French cooking techniques

Posted on by

French cooking involves a large number of techniques, some extremely complicated. Some techniques include:
• Baking-Roasting: in baking dry heat is used in preparing the food. On the other hand Roasts should never be covered; they should be basted from time-to-time with butter or oil and, when done, should be placed on a hot platter until their cooking stops.
• Braising: It is to cook in a liquid that has been enriched with stock, wine or the liquid of vegetables. A less tasty version is made just using water, but the water doesn’t make much of a sauce.
• Broiling-Grilling: It is the result of placing oiled foods on to a hot grill or into a preheated oven. There are two keys to this cooking approach: The food must be pre-oiled and the oven or grill must be pre-heated.
• Flambéing: It is the final stage after sautéing, by pouring a liqueur, wine, brandy or other spirit over your food, and igniting it to flambé.
• Frying: It is Cooking food in a shallow skillet or pan with oils or butter or grease from meats. Olive oil and other low saturated fat oils are used.
• French-frying: In this technique food is cooked in deep, hot oil/fat. Most commonly fat/ oil that has a high flash point is used.
• Poaching: Poaching is the simmering or cooking of food in liquid(seasoned milk, water, wine, vermouth, beer, stock, mushroom broth, tomato juice, etc), at just below the boiling point, to prevent high protein foods from becoming tough.
• Sautéing: It is the cooking of thin foods in just enough fat to keep the food from sticking to the frying pan.

Take-away

Posted on by

Take-away is food purchased at a restaurant or food outlet for the purpose of being eaten elsewhere. The restaurant may or may not provide table service or sitting arrangement.
The take-away food is often fast food, but not always so. Take-away outlets are often small businesses serving traditional food, which is sometimes of high quality. In some cases, there are facilities for customers to order food by telephone, fax, or over the Internet, to be collected or delivered. This is thought to be on the rise as many small businesses take to the Web to promote their business. Food that is delivered by a restaurant to a customer (often called delivery) is also sometimes called take-away.
Certain types of food that are usually served in sit-down restaurants are also available as take-away. Pizza is one example: some pizzerias and fast food chains have no tables, and supply for take-out and delivery only.

Fast food

Posted on by

Fast food today is usually processed and prepared on a large scale with standard ingredients and standardized cooking and production methods. It is usually rapidly served in bags or in a plastic wrapping, in a fashion which minimizes cost and improves its appearance.
Due to commercial emphasis on speed, uniformity and low cost, fast food products are often made with pre-processed ingredients formulated to achieve consistency and to preserve freshness.
Pizzas are a fast food eaten worldwide, with chains such as Domino’s Pizza, and Pizza Hut having outlets worldwide. They offer Pizza delivery within a specific time frame. Fish and chip shops are popular in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Fish is battered and then deep fried.
Some of the other famous fast food items are hamburgers, sandwiches, noodles, soups, fishes, French fries and fried rice.

Preserved food

Posted on by

Pasteurization, freezing, vacuum treatment, refrigeration and boiling are some of the methods used for processing foodstuff depending on its nature and duration to which it has to be preserved.  Some of the items like vegetables, meat, sea food, poultry and dairy products additionally need pressure canning. Vegetable pickles using acidic additives can remain edible for a much longer period when packed in airtight cans and glass containers.  Cans  made of tin and aluminum sheets are preferred to glass bottles because they are free of breakage.