Cooking Techniques

Baking is cooking food in an oven with dry heat applied evenly throughout the oven.  Breads, pastries, desserts, and meat are often baked.

Blanching is a cooking technique involving boiling food (usually vegetables and fruits) in water for a very short time. Blanching is often followed by plunging the food into ice water to stop the cooking process. Though the word means to make something white or pale, blanching certain vegetables like broccoli will make their colors more vivid.

Boiling, as it applies to cooking, means cooking foods in boiling water. In most populated parts of the world, plain water boils at temperatures from about 200°F to 212°F (95°C to 100°C).

Braising (from the French "braiser") is cooking with "moist heat," typically in a covered pot with a small amount of liquid which results in a particular flavor.

Broiling or Grilling is the use of radiant heat for cooking, usually called grilling in British English and broiling in US English. Broiling is typically done in an electric oven, using only the upper heating element, with the door partially open. Gas ovens often provide a less-effective lower drawer for broiling.

Canning is a food preservation method whereby micro-organisms are killed, either with heat or brine, and then sealed to reduce exposure to oxygen.

Creaming is really more of a cooking terminology than a cooking technique, since it is not a method of preparing a complete dish.

Deep frying involves fully immersing food in hot oil. It is an extremely fast cooking method, and, despite the use of liquid oil, is best classified as a dry cooking method.

Fermentation is the process of controlling bacteria, yeast, and moulds to modify food, producing a desired product.

Fermentation can improve food so that it:

• tastes different, bringing new, often strong flavours to the source foods
• is easier to digest
• is more nutritious
• lasts longer

Frying is the cooking of food in fat. This takes several forms, from deep-frying, where the food is completely immersed in hot oil, to sautéing where food is cooked in a frying pan where there is only a thin coating of oil.

Grilling is an ambiguous term that can mean:

• Double-sided Frying
• Broiling (British English usage)
• Barbecuing
• Recipes that use some form of grilling

Outdoor cooking takes many forms; from basic cooking over a simple camp-fire to gormet meals prepared on equipment that rivals that found in modern kitchens. Wood, charcol, propane gas or piped in natural gas may fuel the cooking devices.