you can also use broth, stock,
milk or juice.Common foods cooked by poaching include fish, eggs and
fruit.
#7 Simmering
This involves cooking liquid on top of a stove in a pot or pan. It should be
carried out on a low heat, and you will see bubbles appearing on the
surface of the liquid as your dish cooks.
#8 Broiling
Similar to grilling, the heat source comes directly from the top.

5
You should be able to adjust your oven setting to broiling, but be careful,
as this cooking methods works quickly and your meal could easily
become burned.
Favourite dishes for broiling include chicken, beef and fish.
#9 Blanching
Here the food is part-cooked, and then immediately submerged in ice cold
water to stop the cooking process.
All sorts of vegetables can be blanched, including green beans, asparagus
and potatoes.
#10 Braising

6
First the food is sauted or seared, and then simmered in liquid for a long
period of time until tender.Pot roasts, stews and casseroles can be cooked
in this way if they contain larger food items such as poultry legs.
#11 Stewing
Again, the food is sauted or seared first, and then cooked in liquid, but
normally uses smaller ingredients such as chopped meats or vegetables.
Need some inspiration for using these techniques? Take a look at our
Student Recipes, filled with tasty dishes for you to try at breakfast, lunch,
dinner or any other time of day!
We also have lots of information and advice on the different herbs and
spices you can use in your cooking, how to keep your kitchen clean,

7
budgeting for food, healthy eating, and a checklist of handy utensils you
might need.

8
 Dry Heat Cooking Methods
Dry heat cooking refers to any cooking technique where the heat is
transferred to the food item without using extra moisture. This method
typically involves high temperatures—300 F or hotter.
Note that the browning of food, as when bread is toasted, can only be
achieved through dry heat cooking. This browning, in turn, leads to the
development of complex flavors and aromas that can't be attained through
moist heat cooking techniques.
1. Sautéing and Pan-Frying
Sautéing requires a hot pan before cooking. When sautéing, it's important
to heat the pan for a minute, then add a small amount of fat (such as oil)
and let it heat up before adding ingredients to the pan.
9
Another key is not overloading or crowding the pan. Too much food in the
pan dissipates the heat, causing the food to steam or boil rather than sauté.
One method for maintaining a hot pan and ensuring the food cooks evenly
is through tossing or flipping the food in the pan—sauté actually means
"jump" in French. Some sauté pans have sloped sides to facilitate this, but
it's generally only done with smaller pieces of food, especially vegetables.
Pan-frying closely resembles sautéing, but pan-frying uses slightly more
fat and a slightly lower temperature than sautéing. This makes it a good
method for cooking larger pieces of meat that need longer to cook. Meat
that is pan-fried is sometimes finished in the oven to cook through.
2.Roasting and Baking

10
The words roasting and baking are largely synonymous since they both
describe a method of cooking an item by enveloping it in hot, dry air. This
typically happens inside an oven and at temperatures of at least 300 F.
This technique cooks food fairly evenly since all of the food's surfaces are
exposed to heat. This differs from pan-searing, for instance, where the
surface that touches the hot pan gets much hotter than the side that faces
up. Roasting and baking both require that the food be cooked uncovered
when used as a dry heat cooking method so that it's the hot, dry air that
delivers the heat, not the steam from the food.

Despite these similarities, roasting and baking can mean slightly different
things depending on who you ask. Some chefs use the word "baking" only
11
when speaking of bread, pastry and other bakery items. Some may use the
word "roasting" only when referring to meats, poultry, and vegetables, but
use the term "baking" for fish and other seafood.
Broiling and Grilling
Broiling is another dry heat cooking method that relies on heat being
conducted through the air. Because air is a relatively poor conductor of
heat, broiling, and grilling require the food to be quite close to the heat
source, which in this case is likely to be an open flame. Thus the surface
of the food cooks very quickly, making this type of cooking ideal for
poultry, fish and the tenderest cuts of meat.
There is one significant distinction between broiling and grilling: Grilling
involves heating the food from below, while broiling involves heating
12
from above. In both cases, the food is typically turned once during
cooking, and a grid or grate of some kind can be used, giving the food the
distinctive grill-marks that are the hallmark of this cooking technique. As
with sautéing, it's critical to heat the broiler or grill before adding the food.
Deep Frying
Since deep frying involves submerging the food in hot, liquid fat, it might
take some time to get used to the idea that it's actually a form of dry heat
cooking. But if you've ever seen the violent reaction of hot oil to a tiny
drop of water, you know that oil and water are opposites that want nothing
to do with each other. To avoid splatters, make sure anything you place
into the hot fat is free from excess moisture. That might mean patting an
item dry with a paper towel before frying it.
13
Deep frying requires keeping the oil at temperatures between 325 F and
400 F. Hotter than that and the oil may start to smoke, and if it's any
cooler, it starts to seep into the food and make it greasy. Only high-
temperature tolerant oils should be used for deep frying. If fried properly,
deep-fried items should actually have very little oil on them.
Foods are often coated in a simple batter to protect it and seal in its
moisture. The key to keeping the oil hot is to fry items in small batches, as
introducing too much food to the oil will cool it off. Fried foods typically
turn golden-brown once cooked.

