While cooking, you have to deal with a vast number of cooking techniques. Many of them are familiar with childhood, but there are also cooking techniques, the existence of which most do not even guess. Fortunately, modern kitchen gadgets and portable choices are designed to simplify the task of cooking.
The list below shows nine culinary techniques that every homemaker must master. And if you want to know some of the most affordable healthy prepared meals that you can try today, we also provide tips coming from the experts.
Slow cook
If you want to get the maximum flavor from the products, you can’t do without this culinary technique. You can cook vegetables or meat over low heat. Meat is incredibly delicious thanks to this technique’s use since it becomes very soft and tender when cooked for a long time on low heat.
Braising
Regardless of their culinary experience, most hostesses often confuse braising with conventional boiling. After all, during the braising process, the maximum amount of useful substances can be stored in the product. As a rule, during boiling, all valuable substances remain in the water.
Therefore, if you need to cook vegetables and meat without using the broth, it is better to use braising. With this method, meat, vegetables, or fish will be stewed in their juices, respectively, and the amount of liquid will be minimal. This means that it is crucial to monitor the dish’s preparation and not let it burn.
Roasting
Many novice cooks consider roasting food almost one of the simplest methods of cooking. It is vital to dry meat, fish, or even ordinary potatoes with a paper napkin or cotton towel before roasting. Then you should heat the pan and add oil to it, and then the products themselves. Thus, after roasting, the products will not turn into stews. You will need a few minutes to roast thin pieces of meat, fish, or poultry. But thicker pieces will need to be sent to the oven until fully cooked.
Blanching
Blanching itself means “to whiten” in French. This simple processing method hides the rapid scalding of products in boiling water or scalding them with boiling water. As a result of this manipulation, some products turn white.
Blanching is quite simple: you need to immerse the products in boiling water and wait for them to boil again. It is from this moment that you need to start counting the time of cooking the product. The main nuance of this technique is not to delay the blanching process. Otherwise, blanching can turn into normal boiling.
Emulsification
Some liquids are very difficult or almost impossible to mix. In this case, the emulsification process will help you. Homemakers usually use this technique to make sauces that, for example, need to combine a fat with acid. It sounds like chemistry, but you will never make homemade Aioli sauce without this kind of cooking technique. The main secret is the constant stirring and very slow folding one ingredient into another.
Maceration
Maceration is one of the main basic techniques in cooking that every homemaker should master. The primary purpose of this technique is to change the specific properties of food. Due to filling products with water or other liquid for an extended period, they significantly soften, lose the taste spoiling or harmful components from their composition. You can not do without such culinary techniques, for example, if you will make onions for a salad, Burger, or as a side dish to a meat dish.
Gratin
Such a problematic term hides a relatively prevalent and straightforward technique that is used by all famous chefs. Gratin is nothing like the usual baking of the product before the formation of a ruddy crust. To get a beautiful and delicious crust, the top of the meat should be smeared with an ingredient that melts well under the influence of temperature. Butter, beaten egg yolk, grated cheese, sauces, and breadcrumbs are suitable for this purpose.
Poaching
Poaching implies the heat treatment of products in a nearly boiling liquid. This cooking technique has much in common with conventional stewing, but in contrast, it uses little juice. In this way, you can cook vegetables and meat products. Vegetables retain their full vitamin content, and meat products keep their softness and unique flavor thanks to this cooking method. For poaching, you can use both ordinary water and broth. In the case of the latter, the dish becomes more saturated and flavorful.
Abeillere
Abeillere means complete and thorough handling of any food products of animal origin. Fish, poultry, and meat are subjected to the abeillere process. Moreover, the processing of each of these products has its own characteristics and details. For example, fish abeillere means to remove the scales, gut it, remove gills, cut off fins, and rinse the carcass. Thereafter, the fish is ready for further processing.