Cooking Techniques - Learn how to use each technique to cook food properly
Learn how to use each different cooking technique in order to produce the best results for your dishes.
Each food recipe requires its own technique for best taste and texture, which directly depends on the recipe ingredients. The ingredients alone can't guarantee the success of the recipe. It is the cooking technique and style which brings success.
Baking - Cooking food in electrical or gas or stone oven
Baking refers to cooking food in the oven with dry heat and also in the heat produced by stone ovens, which also make food more tasty. In various places across the Mediterranean stone ovens are also traditionally used to cook food throughout history.
Grilling - Cooking food on the barbeque or in your oven's grill
This cooking technique is used for cooking meat on the barbecue or in the oven's grill, applying radiant heat from above or below the food. The technique also refers to cooking meat on the barbecue rack.
Broiling in the United States is also another grilling type of technique and refers to cooking with the heat applied from the top.
Roasting - Cooking meat and vegetables in the oven, retaining its juices
Roasting refers to cooking food in a tray at the oven. There are also numerous variations across the Mediterranean, one being the Greek "gastra", a baking pot made from clay or iron with a lid on top and a few holes on the side, which offers substantial difference in the taste and texture of the food.
Roasting is a delicate task, in order for the meat to retain its juices and not drying up. The best results (this also depends on the nature of the ingredients used in the recipe) are obtained when the food is roasted in mid temperature, which takes longer but is well worth the effort.
As an additional tip, when you are roasting potatoes, put a third of a glass of water in every 20-30 minutes for the potatoes to stay tender.
Boiling - Cooking food by boiling ingredients in water or sauce
This technique refers to cooking food in boiling water. Because of the high temperatures that the food is cooked (around 100 degrees Celsius) this technique is not suitable for any type of ingredient. Vegetables with soft texture tend to get melted and lose their texture when boiled for example.
The bubbles caused by the boiling water can also damage fish, so it is recommended to use this technique only for a limited amount of time.
On ingredients with tough texture, such as red meats and some vegetables, it is absolutely fine to use boiling.
Simmering - Cooking food in a gentle manner
If we want to treat our food in a more gentle manner, simmering is recommended against boiling. This technique refers to cooking food in its liquids at just below the boiling temperature, in order to prevent the food from getting a tougher texture or even breaking up.
Stew - Cooking food in gravy
This cooking method refers to ingredients being cooked in liquids and then served with the resulting gravy "sauce", the sauce that is left after all ingredients and liquids are cooked (stewed) together.