Basic Cooking Techniques

Here we are going to cover 4 basic cooking techniques that will get you through everyday in the kitchen. These techniques not only will get you started but hopefully encourage you to explore more on your own.

Cooking Techniques

The techinques we are going to cover:

• sautee
• Roast
• Boil
• Steam

Sautee:

prepping for sautee:

1. Preheat pan on your range top for set on medium-high.
2. Once your pan is good and hot. Add your oil and let it heat.
3. Heat your oil till it starts to shimmer in the pan. Youre ready to cook!

Once your pan is ready to go. Its time to get cooking! Sauteeing in a high heat cooking method. So you need to use an oil with a high smoking point. Once the meat is in the pan. You need to leave it alone and let it brown on that side. This browning of the meat gives the meat a much welcome flavor boost. Once the meat has picked up a nice brown coloration on one side. Flip it over and repeate. Once both sides have been browned turn down the heat to medium-low. Continue to cook gently until the meat is cooked to your desired doness, in the case of red meats and pork, or until cooked through with polutry foodstuffs. Once meat is cooked remove from the pan and let rest for a few minutes so the juices in side the meat can reabsorb into the meat. You don't want to skip the rest period, or your meat will be drier than need be.

Roasting

Preparing for a roast:

1. Grab a large roasting pan.
2. Preheat oven to 350-400 degrees.
3. You are going to want to get your aeromatic vegatables, A great and reliable choice is the a mirepiox, a French culinary term. A mirepiox, a base of aeromatic vegetables that import aeroma and flavor. A classical mirepoix constists of a 1:1:2 ratio of celery, carrots, and onion respectivly. These vegetable do not have a particular cut as long as the ratio is right. Just remember the larger the vegetables the better they hold up.
4. Roasting is usually done with a large cut of meat, think a roast turkey on thanksgiving. This isn't a hard rule. Just remeber if your use a smaller cut of meat, cut your vegetables smaller.
5. Brown your slightly meat if your are cooking red meat. Use the sautee method.

Put your vegetables down in the pan first. Then the meat on top of the vegetables. Put it all in the oven and cook to the desired doneness. Once at desired doneness remove from the oven and let rest. After cutting up the meat serve. This method is also used with baked potatoes, but done forget to poke a few holes in those or your potatoes might go boom slightly!

Boiling

Boiling is a pretty straight foward method of cooking. Grab a pot, lid optional, of water stick in on top of your ovens range set to at least medium and let it go till bubbles break the surface vigourously. Dump in carefully what ever your are boiling and cook till tender. Boiling has the down side of removing the meat and nutrients. Ever seen that green water in the pot of boiled greens? Yep, thats where all the nutrients and flavor went. Drink up, called pot liqour in the south, its bitterly delicious and nutritious! Meat can be boiled. I would never recommend you boil meat, unless you have something more more complicated planned that what will be cover here on this website or in class.

Steaming

Steaming is very simliar to boiling. Instead of filling up the pot grab a snug fitting lid and a rack to keep your steaming foodstuffs above the water line. In a pot bring a 1-2 inch layer of water to a boil with the pot on and rack in the pot. When a boil is reached drop in your foodstuffs to be boiled and cook until tender. One of the benefits of steaming is that no nutrients and flavor is lost! Your carrots are gonna taste as much like carrots as they would raw! Steaming is most effect when the lid is kept on as much as possible. If your gonna steam something do some research to get a rough idea of how long it should take. This will prevent unnecessary lid opening and steam loss. Meats can be steamed too, but like boiling not recommended with out advanced planning