Dry Heat and Moist Heat Cooking

Cooking methods in the culinary arts are divided into two categories:

1. Dry heat cooking, such as roasting, broiling or sautéing.

2. Moist heat cooking, like braising, steaming or poaching.

Because every cooking method uses either dry heat or moist heat (or sometimes
both), classifying them this way ensures that every known method falls into one
category or the other.

"Dry" Oil and Other Fats

It's worth noting that cooking methods involving fat, such as sautéing and deep-
frying, are considered dry-heat methods. If this seems confusing, remember that oil
and water don't mix, so while fat can take a liquid form, in many ways it's the
opposite of water — hence "dry" heat.

Choosing the Right Cooking Technique

Using the appropriate cooking method for the type of food being prepared is a major
part of the culinary arts. Tough cuts of meat like brisket or shank need to be cooked
slowly, at low heats, for a long time, and with plenty of moisture. Prepared properly,
these cuts can be incredibly tender and delicious.

On the other hand, dry-heat methods typically involve very high temperatures and
short cooking times. A piece of brisket cooked in this way — on a grill, let's say —
would be tough, chewy and largely inedible. Interestingly enough, a beef tenderloin
steak cooked using a slow, moist-heat method such as braising would also turn out
tough, chewy and inedible — albeit for different reasons.

Dry Heat Cooking

Dry heat cooking refers to any cooking technique where the heat is transfered to the
food item without using any moisture. Dry-heat cooking typically involves high heat,
with temperatures of 300°F or hotter.

Baking or roasting in an oven is a dry heat method because it uses hot air to conduct
the heat. Pan-searing a steak is considered dry-heat cooking because the heat
transfer takes place through the hot metal of the pan. Note that the browning of food
can only be achieved through dry-heat cooking. Examples of dry-heat methods
include:

 Roasting & Baking

Roasting and baking are forms of dry-heat cooking that use hot, dry air to cook
food. Like other dry-heat cooking methods, roasting and baking brown the surface
of the food, which in turn develops complex flavors and aromas.
 Both words describe a method of cooking an item by enveloping it in hot, dry air,
generally inside an oven and at temperatures of at least 300°F and often much
hotter. A convection oven, which circulates hot air throughout the oven, can
enhance the browning reaction.

Incidentally, the browning that happens when we heat carbohydrates (like when
we bake a loaf of bread, for instance) is the result of caramelization, while the
browning of meats happens because of something called the Maillard reaction.

Cook Uncovered

Roasting and baking both require that the food be cooked uncovered, so that it's the
hot, dry air that delivers the heat, not steam from the food.

Because it uses indirect heat, baking and roasting cook food fairly evenly since all of
the food's surfaces are exposed to the heat to the same extent. This differs from
pan-frying, for instance, where the surface that touches the hot pan gets much
hotter than the side that faces up.

Roasting: Enhanced Browning

Though the words "roasting" and "baking" are frequently used interchangeably,
some chefs distinguish between the two based on temperature, with roasting
implying greater heat and thus faster and more pronounced browning than baking.

Others may prefer to use the word "roasting" specifically for meats, poultry and
vegetables, but use the term "baking" for fish and other seafood.

Roasting Meats

Roasting is a cooking method that is typically reserved for superior cuts of meat like
beef tenderloins, rib roasts, loins of pork and so on. Whole poultry is frequently
roasted, too, but this can be tricky as breast meat is drier and cooks faster than leg
meat. Here's an article on how to roast a chicken, and here's a nice recipe for roasting
a whole turkey breast.

Roasting at lower temperatures, between 200°F and 300°F, for longer periods of time,
can often produce a more tender, juicier roast, but sacrifices the surface browning
which is the source of so much flavor. Conversely, high temperature roasting can
result in a drier roast.

As a result, it is increasingly common to roast meats using a combination of low and

high temperatures, using a low temperature for most of the cooking time, along with
a short burst of high temperature, either at the beginning of cooking or at the very
end, in order to achieve the desired surface browning.

Baking Fish
Fillets, steaks or even whole fish can be baked. With whole fish, the body cavity is
often stuffed with vegetables, herbs and other ingredients first. Otherwise, these
stuffing ingredients can be placed on top of the fillets or steaks. This helps prevent
the flesh from drying out.

And speaking of whole fish, the head has a lot of moisture in it, so when baking whole
fish, leaving the head on is another way to help keep it from drying out.

Fish can also be brushed with oil or melted butter before baking, or even dipped in
melted butter. The prepared fish is then baked at around 350°F on an oiled baking
sheet. When baking leaner fish, it's a good idea to baste it with oil, butter or some
other liquid during the baking, so that it doesn't dry out.

