Cooking Terminology

Terms Involving Heat

Sweat-To cook on a low heat for 10-15 minutes, sometimes longer. The point of sweating veggies is to soften them and get their juices and flavors to release into the pan without adding color to them (brown or burn marks). This method is used at the beginning step in making soups and stocks.

Braise- This is a technique to tenderize meats my slow-coooking them for extended periods of time. Braising is done covered, and usually with just enough liquid to cover the meat. This is what is being done in a crock pot.

Bake- To be cooked in an oven. It sounds basic but essentially whatever is being baked is being heated by the hot air around it. Convection ovens have a fan in them that blows heated air on the food, causing it to cook faster.

Sauté- To cook in a pan on a high heat. To sauté, you need a really hot pan, what happens is the water in the ingredients nearest to the pan gets turned to steam, you can hear the sizzle of the process happening. The steam makes a sort of air pocket under the food causing it slide freely over the pan, making it possible to easily flip it into the air and back onto the pan.

Steam- Steaming works like the hot air in an oven, but faster. Wet heat is instant, its the reason you can stick your hand in a 500 degree oven of a few seconds to grab things out of the oven, but get burned by the 212 degree steam coming off your pasta water. Steaming is very popular in high-volume kitchen such as food courts, With steam, you can cook things in less than half of the time, the setback however, is that when you steam something, you can't add any seasoning beforehand, losing you many opportunities for flavor.

Basting-Works off of the same principle of wet heat, when you baste something, you are applying melted butter or liquid to something roasting in an oven or spooning oil or butter over something in a pan. This is not only done with butter, but also with stocks or in the case of meats, you could pour its  own juices over it.

Caramelize-This term is more of the end result and not itself a cooking method, because it can be done in a variety of ways. What happens is the sugars in the food are brought out. When caramelizing onions, you cook them on a very low heat with a little oil and bay leaves for a few hours, until they are very sweet and brown. Meats caramelize when the fats render and become crispy and golden brown from very high heats. An example of this is the tasty skin on turkey or chicken that comes out of the oven.

Boil-Boiling happens when water reaches its hottest point, the water nearest the heat source turns to steam and bubbles out of the pot.

Simmer-The simmer is the point just before a boil. The water is making a lot of noise, it is moving with  convection currents and there is steam coming off the top. Usually when you simmer something, you bring your liquid to a boil and then you turn down the heat. 

Reduce- A reduction can be done by either boiling the liquid quickly or simmering for a longer time. The water evaporates, concentrating the flavors and bringing them together. Sugars and spices become more prominent.

Sear- This is done with very high heat. Searing meats forms a crust, locking in the juices and flavors, while giving you a nice caramelization on the outside. If you want to get a really good sear, you want your pan to be smoking hot before you put your meat on it. When you sear, you want to leave the meat on the pan until you can see that is cooking about a quarter of the way through. Many times searing is followed by putting the whole pan into the oven just after you turn the meat over the first time.

Frying- Also works off the principle of wet heat, but with oil. Oils are more stable can be heated well beyond the 212 degrees that water can. Frying is usually done at 350-400 degrees.