All About Sautéing

All About Sautéing

Dry Heat Cooking With Fat / Cooking Oil

Sautéing is a form of dry-heat cooking that uses a very hot pan and a small amount of fat to cook the food very quickly. Like other dry-heat cooking methods, sautéing browns the food's surface as it cooks and develops complex flavors and aromas.

Sautéing Requires a Very Hot Pan
When sautéing, it's important to heat the pan for a minute, then add a small amount of fat and let the fat get hot as well, before adding the food to the pan. This hot fat helps to brown the surface of the food. Another key is to avoid overloading or overcrowding the pan.

Don't Overcrowd the Pan
In order to achieve the desired browning of the food, the pan must stay hot throughout the cooking process. Too much food in the pan dissipates the heat, causing the food to steam or boil rather than sauté.

Keep the Food Moving
There's another element to sautéing — the toss. The word sauté actually means "jump" in French. Tossing or flipping the food in the pan ensures that it cooks evenly, but it also helps keep the pan hot.
How? Remember that when a hot thing meets a cooler thing, their temperatures eventually meet in the middle. The cooler thing grows warmer while the hot thing cools down.

Keep the the Pan Hot
To illustrate, imagine a pan with green beans cooking in it. The beans at the bottom of the pan, closest to the heat source, are nice and hot, while the ones on top, where they're exposed to air, are cooler. And the longer they sit like this, the greater this disparity in temperature becomes.
So far, so good. However, you're eventually going to want to cook the beans on top, too. And once you flip them, the ones from the top come into contact with the pan's surface and, because they're cooler, they actually lower the temperature of the pan. This leads to the same problem mentioned earlier, where the food ends up steaming rather than sautéing. That's why we try to keep everything moving more or less constantly.

To facilitate this, some sauté pans have sloped sides, which makes it easier to flip those items in the pan without flipping them all over the kitchen. However, it's worth noting that this flipping or
tossing technique is only really practical with smaller pieces of food, especially vegetables. So for steaks, larger cuts of poultry, fish fillets and so on, we're more likely to employ a technique
known as pan-frying rather than sautéing — even if the dish is actually called sautéed fillet of sole or whatever. For a demonstration, here's a video on how to sauté vegetables.

Pan-Frying Vs. Sautéing
What's pan-frying? It's a lot like sautéing, but with a few key differences. Besides the fact that there's no tossing, pan-frying uses slightly more fat and slightly lower temperatures than
sautéing. This makes it a good method for cooking larger pieces of meat that would not have time to cook through because with sautéing, the food isn't in the pan for very long. For that reason, larger pieces of meat are often finished in the oven after the surface has been cooked to the desired degree.
Cooking conversion chart...
deep-fat-frying.

RECIPE UNIT CONVERSION CHART

RECIPE UNIT CONVERSION CHART

One stick of butter is 1/4 pound or about 110 grams.
Butter in the US is sold in one pound boxes, each box containing 4 sticks.

Decimals

• 0.25 = 1/4
• 0.33 = 1/3
• 0.50 = 1/2
• 0.66 = 2/3
• 0.75 = 3/4

Pound, cups, tablespoon and teaspoon conversions assume the base weight-volume of water

• 1 pound = 2 cups
• 1 ounce = 2 tablespoons
• 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 0.5 oz = 15 grams
• 1 teaspoon = 0.17 oz = 5 grams
• pinch is less than 1/8 teaspoon
• dl = deciliter = 1/10 of a liter = 1/2 cup

Weight-volume of:

• Flour: 1 pound = 3 1/2 cups
• Sugar: 1 pound = 2 1/4 cups

What does it mean?

• c = cup
• t = tsp = teaspoon
• T = tbsp = tablespoon
• C = Celsius
• F = Fahrenheit
• g = gr = gram
• kg = kilogram

Conversion Table for Cooking

Cooking Conversion Chart / Table for Cooking

* U.S. to Metric
* Metric to U.S.
* Cooking Measurment Equivalents

U.S. to Metric
Capacity
1/5 teaspoon = 1 ml
1 teaspoon = 5 ml
1 tablespoon = 15 ml
1 fluid oz. = 30 ml
1/5 cup = 50 ml
1 cup = 240 ml
2 cups (1 pint) = 470 ml
4 cups (1 quart) = .95 liter
4 quarts (1 gal.) = 3.8 liters

Weight
1 oz. = 28 grams
1 pound = 454 grams

Metric to U.S.
Capacity
1 militers = 1/5 teaspoon
5 ml = 1 teaspoon
15 ml = 1 tablespoon
30 ml = 1 fluid oz.
100 ml = 3.4 fluid oz.
240 ml = 1 cup
1 liter = 34 fluid oz.
1 liter = 4.2 cups
1 liter = 2.1 pints
1 liter = 1.06 quarts
1 liter = .26 gallon

Weight
1 gram = .035 ounce
100 grams = 3.5 ounces
500 grams = 1.10 pounds
1 kilogram = 2.205 pounds
1 kilogram = 35 oz.