 Grilling & Broiling

Grilling & Broiling

Grilling and broiling are dry-heat cooking methods that rely on heat being conducted
through the air from an open flame. This type of cooking produces browning reactions
on the surface of the food, thus encouraging the development of complex flavors and
aromas.

Grilling Cooks Hot and Fast

Because air is a poor conductor of heat, broiling and grilling require the food to be
quite close to the heat source, which in this case is likely to be an open flame.

Thus the surface of the food cooks very quickly, making this type of cooking ideal for
extremely tender cuts of meat, poultry or fish. In fact, because of the extremely hot
and dry nature of this cooking method, it is customary to marinate meats that will be
broiled or grilled.

The "Turn"

An important part of grilling and broiling is the "turn" — which refers to flipping the
item over to cook the other side. Though it can be tempting to move things around
while grilling, a little restraint will go a long way. Generally speaking, you should only
turn an item once, which means cooking one side, turning it to finish the cooking, and
then taking it off the grill.

Since there's not much else to do, knowing when to turn is pretty much the essence
of grilling, and it's a sense that you'll develop with experience.

Grill Marks

One exception to the "don't move it" rule is that cooks will often rotate an item on the
grill to mark it with cross-hatched grill lines. About one-third of a turn — like from 12
o'clock to 8 o'clock on a watch dial — would give the most attractive results.
Heat From Above Vs. Below

Incidentally, there is one significant distinction between broiling and grilling, which is
that grilling involves heating the food from below, while broiling involves heating from
above.

In both cases, the food is typically turned once during cooking, and a grid or grate of
some kind is used, which gives the food the distinctive grill-marks that are the
hallmark of this cooking technique. As with sautéing, it's critical to heat the broiler or
grill before putting the food on it.

What About Barbecuing?

Barbecuing is similar to grilling and broiling in that it also uses an open flame to
cook. But what defines barbecue is the use of wood or coals to produce the flame.

But as with most things in the culinary world, there is a bit of wiggle room here.
Some chefs consider charcoal cooking to be a form of barbecuing, while plenty of
others would insist that barbecue entails cooking over a wood fire in an open pit.
Either way, everyone agrees that cooking with wood imparts a smoky flavor that just
isn't possible with a gas grill.

What About Grill Pans?

Grill pans are specially constructed pans that have elevated ridges designed to
simulate the grill marks obtained by cooking food on an open-flame grill. But is that
really grilling?

Technically, no. Remember, grilling cooks through the conduction of hot air, while a
pan cooks by the conduction of heat through the pan itself.

Here's an example of the difference: Suppose you're cooking burgers on a grill. Any
fat that drips off of the burgers falls away, and doesn't interfere with the heat from
the flame or coals below. With a grill pan, however, the fat merely collects in the pan,
meaning the burgers are effectively fried instead of grilled.

 Sautéing & Pan-Frying

Sautéing is a form of dry-heat cooking that uses a very hot pan and a small amount of
fat to cook the food very quickly. Like other dry-heat cooking methods, sautéing
browns the food's surface as it cooks and develops complex flavors and aromas.

Sautéing Requires a Very Hot Pan

When sautéing, it's important to heat the pan for a minute, then add a small amount
of fat and let the fat get hot as well, before adding the food to the pan. This hot fat
helps to brown the surface of the food. Another key is to avoid overloading or
overcrowding the pan.
Don't Overcrowd the Pan

In order to achieve the desired browning of the food, the pan must stay hot
throughout the cooking process. Too much food in the pan dissipates the heat,
causing the food to steam or boil rather than sauté.

Keep the Food Moving

There's another element to sautéing — the toss. The word sauté actually means
"jump" in French. Tossing or flipping the food in the pan ensures that it cooks evenly,
but it also helps keep the pan hot.

How? Remember that when a hot thing meets a cooler thing, their temperatures
eventually meet in the middle. The cooler thing grows warmer while the hot thing
cools down.

Keep the the Pan Hot

To illustrate, imagine a pan with green beans cooking in it. The beans at the bottom of
the pan, closest to the heat source, are nice and hot, while the ones on top, where
they're exposed to air, are cooler. And the longer they sit like this, the greater this
disparity in temperature becomes.

So far, so good. However, you're eventually going to want to cook the beans on top,
too. And once you flip them, the ones from the top come into contact with the pan's
surface and, because they're cooler, they actually lower the temperature of the pan.
This leads to the same problem mentioned earlier, where the food ends up steaming
rather than sautéing. That's why we try to keep everything moving more or less
constantly.

To facilitate this, some sauté pans have sloped sides, which makes it easier to flip
those items in the pan without flipping them all over the kitchen. However, it's worth
noting that this flipping or tossing technique is only really practical with smaller pieces
of food, especially vegetables. So for steaks, larger cuts of poultry, fish fillets and so
on, we're more likely to employ a technique known as pan-frying rather than sautéing
— even if the dish is actually called sautéed fillet of sole or whatever. For a
demonstration, here's a video on how to sauté vegetables.

