Andrew Coppolino: 3 essential cooking techniques every chef masters
Braise, roast, or sauté your way to kitchen success
There are many ways to cook your food, from boiling potatoes, grilling steak, deep-frying fish and chips to using a microwave oven to make your morning hot cereal.
Regardless of the methods available, with the right knowledge and understanding you can cook anything well, so here are three cooking techniques – braising, roasting, sautéing – that you should master to make meals magic.
Michael Ruhlman is an author and food writer; he's been a judge on the Food Network's popular "Iron Chef." In a series of books, Ruhlman has addressed these basic methods.
Braising
This technique relies on a few basic steps and some patience. Make sure you set aside some cooking time.
Braising starts with browning your beef, for example, and then slowly cooking it partially submerged in fluid in a tightly closed container, either in the oven or on the stove-top. It's a great technique for taking cheaper cuts of meat and making them tender.
Perhaps against conventional wisdom about the braising technique, Ruhlman says an optional good sear is helpful for getting good braising results.
"It contributes to flavour, but it's not absolutely necessary," he says, noting that it requires extra time and work from the cook.
A quick braising tip that Ruhlman offers is to add some honey to your ingredients. "It adds depth of flavour and some balance to the flavours."
He adds that because the braising process is one that takes a longer time, it is a good technique for preparing food long in advance of the meal.
Ruhlman says you can even prepare the dish a few days before you want to eat, refrigerate it and then re-heat it when you are ready to serve. This adds even more flavour, he says.
Roasting
Moving from a wet medium for cooking, a braising pan, to a dry one within the four walls of a hot box – your oven – roasting is one of humanity's earliest techniques and among the most popular cooking methods today: just think of that golden brown turkey or chicken, for instance, that you bring to the table amidst ooohs and ahhhs from your guests.
"The dry heat technique is important," says Ruhlman of roasting. "If there is moisture, it lowers the cooking temperature and lowers the browning factor."
Generally, we roast at too low a temperature which results in essentially baking, a different technique all together. Ruhlman calls for a hot oven. A really hot oven.
"I like to roast a chicken at 450-degrees [F]. I think we roast at too low a temperature, depending on what we are roasting," he says. It's important to know your cut of meat. Smaller, tender cuts of beef, for example, can be roasted at a higher temperature for a shorter time.
Sautéing
Perhaps the most common technique that home cooks use is frying – or in fancier terms, sauté. Adding just a bit of oil to your pan before placing the steak or piece of salmon creates a thin and uniform heat layer, ensuring that ideal and consistent browning takes place.
Ruhlman adds a couple of critical points: let your pan get hot enough before adding the food. And then, don't move the food too soon.
Get your pan hot, add your cooking oil and let it get hot before you set in your meat, stresses Ruhlman.
"You need a hot pan first because the item you are adding is moist and therefore cools the pan down, and in a cool pan it will stick. In a hot pan, it may stick at first, but it will quickly brown and pull away from the pan."
Compared to braising and roasting, the sauté method is a quick one – perhaps only a few minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the item (usually meat) – but many cooks play with their food as it sizzles in the pan, which interrupts the process.
Be patient, and hands-off: "don't touch it until you're ready to turn it."
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