Cooking Conversion Measurement Equivalents
16 tablespoons = 1 cup
12 tablespoons = 3/4 cup
10 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons = 2/3 cup
8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup
6 tablespoons = 3/8 cup
5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon = 1/3 cup
4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup
2 tablespoons = 1/8 cup
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons = 1/6 cup
1 tablespoon = 1/16 cup
2 cups = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon
48 teaspoons = 1 cup

Cooking Conversions Chart...

Chef's Knife Overview

Cooking Conversion Chart

Chef's Knife Overview

The Anatomy of a Chef's Knife

Chef's Knife Overview

The chef's knife is probably a cook's most important tool. And given the amount of time it spends in your hand, it's definitely worth making sure you have a good one.

A lot of people suggest purchasing "the best knife you can afford." But that's not much help unless you know what makes one knife better than another. Otherwise, you're just buying the most expensive knife you can afford.

The best knives are forged from a single piece of steel that runs the entire length of the knife. Read on for a quick tutorial on the various parts of a chef's knife, what they do and why they're important.

The Blade

Chef's Knife Blade

The best chef's knives are made of high-carbon stainless steel, which is a very hard metal that keeps its edge for a long time and won't discolor or rust like ordinary carbon steel.

To be sure, knives made from ordinary carbon steel aren't necessarily inferior. Some chefs love them, because the relatively softer metal makes them easier to sharpen. Of course, they go dull more easily, too.

Chef's knives are measured in inches, and lengths of 8" to 12" are common. A longer blade lets you make longer single-stroke cuts when slicing. The so-called "German" style of chef's knife tends to have a more curved section at the front of the blade, good for chopping in an up-and-down "rocking" motion.

The "French" style is straighter, and more triangular, which is good for a "slicing" type of motion where the knife is drawn straight back toward you.

In this picture we see the edge of a Japanese-style santoku knife. The hollow, beveled indentations ground into the blade are designed to create tiny pockets of air between the knife and the product being sliced, reducing friction and minimizing sticking.

"Cooking Conversion Chart"...

cooking-measurement-equivalents.

Deep-Fat Frying

Cooking Conversion Chart....

Deep-Fat Frying

Since deep-frying involves submerging 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 even a tiny drop of water, you know that oil and water are a couple of opposites that want nothing to do with each other. Even though fat can take a liquid form, it really is considered a solid — thus dry heat.

Maintain Constant Temperature

Assuming they've been cooked properly, deep-fried items should actually have very little oil on them. Proper deep-frying technique requires maintaining the oil's temperature between 325°F and 400°F. Most oils will start to smoke at temperatures higher than that.

Sealing In Moisture

Food items to be fried are often dipped in a simple batter to protect and further seal in their natural moisture. Because most foods have some moisture in them, and because oil and water don't mix, the food's natural moisture creates a barrier against the oil surrounding it.

That means that while the heat from the oil cooks the food, the oil itself doesn't permeate the food at all — unless the oil isn't hot enough.

Remember the violent reaction of hot oil to a drop of water? The hotter the oil, the more violently it repels water and other moisture. Only at temperatures below 325°F will the oil start to seep into the food and make it greasy.

Fried Foods, Not Oily Foods

So despite the fact that deep-fried foods have a reputation for being oily or greasy, greasy food is merely a sign of poor cooking technique and not an indictment of deep-frying itself.

Curious to see how much oil deep-fried food absorbs? Try this simple test:

1. Measure precisely how much oil you pour into the fryer (or dutch oven) before cooking.


2. Measure it again after cooking — but wait for the oil to cool first!

The difference between before and after is how much oil ended up in the food. It might be a lot less than you thought. Draining the item on paper towels before serving will help minimize its oil content even more.

Fry in Small Batches

When deep-frying, keeping the oil hot is critical to producing a quality product. The key is to fry items in small batches, because putting too much food in the oil all at once will lower the oil's temperature.

"Dry" Oil?

Another clue that deep-frying is in fact a form of dry-heat cooking is the attractive golden-brown color of foods cooked using this method. Only dry-heat cooking methods will produce this characteristic exterior browning.

And speaking of moisture, because of the way hot oil spatters when water hits it, to be safe you should pat any excess moisture from food items before putting them in the deep-fryer. Of course, this assumes that the item isn't being dipped in batter first!
Cooking Conversion Chart...
chefs-knife-overview.

Grilling & Broiling

Grilling & Broiling

Grilling and broiling are dry-heat cooking methods that rely on heat being conducted through the air from an open flame. This type of cooking produces browning reactions on the surface of the food, thus encouraging the development of complex flavors and aromas.

