By Paul Rinehart

Sautéing, Sweating, Frying, etc.

Cooking terminology, oh the terms are a dime a dozen. So what exactly is sautéing? How does it differ from frying?

Sautéing is a method where a fairly small amount of fat is used in a pan over high heat. In school we would know the pan was ready when the oil started to smoke. The food is kept in almost constant motion. The typical goal is to brown the outside of the food while leaving the inside moist and juicy. On low heat, a piece of meat would end up being overcooked and dry out (this is called sweating, but more on that later).

So what is the difference between sautéing and searing? Okay, so both methods are done over high heat, but the purpose of searing is to seal in the juices. This is usually done before applying another cooking method. For example, when doing a coq au vin, the chicken is seared first –not thoroughly cooked– just browned on all sides. It gets finished in the final stages of the stewing.

Sweating was mentioned earlier. This method is done over low heat with a little bit of fat. The purpose here is to remove some of the liquid, not to brown like in a sauté. So let us go back to the coq au vin example. The chicken has been seared and removed from the pan. Oh look at all that caramelization in that pan! Well, one way to get to all that goodness is to sweat a mire poix. A mire poix is three parts onion, two parts celery, and one part carrot. The finely chopped mire poix is added to the pot on low heat. The juice from the vegetables has to go somewhere, and doing this picks up all the caramelized meat juices. When sweating an ingredient such as onion, it is done when it becomes translucent (cooked through but not browned).

On to deep-frying and pan-frying. What is the difference? It is all about quantity–the amount of oil used differs. Let us start with pan-frying. Take a shallow pan, be somewhat generous with the amount of oil, and heat it up. The food won’t be completely immersed in the oil and will have some contact with the pan’s surface.

Deep frying... Those French fries people seem so fond of are deep-fried. With deep-frying, the food is plunged into hot oil and is completely submerged. The outside gets browned and the inside gets steamed in the food’s own juices.

Poaching, Blanching, and Simmering

Poaching, blanching, simmering, steaming, stewing are all types of boiling methods. Poaching (no, we’re not hunting the king’s deer in his forests) is the method of cooking something in a liquid such as water, stock, or court bouillon. Poaching is great for cooking delicate things like eggs and even fish. It keeps food from drying out and is done over low heat and for a minimal amount of time so as not to overcook the food. There’s nothing worse than a hardboiled poached egg on your Eggs Benedict.

Braising is a cooking method done in a covered pot. If cooking meat, it is generally browned first and then finished to cook in a minimal amount of liquid. It is great for cooking those tough cuts of meat. Typically in braising there is an acidic ingredient, such as tomatoes or wine. Take your mother’s pot roast, for example. In most cases, the food is kept whole during the cooking process.

Simmering. This is a technique used to cook food just below boiling temperature. I generally use this when I need to cook something for a good amount of time. When I make tomato sauce for example, I will first bring it to a boil and then reduce it to a simmer. This slow cooking allows the ingredients to mingle and mature in taste.

With steaming, the food is not in direct contact with the liquid, it is the vapors that do all the work. Steaming is also one of the more healthy ways to cook since it requires no addition of fat. It is a great way for cooking vegetables. You can buy inexpensive bamboo steamers that will fit over almost any pot. These are perfect for steaming. You first boil water and then cover the pot with your steaming attachment. Vegetables tend to cook in about 5 minutes while meat takes a bit longer.

It’s not always about cooking the food all the way through. Take blanching, for example. You usually use blanching to remove skins from tomatoes, almonds, fruit, etc. Start with a boiling water, and simply plunge your food into the hot water for a short time and then directly into ice water to halt the cooking process. The end result? In the case of a tomato the skin will come right off using just your fingers.

Stewing. What’s the difference between stewing and braising? Both are cooked in liquid, both are great methods for cooking tough cuts of meat, and, wait a second, how are these different from simmering?

The answer is the amount of liquid and the size of the food. In stewing, the pieces of food are usually cut down to bite size. Simmering just means cooking something in liquid over a low heat. You cannot help but use more than one technique in a related method of cooking.

Lastly, we will briefly mention steeping. It is not just for preparing your tea. Steeping can actually be used to remove an ingredient (for example, salt) from a salted food like mackerel or cod.

Baking, Roasting, Broiling, etc...

Baking, roasting, broiling–the words and terms in cooking seem almost endless. So what is the difference? Aren’t both done in an oven? What is baking? It is a technique where food is cooked in an oven. Unlike some of the other terms and methods we have explored, this is one that uses dry heat. Most of the foods that are baked are breads, cakes, and tarts. Meat can be technically baked, but roasting is the technique generally applied to meat.

There are other methods of baking, for example, clay baking. In clay baking the food is encased and put into a heating element, open fire, or even your oven. Roasting also uses dry heat, however, the source of that heat can be open flame, the oven, or some other source of heat. So, the age-old question is answered, yes and no. There is a bit of history to the definition though, up until about two centuries ago, roasting by dry heat was considered baking, whereas roasting meant turning something on a spit over a heat source. This already drums up images of a medieval feast. Other foods that are roasted... how about coffee? Yes, that very bean that perks one up in the morning is indeed roasted.

Grilling could be considered a type of roasting, but it really falls into its own category. Typically in grilling, the food is marinated or seasoned with some sort of wet ingredient such as a barbecue sauce. Grilling uses dry heat, but the heat comes from below and is not always evenly distributed. There are also little conflicts of preference, direct heat versus indirect heat, and charcoal or gas.

With direct heat, the food is placed directly over the flame or coals. This exposes your dinner to a tremendous amount of heat. Beware of sugars though! Some people will tell you to apply sauce before you grill. This is fine if you like a burnt caramelized flavor. Other people will tell you to apply the sauce after grilling.

For indirect heat, we can go back to the old definition of roasting. Lower the heat by putting coals on only one side of the grill or making sure one burner on your grill is out. The food could also be put on a spit, a pan, tin foil, or as some Canadians do it, planks. You create a barrier between the heat and the food. This allows the food to be cooked all the way through without risking charring or burning.

Grilling is a lot like Hamlet’s old question, “To be or not to be.” They definition can be debated until the end of time, and who knows, maybe a new word will be introduced.

There is one more technique to add to this article– broiling. Some people would equate broiling with grilling, the only difference is that the heat is applied directly from above. The French use an apparatus called a salamander, not to be mistaken with the amphibian.