Cooking Techniques

Let’s get to cooking!

On the most basic level, all successful dishes are based on mastery of these key cooking techniques:

These are truly the fundamentals to great cuisine. Not only will you need these skills to properly execute recipes but most importantly, once you’ve mastered these you’ll have the tools to create your own recipes.

Each of these techniques focuses on creating flavor via one or more of the following methodologies:

1. Concentration – direct and indirect ways of developing flavor by applying heat:

    • DIRECT – searing, which means to cook at a high temperature to create a brown, caramelized crust  which improves the appearance and flavor of the food (COLOR=FLAVOR!)
    • INDIRECT – food is placed in a recipient or covered by a layer of fat

2. Expansion – Using indirect heat that is usually created by liquid or steam to create an exchange of flavor

As you can imagine, certain ingredients react best to particular cooking techniques. Please visit the pages on specific ingredients to better understand which ones are most appropriate for each technique.

Comments