Four Cooking Techniques!

In all of cookery, there are only four cooking techniques: dry-heat cooking with fat, dry-heat cooking without fat, moist-heat cooking, and combination cooking.

1. Dry-heat cooking with fat embraces saute-ing, deep-frying, pan-frying and stir-frying.
2. Dry-heat cooking without fat includes grilling, broiling, roasting, and baking.
3. Moist-heat cooking involves poaching, steaming, simmering, and boiling.
4. Combination cooking is using a combination of more than one techniques above, such as braising and stewing.

If you understanding the basic four cooking techniques, every time you practice a new recipe, you can categorize it and understanding it in the context of these four methods. That way, you don't have to start from scratch and be confused with the long breaking down steps to follow.

You can also understand it in terms of its cooking temperature range:

1. Dry-heat cooking with fat - temperature is usually between 300-450F, depending on the smoke point of the oil.
2. Dry-heat cooking without fat - temperature can go lower or higher depending on the food.
3. Moist-heat cooking - temperature is limited by the water's boiling point - 212F.
4. Combination - usually employs high temperature cooking with or without fat/oil, usually for the purpose of browning, and then add water to cook low and slow.

I'd often like to share three simple steps that's easy to remember with friends when they are confused about what goes in first, second, or last.

All cooking process are alike in the following steps:

Step 1: Build the flavor base or foundation.

Step 2: Add sauce and seasonings.

Step 3: Combine all ingredients and make sure they are ALL cooked to the desired doneness for the rest of cooking process. (Key is "ALL")

Of course the god is in the details but equipped with these basic know-hows, you will find common places for every recipe you will encounter.