Cooked Food

 What is Cooked Food?

Cooked food refers to the food that has been cooked, processed, and altered by adding some other flavors and nutrients in it, we can say that the food that has been cooked and processed by using different techniques.

Cooking makes food more delicious, palatable, digestible, more nutritious and safer by eliminating harmful bacteria and toxins. By heating the food or by cooking the food increase the nutrients and increases the bacteria (healthy bacteria) which is necessary and beneficial for our body.

Cooking Method: -

Cooking methods are also known as cooking techniques. cooking method refers to the methods and techniques used to cook the food, or we can say that cooking method is the method by which heat should be transfer to the particular food item or food product. This transferring of heat can affect the food item in various ways like in their texture, flavors as well as in their taste also. There are various different types of cooking methods are there that are explained below: -

Types of Cooking Methods: -

1. Dry Heat Cooking Methods (Without Liquid)

• Grilling: - Grilling is a technique where the food is cooked directly on the fire or flame or nowadays, electric grill is also available where the food items may be vegetables or meat products should be grilled. In grilling no water or oil should be used rather than these the food is directly cooked over the flame. 

• Example: - Grilled Chicken, Grilled Vegetables

• Roasting: - Roasting is another important technique of cooking the food in which we can make our food item or food product crunchier and crispiest. Roasting can be done in oven and on gas stove also. It can be done by oiling the food product and then by roasting it on any of the appliance. 

• Example: - Roasted Turkey, Roasted Potatoes. 

• Baking: - Baking is a technique where the items are to be baked. In baking a dry heat can be used in an enclosed space where no air should be entered, or the environment is moisture free that is there is not any air or moisture in the space where baking is done.   

• Example: - Cakes, Bread, Cookies.

• Broiling: - Broiling is another method of cooking the food. In broiling, no oil, no water and moreover no gas heat should be needed because broiling should be done in oven. Because in Broiling food can be cooked on direct heat so for this process oven broiler is the best option to cook the food.

• Example: - Broiled Chicken Breast

• Sauteing: - Sauteing is a technique where we want to get our food cooked quickly. For sauteing a small amount of oil is required. Mostly sauteing is used for vegetables and spices and in Sauteing the vegetables get softens in very small amount or we can say that sauteing can be used when we want our vegetables in half raw form (Not completely raw not completely cooked). In spices, sauteing is used to just warm the spices and get the fragrance of the spices.

• Example: - Stir-fried Vegetables, Sautéed Shrimp.

• Frying: - Frying is a technique that can be done without water. In frying, oil should be used instead of water. Frying is done to make the item more crispy and crunchier.  Frying of any particular food item can be done in two ways: -

• Shallow Frying: - In shallow frying, the quantity of the oil is less, and it is mostly used to make the surface of the item brownish or a little bit crunchy and crispy. 

• Example: - Pan-Fried fish Fillet.

• Deep Frying: - In deep frying the quantity of the oil is more and the temperature of the oil is also very high and the food item that we want to fry will dip in the oil and it will sink in the oil firstly and as it gets cooked it slowly gets  float on the oil which means our item will get perfectly cooked and it became extremely crunchy and crispy.

• Example: - French Fries, Fried Chicken.

2. Moist Heat Cooking Methods (With Liquid)

• Boiling: - Boiling is a technique in which food can be cooked by putting the food directly in extremely hot water whose temperature is more or mostly equal to 100°c. Boiling is mostly used to soften the item that should be used for a particular purpose. Boiling softens the food item in shorten time but in boiling one thing should be kept in mind that if we forget to take the item out from the boiling then the hot boiling water softens our food to the extent that our food may get completely destroy or get mixed in water or over boiling of any food item may destroy our food.

• Example: - Boiled Pasta, Boiled Eggs.

• Steaming: - As it clear from its name that steaming is used to cook food with steaming process or we can say the food item that are cooked by using the steam technique is called steaming. In steaming the products or item should be cooked in steam rather than submerging it in water.

• Example: - Steamed Dumplings, Steamed Fish.

• Simmering: - Simmering is very similar to poaching that is cooking the food in hot liquid or hot water, but the temperature of the water is less than boiling temperature but the difference between poaching and Simmering is occurring in their temperature of cooking. With the temperature the purpose of their cooking is also different like poaching is used to cook delicate foods like eggs, fish, chicken, and fruit to prevent breaking or overcooking whereas Simmering is used to cook tougher foods that need longer cooking, such as soups, stews, and sauces because the consistency of soup, stew and sauces is thick in simmering.

• Example: - Soups, Stews.

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  Poaching: - The poaching technique used to delicate the food items. Poaching technique can be done in hot liquid or hot water but the temperature of the water is below the boiling temperature and in poaching it is very necessary to taken out the product at right time otherwise the item get overcooked.

• Example: - Poached egg, Poached Salmon 

3. Combination Cooking Methods (Dry & Moist Heat)

• Braising: - Braising is another cooking technique which is mostly used to cook meat products because in braising the meat product or meat item has been put in a pre-heated pan or grill and the item can be cooked till their surface turned into brown and then it slowdown the cooking so that the flavors or spices we are using to cook that product so that the flavors will penetrate deep inside.

• Example: - Braised Beef, Braised Chicken

• Stewing: - Stewing is basically that food technique which is used to cook the food item in small pieces.   In stewing food item (vegetable or meat products) can firstly be cut into small pieces and then all the batter shifted into the pan or any other cookware where this stew will cook and that whole process is known as stewing.

• Example: - Vegetable Stew, Chicken Stew