Cooking

Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or safe.
Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire, to using electric stoves, to baking in various types of ovens, reflecting local conditions.
Cooking is an aspect of all human societies and a cultural universal. Types of cooking also depend on the skill levels and training of the cooks.
Cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. Learn more about cooking here.

Ingredients

Most ingredients in cooking are derived from living organisms. Vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts as well as herbs and spices come from plants, while meat, eggs, and dairy products come from animals. Mushrooms and the yeast used in baking are kinds of fungi. Cooks also use water and minerals such as salt. Cooks can also use wine or spirits.

Methods

There are many methods of cooking, most of which have been known since antiquity. These include baking, roasting, frying, grilling, barbecuing, smoking, boiling, steaming and braising. A more recent innovation is microwaving. Various methods use differing levels of heat and moisture and vary in cooking time. The method chosen greatly affects the result because some foods are more appropriate to some methods than others. Some major hot cooking techniques include:

• Roasting – Barbecuing – Grilling/Broiling – Rotisserie – Searing
• Baking – Baking Blind
• Boiling – Blanching – Braising – Coddling – Double steaming – Infusion – Poaching – Pressure cooking – Simmering – Smothering – Steaming – Steeping – Stewing – Stone boiling – Vacuum flask cooking
• Frying – Air frying — Deep frying – Gentle frying – Hot salt frying – Hot sand frying – Pan frying – Pressure frying – Sautéing – Shallow frying – Stir frying – Vacuum frying
• Steaming works by boiling water continuously, causing it to vaporise into steam; the steam then carries heat to the nearby food, thus cooking the food. By many it is considered a healthy form of cooking, holding nutrients within the vegetable or meat being cooked. En papillote – The food is put into a pouch and then baked, allowing its own moisture to steam the food.
• Smoking is the process of flavoring, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood.