List of cooking techniques

List of Cooking Techniques

Cooking is the art, technology, science and craft of preparing food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions and trends. This article provides a list of various cooking techniques used worldwide.

Dry Heat Cooking Methods

Grilling is a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above, below or from the side.

Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air covers the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least 150 °C (~300 °F) from an open flame, oven, or other heat source.

Baking is a method of preparing food that uses dry heat, typically in an oven, but can also be done in hot ashes, or on hot stones.

Sautéing is a method of cooking that uses a small amount of oil or fat in a shallow pan over relatively high heat.

Deep frying is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, most commonly oil, as opposed to the shallow oil used in conventional frying done in a frying pan.

Moist Heat Cooking Methods

Boiling is the rapid vaporization of a liquid, which occurs when a liquid is heated to its boiling point, the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid is equal to the pressure exerted on the liquid by the surrounding atmosphere.

Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. This is often done with a food steamer, a kitchen appliance made specifically to cook food with steam.

Poaching is a type of moist-heat cooking technique that involves cooking by submerging food in a liquid, such as water, milk, stock or wine.

Braising involves searing food at a high temperature, then cooking it in a covered pot with a variable amount of liquid, resulting in a particular flavor.

Stewing is similar to braising, with the key difference being that the food is cooked in enough liquid to be served with it, as a gravy.

Other Cooking Techniques

Sous-vide is a method of cooking in which food is placed in a plastic pouch or a glass jar and cooked in a water bath for longer than usual cooking times at an accurately regulated temperature.

Microwaving is a cooking technique that uses electromagnetic waves to heat water molecules in the food. It is a quick and convenient method of cooking.

Smoking is the process of flavoring, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood.

Curing is any of various food preservation and flavoring processes of foods such as meat, fish and vegetables, by the addition of salt, with the aim of drawing moisture out of the food by the process of osmosis.

Fermentation in food processing is the process of converting carbohydrates to alcohol or organic acids using microorganisms under anaerobic conditions.

See Also

• Food preparation
• Culinary art
• Outline of food preparation