Moist Heat Cooking Methods

14
Moist heat cooking refers to various methods for cooking food with, or in,
any type of liquid—whether it's steam, water, stock, wine or something
else.
Relative to dry heat cooking methods, moist heat cooking uses lower
temperatures, anywhere from 140 F on the low end to a maximum of 212
F, which is as hot as water can get.
Braising and Stewing
With braising, the item to be cooked is first seared or sautéed, then
partially covered with liquid and simmered slowly at a relatively low
temperature. Braising can be done on the stovetop, but it's best done in the
oven so that the heat can fully surround the pot, causing the food to cook
more evenly than if it were only heated from below.
15
Braising is a good technique for cooking tougher cuts of meat, such as
those from older animals, or ones that naturally contain more connective
tissues. These tissues are what can make these cuts of meat tough and
chewy when improperly cooked. But the long, slow application of moist
heat dissolves these tissues, with the result being a tender piece of meat.
Plus, as the connective tissues break down, they dissolve and form gelatin,
which thickens the cooking liquid and gives it body and shine.
Meanwhile, braising causes the muscle fibers to absorb moisture from the
cooking liquid and steam. That gives you a juicy piece of meat. Braising
also melds flavors from the stock, vegetables and any herbs and
seasonings.
Poaching, Simmering, and Boiling
16
Poaching, simmering, and boiling are actually three different stages of the
same cooking method. Each of these describes cooking food by
submerging it in hot water (or another liquid, like stock). What defines
each one is an approximate range of temperatures, which can be identified
by observing how the water (or other cooking liquid) behaves.
Poaching refers to cooking food in a liquid that has a temperature ranging
from 140 F to 180 F. Poaching is typically reserved for cooking very
delicate items like eggs and fish. At poaching temperatures, the liquid
won't be bubbling at all, though small bubbles may form at the bottom of
the pot.
Simmering is distinguished by cooking temperatures that are a bit hotter
than with poaching—from 180 F to 205 F. Here we will see bubbles
17
forming and gently rising to the surface of the water, but the water is not
yet at a full rolling boil. Because it surrounds the food in water that stays
at a fairly constant temperature, food that is simmered cooks very evenly.
It's the standard method for preparing stocks and soups, starchy items such
as potatoes or pasta, and many others. One of the downsides to simmering
is that vitamins and other nutrients can be leached out of the food and into
the cooking liquid.
Boiling is the hottest of these three stages, where the water reaches its
highest possible temperature of 212 F. It's actually the method that is least
likely to be used in cooking. That's because the violent agitation caused by
churning bubbles characteristic of a rolling boil will often damage the
food. Boiling would be a bad choice for cooking an egg outside its shell,

18
as when preparing poached eggs, because the agitation would basically
destroy the egg. The same holds true for pasta and delicate fish.
Steaming
Once water is heated past the 212 F mark, it stops being water and turns
into steam. As far as physical agitation goes, steaming is very gentle,
making it ideal for cooking seafood and other delicate items. It also has
the advantage of cooking quickly while avoiding the loss of nutrients
through leaching.
Interestingly, steam's maximum temperature is also 212 F, just like water.
But unlike water, steam can be forced to exceed this natural temperature
limit by pressurizing it. The higher the pressure, the hotter the steam

19
becomes. Cooking with pressurized steam requires specialized equipment,
though, so it's not something that a home cook would typically use.

20