Grilling Cooks Hot and Fast
Because air is a 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 extremely tender cuts of meat, poultry or fish. In fact, because of the extremely hot and dry nature of this cooking method, it is customary to marinate meats that will be broiled or grilled.

The "Turn"
An important part of grilling and broiling is the "turn" — which refers to flipping the item over to cook the other side. Though it can be tempting to move things around while grilling, a little
restraint will go a long way. Generally speaking, you should only turn an item once, which means cooking one side, turning it to finish the cooking, and then taking it off the grill.
Since there's not much else to do, knowing when to turn is pretty much the essence of grilling, and it's a sense that you'll develop with experience.

Grill Marks
One exception to the "don't move it" rule is that cooks will often rotate an item on the grill to mark it with cross-hatched grill lines. About one-third of a turn — like from 12 o'clock to 8 o'clock on a watch dial — would give the most attractive results.

Heat From Above Vs. Below
Incidentally, there is one significant distinction between broiling and grilling, which is that grilling involves heating the food from below, while broiling involves heating from above.
In both cases, the food is typically turned once during cooking, and a grid or grate of some kind is used, which gives 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 putting the food on it.

What About Barbecuing?
Barbecuing is similar to grilling and broiling in that it also uses an open flame to cook. But what defines barbecue is the use of wood or coals to produce the flame.But as with most things in the culinary world, there is a bit of wiggle room here. Some chefs consider charcoal cooking to be a form of barbecuing, while plenty of others would insist that barbecue entails cooking over a wood fire in an open pit. Either way, everyone agrees that cooking with wood imparts a smoky flavor that just isn't possible with a gas grill.

What About Grill Pans?
Grill pans are specially constructed pans that have elevated ridges designed to simulate the grill marks obtained by cooking food on an open-flame grill. But is that really grilling?Technically, no. Remember, grilling cooks through the conduction of hot air, while a pan cooks by the conduction of heat through the pan itself.
Here's an example of the difference: Suppose you're cooking burgers on a grill. Any fat that drips off of the burgers falls away, and doesn't interfere with the heat from the flame or coals below. With a grill pan, however, the fat merely collects in the pan, meaning the burgers are effectively fried instead of grilled.
Cooking Conversion Chart...
all-about-sauteing.

Roasting & Baking

Cooking and Cooking Conversion Chart....

Roasting & Baking

Roasting and baking are forms of dry-heat cooking that use hot, dry air to cook food. Like other dry-heat cooking methods, roasting and baking brown the surface of the food, which in turn develops complex flavors and aromas.
Both words describe a method of cooking an item by enveloping it in hot, dry air, generally inside an oven and at temperatures of at least 300°F and often much hotter. A convection oven, which
circulates hot air throughout the oven, can enhance the browning reaction.

Cook Uncovered
Roasting and baking both require that the food be cooked uncovered, so that it's the hot, dry air that delivers the heat, not steam from the food.
Because it uses indirect heat, baking and roasting cook food fairly evenly since all of the food's surfaces are exposed to the heat to the same extent. This differs from pan-frying, for instance, where the surface that touches the hot pan gets much hotter than the side that faces up.

Roasting: Enhanced Browning
Though the words "roasting" and "baking" are frequently used interchangeably, some chefs distinguish between the two based on temperature, with roasting implying greater heat and thus faster and more pronounced browning than baking.Others may prefer to use the word "roasting" specifically for meats, poultry and vegetables, but use the term "baking" for fish and other
seafood.

Roasting Meats
Roasting is a cooking method that is typically reserved for superior cuts of meat like beef tenderloins, rib roasts, loins of pork and so on. Whole poultry is frequently roasted, too, but this can be tricky as breast meat is drier and cooks faster than leg meat. Here's an article on how to roast a chicken, and here's a nice recipe for roasting a whole turkey breast.Roasting at lower temperatures, between 200°F and 300°F, for longer periods of time, can often produce a more tender, juicier roast, but sacrifices the surface browning which is the source of so much flavor. Conversely, high temperature roasting can result in a drier roast.
As a result, it is increasingly common to roast meats using a combination of low and high temperatures, using a low temperature for most of the cooking time, along with a short burst of high temperature, either at the beginning of cooking or at the very end, in order to achieve the desired surface browning.

Baking Fish
Fillets, steaks or even whole fish can be baked. With whole fish, the body cavity is often stuffed with vegetables, herbs and other ingredients first. Otherwise, these stuffing ingredients can be
placed on top of the fillets or steaks. This helps prevent the flesh from drying out.
And speaking of whole fish, the head has a lot of moisture in it, so when baking whole fish, leaving the head on is another way to help keep it from drying out.
Fish can also be brushed with oil or melted butter before baking, or even dipped in melted butter. The prepared fish is then baked at around 350°F on an oiled baking sheet. When baking leaner fish, it's a good idea to baste it with oil, butter or some other liquid during the baking, so that it doesn't dry out.
Cooking conversion chart...
grilling-broiling.