Pan-Frying Vs. Sautéing

What's pan-frying? It's a lot like sautéing, but with a few key differences. Besides the
fact that there's no tossing, pan-frying uses slightly more fat and slightly lower
temperatures than sautéing. This makes it a good method for cooking larger pieces of
meat that would not have time to cook through because with sautéing, the food isn't
in the pan for very long. For that reason, larger pieces of meat are often finished in
the oven after the surface has been cooked to the desired degree.
 Deep-Frying

Deep-Fat Frying

Since deep-frying involves submerging food in hot, liquid fat, it might take some time
to get used to the idea that it's actually a form of dry-heat cooking.

But if you've ever seen the violent reaction of hot oil to even a tiny drop of water, you
know that oil and water are a couple of opposites that want nothing to do with each
other. Even though fat can take a liquid form, it really is considered a solid — thus dry
heat.

Maintain Constant Temperature

Assuming they've been cooked properly, deep-fried items should actually have very
little oil on them. Proper deep-frying technique requires maintaining the oil's
temperature between 325°F and 400°F. Most oils will start to smoke at temperatures
higher than that.

Sealing In Moisture

Food items to be fried are often dipped in a simple batter to protect and further seal
in their natural moisture. Because most foods have some moisture in them, and
because oil and water don't mix, the food's natural moisture creates a barrier against
the oil surrounding it.

That means that while the heat from the oil cooks the food, the oil itself doesn't
permeate the food at all — unless the oil isn't hot enough.

Remember the violent reaction of hot oil to a drop of water? The hotter the oil, the
more violently it repels water and other moisture. Only at temperatures below 325°F
will the oil start to seep into the food and make it greasy.

Fried Foods, Not Oily Foods

So despite the fact that deep-fried foods have a reputation for being oily or greasy,
greasy food is merely a sign of poor cooking technique and not an indictment of deep-
frying itself.

Curious to see how much oil deep-fried food absorbs? Try this simple test:

1. Measure precisely how much oil you pour into the fryer (or dutch oven) before
cooking.

2. Measure it again after cooking — but wait for the oil to cool first!
The difference between before and after is how much oil ended up in the food. It
might be a lot less than you thought. Draining the item on paper towels before
serving will help minimize its oil content even more.

Fry in Small Batches

When deep-frying, keeping the oil hot is critical to producing a quality product. The
key is to fry items in small batches, because putting too much food in the oil all at
once will lower the oil's temperature.

"Dry" Oil?

Another clue that deep-frying is in fact a form of dry-heat cooking is the attractive
golden-brown color of foods cooked using this method. Only dry-heat cooking
methods will produce this characteristic exterior browning.

And speaking of moisture, because of the way hot oil spatters when water hits it, to
be safe you should pat any excess moisture from food items before putting them in
the deep-fryer. Of course, this assumes that the item isn't being dipped in batter first!

Moist Heat Cooking

Moist heat cooking methods include any techniques that involve cooking with
moisture — whether it's steam, water, stock, wine or some other liquid. Cooking
temperatures are much lower, anywhere from 140°F to a maximum of 212°F,
because water doesn't get any hotter than that. Examples of moist-heat cooking
methods include:

 Poaching, Simmering & Boiling

Poaching, simmering and boiling are three different moist-heat cooking methods where food is
cooked either in hot water or in some other cooking liquid such as broth, stock or wine.

What defines each one is an approximate range of temperatures, which can be identified by
observing how the cooking liquid behaves. Each one — poaching, simmering and boiling — has
certain telltale characteristics:

Poaching

Cooking in liquid with a temperature ranging from 140°F to 180°F is called poaching and is
typically reserved for cooking very delicate items like eggs and fish.

At the correct temperature, the poaching liquid won't show any visible signs of bubbling at all,
though small bubbles may form at the bottom of the pot. This means that the best way of checking
that the temperature is correct is with an instant-read thermometer.
Simmering

Simmering is cooking in liquid that's a bit hotter than poaching — from 180°F to 205°F. Here we
will see bubbles forming and gently rising to the surface of the water, but the water is not yet at a
full rolling boil.

Because it surrounds the food in water that maintains a more or less constant temperaure,
simmering cooks food very evenly. It's an excellent choice for culinary preparations including
stocks or soups, starchy items such as potatoes or pastas, and many others.

One of the downsides to cooking this way is that it can cause the food to lose vitamins and other
nutrients by leaching into the cooking liquid.

Boiling

The hottest of these three stages is boiling, where the water reaches its highest possible temperature
of 212°F. It's actually the least likely of the three to be used for cooking. That's because the violent
agitation caused by the rolling boil can be too rough on food and will often damage it.

