must have such preparation as will increase and not diminish its
alimentary value. The unwholesomeness of food is quite as often due to
bad cookery as to improper selection of material. Proper cookery
renders good food material more digestible. When scientifically done,
cooking changes each of the food elements, with the exception of fats,
in much the same manner as do the digestive juices, and at the same
time it breaks up the food by dissolving the soluble portions, so that
its elements are more readily acted upon by the digestive fluids.
Cookery, however, often fails to attain the desired end; and the best
material is rendered useless and unwholesome by a improper
preparation.
It is rare to find a table, some portion of the food upon which is not
rendered unwholesome either by improper preparatory treatment, or by
the addition of some deleterious substance. For more results visit us
at www.cheese-cake-recipes.com. This is doubtless due to the fact that
the preparation of food being such a commonplace matter, its important
relations to health, mind, and body have been overlooked, and it has
been regarded as a menial service which might be undertaken with
little or no preparation, and without attention to matters other than
those which relate to the pleasure of the eye and the palate. With
taste only as a criterion, it is so easy to disguise the results of
careless and improper cookery of food by the use of flavors and
condiments, as well as to palm off upon the digestive organs all sorts
of inferior material, that poor cookery has come to be the rule rather
than the exception.
Cookery is the art of preparing food for the table by dressing, or by
the application of heat in some manner. A proper source of heat having
been secured, the next step is to apply it to the food in some manner.
The principal methods commonly employed are roasting, broiling,
baking, boiling, stewing, simmering, steaming, and frying.
Roasting is cooking food in its own juices before an open fire.
Broiling, or grilling, is cooking by radiant heat. This method is only
adapted to thin pieces of food with a considerable amount of surface.
Larger and more compact foods should be roasted or baked. Roasting and
broiling are allied in principle. In both, the work is chiefly done by
the radiation of heat directly upon the surface of the food, although
some heat is communicated by the hot air surrounding the food. The
intense heat applied to the food soon sears its outer surfaces, and
thus prevents the escape of its juices. If care be taken frequently to
turn the food so that its entire surface will be thus acted upon, the
interior of the mass is cooked by its own juices.
Baking is the cooking of food by dry heat in a closed oven. Only foods
containing a considerable degree of moisture are adapted for cooking
by this method. The hot, dry air which fills the oven is always
thirsting for moisture, and will take from every moist substance to
which it has access a quantity of water proportionate to its degree of
heat. Foods containing but a small amount of moisture, unless
protected in some manner from the action of the heated air, or in some
way supplied with moisture during the cooking process, come from the
oven dry, hard, and unpalatable.
Boiling is the cooking of food in a boiling liquid. Water is the usual
medium employed for this purpose. When water is heated, as its
temperature is increased, minute bubbles of air which have been
dissolved by it are given off. As the temperature rises, bubbles of
steam will begin to form at the bottom of the vessel. At first these
will be condensed as they rise into the cooler water above, causing a
simmering sound; but as the heat increases, the bubbles will rise
higher and higher before collapsing, and in a short time will pass
entirely through the water, escaping from its surface, causing more or
less agitation, according to the rapidity with which they are formed.
Water boils when the bubbles thus rise to the surface, and steam is
thrown off. The mechanical action of the water is increased by rapid
bubbling, but not the heat; and to boil anything violently does not
expedite the cooking process, save that by the mechanical action of
the water the food is broken into smaller pieces, which are for this
reason more readily softened. But violent boiling occasions an
enormous waste of fuel, and by driving away in the steam the volatile
and savory elements of the food, renders it much less palatable, if
not altogether tasteless. The solvent properties of water are so
increased by heat that it permeates the food, rendering its hard and
tough constituents soft and easy of digestion.
The liquids mostly employed in the cooking of foods are water and
milk. Water is best suited for the cooking of most foods, but for such
farinaceous foods as rice, macaroni, and farina, milk, or at least
part milk, is preferable, as it adds to their nutritive value. In
using milk for cooking purposes, it should be remembered that being
denser than water, when heated, less steam escapes, and consequently
it boils sooner than doe's water. Then, too, milk being denser, when
it is used alone for cooking, a little larger quantity of fluid will
be required than when water is used.
Steaming, as its name implies, is the cooking of food by the use of
steam. There are several ways of steaming, the most common of which is
by placing the food in a perforated dish over a vessel of boiling
water. For foods not needing the solvent powers of water, or which
already contain a large amount of moisture, this method is preferable
to boiling. Another form of cooking, which is usually termed steaming,
is that of placing the food, with or without water, as needed, in a
closed vessel which is placed inside another vessel containing boiling
water. Such an apparatus is termed a double boiler. Food cooked in its
own juices in a covered dish in a hot oven, is sometimes spoken of as
being steamed or smothered.
Stewing is the prolonged cooking of food in a small quantity of
liquid, the temperature of which is just below the boiling point.
Stewing should not be confounded with simmering, which is slow, steady
boiling. You can also go to www.cooking-chinese-style.com. The proper
temperature for stewing is most easily secured by the use of the
double boiler. The water in the outer vessel boils, while that in the
inner vessel does not, being kept a little below the temperature of
the water from which its heat is obtained, by the constant evaporation
at a temperature a little below the boiling point.
Frying, which is the cooking of food in hot fat, is a method not to be
recommended Unlike all the other food elements, fat is rendered less
digestible by cooking. Doubtless it is for this reason that nature has
provided those foods which require the most prolonged cooking to fit
them for use with only a small proportion of fat, and it would seem to
indicate that any food to be subjected to a high degree of heat should
not be mixed and compounded largely of fats.
ch month so there is a huge potential here to make money.
_By: *Gupta*_
*About the Author:*
www.cooking-groundbeef.com [1]
www.cat-head-biscuit.com [2]
Links:
------
[1] http://www.cooking-groundbeef.com
[2] http://www.cat-head-biscuit.com
No comments:
Post a Comment