Cooking encyclopedia

Techniques

How a thing is done, and why it works.

Blanching parboiling Brief cooking in heavily boiling water, usually followed by cooling. 100 °C
Blooming spices tempering; tadka; frying off spices Heating spices briefly in fat or a dry pan to release their aroma before they meet anything else. 160–190 °C
Braising pot-roasting Browning, then cooking slowly in a small amount of liquid in a covered pot. 80–95 °C
Deep-frying Cooking fully submerged in hot fat, usually 160–190 °C. 160–190 °C
Deglazing Dissolving the browned residue in a pan with liquid, to turn it into sauce.
Emulsifying making an emulsion Dispersing fat and water into each other so they behave as one smooth sauce.
Grilling broiling; charcoal grilling Cooking over or under direct radiant heat, close to the source. 200–300 °C
Poaching gentle simmering Cooking submerged in liquid held below a simmer, around 70–85 °C. 70–85 °C
Reducing reduction Simmering a liquid uncovered to evaporate water and concentrate what is left.
Resting meat Leaving cooked meat off the heat before cutting it.
Roasting oven-roasting; dry-roasting Cooking in dry oven heat, uncovered, so the surface browns while the inside cooks. 150–230 °C
Sautéing pan-frying; tossing Cooking small or thin pieces quickly in a little fat over fairly high heat, moving them often. 170–200 °C
Searing browning; pan-searing Cooking a surface hard and fast to brown it, before or after the inside is cooked. 180–230 °C
Smoking hot-smoking; cold-smoking Flavouring and, in hot-smoking, cooking food in the smoke of smouldering wood. 90–135 °C
Sous vide low-temperature water bath cooking Cooking sealed food in water held precisely at the temperature you want the food to reach. 50–85 °C
Steaming Cooking in the vapour above boiling liquid, without the food touching it. 100 °C
Stir-frying Very fast cooking of small pieces in a little fat over the highest heat available, in constant motion. 200–260 °C

Food science

What is happening in the pan.

Brining and salt wet brining; dry brining; salting What salt does to meat beyond seasoning it.
Caramelisation The breakdown of sugar by heat alone into colour, aroma and bitterness. 160–180 °C
Carryover cooking residual cooking Food keeps cooking after it leaves the heat, and large pieces keep going a long way.
Collagen and gelatin Why tough cuts become tender and rich with long, moist cooking. 70–95 °C
Fermentation Controlled microbial transformation of food, and the conditions that keep it controlled. 15–30 °C
Gluten development How two wheat proteins become the elastic network that holds bread together.
How heat sets protein denaturation; coagulation Why an egg becomes solid, fish flakes, and meat goes from translucent to opaque. 60–75 °C
Smoke point The temperature at which a fat starts to break down visibly, and why it matters less than it is said to.
Starch gelatinisation The swelling and bursting of starch granules in hot water, which thickens sauces and cooks grains. 60–95 °C
The Maillard reaction browning reaction The reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that browns food and creates hundreds of new flavour compounds. 140–180 °C

Food safety

The figures that decide whether food is safe, with their source.

Cassava and cyanogenic glycosides manioc; yuca Why cassava must be processed before it is eaten, and why traditional methods are the safety step.
Cooked rice and Bacillus cereus fried rice syndrome Why leftover rice needs handling more carefully than most cooked food.
Cooling cooked food safely Getting hot food out of the danger zone quickly, which is harder than getting it in. 4–60 °C
Cross-contamination How raw food makes cooked food unsafe, and the small habits that prevent it.
Home canning and botulism bottling; preserving in jars Why low-acid food in sealed jars needs a tested process, not a household one.
Raw fish and parasites What makes fish safe to eat raw, and what does not. -35–-20 °C
Reheating leftovers How hot, how often, and what will not be fixed by reheating. 74 °C
Safe internal temperatures safe minimum internal temperature The internal temperatures published guidance gives for cooked food, and how to measure them. 63–74 °C
Thawing safely defrosting The three safe ways to thaw frozen food, and the one everybody uses that is not. 4 °C
The temperature danger zone The temperature range in which bacteria multiply fastest, and how long food may spend there. 4–60 °C

When it goes wrong

The cause, not just the cure.

My braise is still tough stew is chewy Almost always not cooked long enough, not cooked too long. 80–95 °C
My bread is dense heavy loaf; no rise Either the yeast did not work, the gluten cannot hold gas, or it was baked before it had risen.
My eggs are rubbery overcooked scrambled eggs The protein network tightened and squeezed out the water it was holding. 62–71 °C
My fried food is greasy The oil was too cool, or the pan was too full, which is the same thing. 160–190 °C
My garlic tastes bitter burnt garlic Garlic burns far faster than onion, and burnt garlic is bitter all the way through a dish.
My mashed potato is gluey The starch granules were ruptured by too much mechanical work.
My sauce has split curdled; broken emulsion The droplets got large enough to find each other. It can usually be rebuilt.
My vegetables went watery stewed instead of browned They were crowded, so their own steam could not leave.

Habits worth keeping

Small things that change most dishes.

Dry the surface before it meets heat Anything you want to brown has to be dry first.
Get everything ready first mise en place The habit that makes fast cooking possible and slow cooking calmer.
Salt in stages, not at the end Seasoning as you go tastes different from the same total salt added last.
Taste, and know what to reach for A dish that tastes flat usually needs acid or salt, not more of the main flavour.

Equipment

What a tool actually does that another cannot.

A heavy pan cast iron; thick-based pan Mass is what lets a pan stay hot when food goes into it.
A mortar and pestle molcajete; lesung; cobek Crushing is not the same as blade-chopping, and some pastes need it.
An instant-read thermometer probe thermometer The one tool that replaces guessing with knowing.

Lessons

Reading, scaling and adapting a recipe.

How to read a recipe before you cook it Read it twice: once for what happens, once for when.
Scaling a recipe up or down doubling a recipe Quantities scale. Times, pans and seasoning do not.
Substituting an ingredient Ask what the ingredient is doing before you replace it.

Cooking encyclopedia

Techniques

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When it goes wrong

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