Water at a full boil would be a bad choice for cooking an egg outside its shell, as we do when
preparing poached eggs, because the agitation would cause the egg to fall apart. The same holds
true for delicate fish as well as some pastas.

 Steaming

Steaming is a moist-heat cooking technique that employs hot steam to conduct the
heat to the food item.

Once water is heated past the 212°F mark, it stops being water and turns into steam.
Steaming has an advantage over methods such as boiling or even simmering is that
there is no agitation involved, so it's gentler on delicate items like seafood. And
because it doesn't require the food to be submerged, it avoids the loss of nutrients
through leaching. It also cooks relatively quickly.

Interestingly, steam's maximum temperature is also 212°F, just like water. But unlike
water, steam can be forced to exceed this natural temperature limit by pressurizing it.
The higher the pressure, the hotter the steam becomes. Cooking with pressurized
steam requires specialized equipment, though, which is typically not available to the
beginning cook.

Cooking With Steam

Steaming can be done on a stovetop, with a pot containing a small amount of liquid
that is brought to a simmer. The item to be cooked is then placed in a basket
suspended above the liquid and the pot covered.

The hot steam circulates through the pot and cooks the food very quickly. This
technique is known as "compartment steaming." The bamboo steamers used in Asian
cuisine are an example of a compartment steamer.
Steaming Vegetables

Vegetables, potatoes and even rice can be cooked with steam. Some vegetables like
broccoli and cauliflower can turn soggy when simmered, so steaming is an excellent
alternative cooking method.

Steaming Fish

Steaming is particularly well suited for cooking fish. With compartment steaming, the
cooking liquid (usually a broth, stock or wine) and aromatic herbs are gently
simmered. The moist environment inside the compartment helps keep the fish juicy.

Seafood can also be steamed in its own juices. Mussels are frequently cooked in a
large, covered pot with a very small amount of wine. As the pot heats up, the mussels
cook in the steam from their own juices, which then combines with the wine and other
ingredients to create a flavorful sauce.

Cooking en Papillote

Another technique for cooking with steam is known as cooking en papillote or "in
paper." This method is frequently employed for cooking fish, and involves enclosing
the food in a packet of parchment paper or foil. This packet is then heated, so that
the item inside cooks in its own steam.

Braising & Stewing

Braising is a form of moist-heat cooking in which the item to be cooked is partially

covered with liquid and then simmered slowly at a low temperature.

Though it can be done on the stovetop, braising is best done in the oven, because the
heat fully surrounds the pot and causes the food to cook more evenly than if it were
only heated from below.

Begin by Searing

Because moist heat does not permit the various browning reactions that dry heat
produces, giving cooked meats the brown, outer crust that also helps to develop
complex flavors and aromas, it's customary to sear meat in a pan with a small
amount of hot fat before braising it. This step helps to develop flavors as well as
making the meat more appealing visually.

How Braising Works

Braising is a good choice of cooking method for cuts of meat that are tougher or from
older animals. The connective tissues that are more prevalent in cuts like this, and
which can make meats tough and chewy when improperly cooked, are slowly
dissolved through long, slow application of moist heat. So you end up with a tender
piece of meat.

What's more, braising causes the muscle fibers to absorb moisture from the cooking
liquid and steam. That gives you a juicy piece of meat. Finally, as the connective
tissues break down, they dissolve and form gelatin, which thickens the cooking liquid
and gives it body and shine. Meanwhile, the flavors imparted from the stock and
vegetables, as well as any herbs and seasonings, are incorporated into the final
product.

Low Temperatures, Slow Cooking

Braising involves cooking in a covered pot at temperatures of slightly more than

200°F. Cooking in the oven helps to maintain this steady temperature, so there is
very little that needs to be done once the braising pot is transferred to the oven.

To achieve temperatures of 200°F to 210°F, the oven should be set to about 300°F.
Because meat is a poor conductor of heat, moist heat that is transferred into the meat
during cooking tends to remain in the meat, where it slowly breaks down the tough
fibers in the meat.

Braising Meat

Large cuts of meat can be braised, as with the so-called "pot roast." One thing to
remember is that salting the meat before cooking can make browning it more difficult.
So in order to season the meat properly, it may be preferable to season it through the
cooking liquid itself rather than directly. Here's a video on how to make pot roast.

Braising Vegetables

Braising is also a good way to cook tough, fibrous vegetables like celery, carrots,
parsnips and so on. Vegetables to be braised would typically be sautéed, then covered
with liquid and cooked in a covered pot in the oven.

With both meats and vegetables, the braising liquid can be reduced and thickened
with a roux to create a sauce. it's important to skim the excess fat from the cooking
liquid first, although some of the fat can be used for making the roux.