Cook Tops And Oven Heating 101

Here I am again writing in a food blog about basic cooking techniques. If you are an experienced cook and set in your ways, by all means disregard everything I say. If you are new and stumbled here or maybe a friend told you about the place, I hope you pick up a few techniques.

Today I have a few things to say about how to apply your heat to your food. Because as they say all good food amounts to are ingredients plus heat.

When you are cooking things in a pan almost 85 percent of the time you want to get your pan hot in advance. Recipes rarely mention this fact. All of your baking recipes will say "preheat oven to 350 degrees" but when it comes to cooking on your stove top they will barely give it a mention. Whether you are sauteing, frying, or any other matter of cooking on the burners, you almost always want to get your pan hot first. I will give you a very simple example.

When I fry an egg I set my burner to medium/high and let my pan sit for a few minutes until my pan and my burner are the same temp. I will then remove said pan from the burner for a few seconds and add my butter. What we are achieving in this circumstance is quickly melted, and unburned butter. Put the pan back on the burner for a few seconds and it quickly returns to temp, drop in your egg and BLAMO!

When it comes to your more often mentioned cooking medium (the oven), almost everyone I know does not let it preheat long enough. I am not sure why this is. I suspect its a combination of getting in a hurry, and the desire to conserve energy. Let's address these issues one at a time shall we?

Getting in a hurry: We all want to eat, very few of us get home and think "I'm not hungry, but I think I will cook a casserole." Realistically this takes our hard work and turns it to shit. Food will not cook properly in a rushed oven. You may have well put in a T.V. dinner.

Conserving Energy: Here is a logical idea you may over look. You will use more energy attempting to cook your food in an under heated oven. If you introduce cold or even room temp ingredients into a heating oven you will drop the temp with the food and opening the door, causing your oven to work twice as hard and use twice the energy to get back up to temp.

Another point of interest is the amount of heat you loose by opening your oven a hundred times while you are baking. Honestly, put it in and leave it. Check it a few times if needed, feel free to baste, or flip, but ask yourself this question... Do I reallllllly need to see whats going on in that magic oven wonderland?

So there are a few things to remember while you are in your kitchen. Remember you won't learn anything if you don't try, and experience is the best bed mate in the kitchen. Now don't even consider going and checking that roast!