Basic Cooking Essay

BASIC COOKING

8.1 Cooking definition:

• Cooking is an art of application of heat to prepare food.

• The objective of cooking is to bring chemical and physical change in food to make it a complete dish.

• It makes food eatable, improves its flavor or makes it easier to digest.

• Cooking also makes eye appealing, creates an appetite makes food digestible and kills harmful bacteria.

8.2 Methods of cooking:

Moist / Wet Media:

1-Boiling:

• In this method, food items are totally submerged in hot water and cooked at 100 degree Celsius.

• The temperature is then reduced slightly and maintained at the simmering point where the liquid is just moving.

• Rice, pasta, pulses, meat etc cooking in this methods.

2-Blanching:

• Food items totally submerged into boiling water then after 30-40 second drained it and

• It gives good flavor and it is served in large hotels, special restaurants, departmental stores etc.

Oven roasting:

• In this method food items are cooked at a temperature up to 230 degree Celsius.

• The food items are cooked on the bed of root vegetables.

• The food items are placed on the tray is kept inside the oven and roasted between 170 -230 degree Celsius.

Tandoori Roasting:

• In this method food items are cooked in clay oven.

• This system is more popular in north India.

• In this methods meat to be marinated with species and skewed on rods and placed over the clay oven and cooked.

• Roti, Naan, Paratha etc are also cooked by this method.

3-Grilling:

In this method food items are first marinated with fat, herbs, spices and left for sometimes and cooked on the grill bars heated by coal and electricity.

• Grilling under the heat /