Question

Which methods of cooking does your mother use to prepare food? (Write any

four)​

Answer 1

Methods of Cooking

Here are the most basic cooking techniques to help you survive your first culinary year as a university student.

#1 Baking

This involves applying a dry convection heat to your food in an enclosed environment.

The dry heat involved in the baking process makes the outside of the food go brown, and keeps the moisture locked in.

Baking is regularly used for cooking pastries, bread and desserts.

#2 Frying

This means cooking your food in fat – there are several variations of frying:

Deep-frying, where the food is completely immersed in hot oil

Stir-frying, where you fry the food very quickly on a high heat in a oiled pan

Pan-frying, where food is cooked in a frying pan with oil; and

Sauteing, where the food is browned on one side and then the other with a small quantity of fat or oil.

Frying is one of the quickest ways to cook food, with temperatures typically reaching between 175 – 225ºC.

#3 Roasting

Roasting is basically a high heat form of baking, where your food gets drier and browner on the outside by initial exposure to a temperature of over 500F.

This prevents most of the moisture being cooked out of the food.

The temperature is then lowered to between 425 and 450F to cook through the meat or vegetables.

#4 Grilling

This is a fast, dry and very hot way of cooking, where the food is placed under an intense radiant heat.

You can use various sources of heat for grilling: wood burning, coals, gas flame, or electric heating.

Before grilling, food can be marinaded or seasoned.

A similar method to grilling is broiling, where the heat source originates from the top instead of the bottom.