1.
Cooking
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Cooking or cookery is the art, technology and craft of preparing food for consumption with the use of heat. The ways or types of cooking also depend on the skill, cooking is done both by people in their own dwellings and by professional cooks and chefs in restaurants and other food establishments. Cooking can also occur through chemical reactions without the presence of heat, such as in ceviche, preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans. It may have started around 2 million years ago, though evidence for it reaches no more than 1 million years ago. The expansion of agriculture, commerce, trade and transportation between civilizations in different regions offered cooks many new ingredients, New inventions and technologies, such as the invention of pottery for holding and boiling water, expanded cooking techniques. Some modern cooks apply advanced scientific techniques to food preparation to further enhance the flavor of the dish served, phylogenetic analysis suggests that human ancestors may have invented cooking as far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago. Re-analysis of burnt bone fragments and plant ashes from the Wonderwerk Cave, there is evidence that Homo erectus was cooking their food as early as 500,000 years ago. Evidence for the use of fire by Homo erectus beginning some 400,000 years ago has wide scholarly support. Archeological evidence, from 300,000 years ago, in the form of ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint, are found across Europe, anthropologists think that widespread cooking fires began about 250,000 years ago, when hearths started appearing. More recently, the earliest hearths have been reported to be at least 790,000 years old, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, food was a classic marker of identity in Europe. In the nineteenth-century Age of Nationalism cuisine became a symbol of national identity. Communication between the Old World and the New World in the Colombian exchange influenced the history of cooking, the Industrial Revolution brought mass-production, mass-marketing and standardization of food. Factories processed, preserved, canned, and packaged a wide variety of foods, in the 1920s, freezing methods, cafeterias and fast-food establishments emerged. Along with changes in food, starting early in the 20th century, governments have issued nutrition guidelines, the 1916 Food For Young Children became the first USDA guide to give specific dietary guidelines. Updated in the 1920s, these guides gave shopping suggestions for different-sized families along with a Depression Era revision which included four cost levels, in 1943, the USDA created the Basic Seven chart to make sure that people got the recommended nutrients. It included the first-ever Recommended Daily Allowances from the National Academy of Sciences, in 1956, the Essentials of an Adequate Diet brought recommendations which cut the number of groups that American school children would learn about down to four. In 1979, a guide called Food addressed the link between too much of certain foods and chronic diseases, but added fats, oils, 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, mushrooms and the yeast used in baking are kinds of fungi
2.
Pakistan
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Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a federal parliamentary republic in South Asia on the crossroads of Central Asia and Western Asia. It is the sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 200 million people, in terms of area, it is the 33rd-largest country in the world with an area covering 881,913 square kilometres. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistans narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, Pakistan is unique among Muslim countries in that it is the only country to have been created in the name of Islam. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and it is an ethnically and linguistically diverse country, with a similarly diverse geography and wildlife. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic, an ethnic civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh. The new constitution stipulated that all laws were to conform to the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Quran. Pakistan has an economy with a well-integrated agriculture sector. The Pakistani economy is the 24th-largest in the world in terms of purchasing power and it is ranked among the emerging and growth-leading economies of the world, and is backed by one of the worlds largest and fastest-growing middle classes. The post-independence history of Pakistan has been characterised by periods of military rule, the country continues to face challenging problems such as illiteracy, healthcare, and corruption, but has substantially reduced poverty and terrorism and expanded per capita income. It is also a member of CERN. Pakistan is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, the name Pakistan literally means land of the pure in Urdu and Persian. It is a play on the word pāk meaning pure in Persian and Pashto, the letter i was incorporated to ease pronunciation and form the linguistically correct and meaningful name. Some of the earliest ancient human civilisations in South Asia originated from areas encompassing present-day Pakistan, the earliest known inhabitants in the region were Soanian during the Lower Paleolithic, of whom stone tools have been found in the Soan Valley of Punjab. The Vedic Civilization, characterised by Indo-Aryan culture, laid the foundations of Hinduism, Multan was an important Hindu pilgrimage centre. The Vedic civilisation flourished in the ancient Gandhāran city of Takṣaśilā, the Indo-Greek Kingdom founded by Demetrius of Bactria included Gandhara and Punjab and reached its greatest extent under Menander, prospering the Greco-Buddhist culture in the region. Taxila had one of the earliest universities and centres of education in the world. At its zenith, the Rai Dynasty of Sindh ruled this region, the Pala Dynasty was the last Buddhist empire, which, under Dharampala and Devapala, stretched across South Asia from what is now Bangladesh through Northern India to Pakistan. The Arab conqueror Muhammad bin Qasim conquered the Indus valley from Sindh to Multan in southern Punjab in 711 AD, the Pakistan governments official chronology identifies this as the time when the foundation of Pakistan was laid
3.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
4.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
5.
Rock salt
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Halite, commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral form of sodium chloride. The mineral is colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pink, red, orange, yellow or gray depending on the amount. It commonly occurs with other evaporite minerals such as several of the sulfates, halides. Halite occurs in vast beds of sedimentary evaporite minerals that result from the drying up of enclosed lakes, playas, salt beds may be hundreds of meters thick and underlie broad areas. In the United States and Canada extensive underground beds extend from the Appalachian basin of western New York through parts of Ontario, other deposits are in Ohio, Kansas, New Mexico, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan. The Khewra salt mine is a deposit of halite near Islamabad. In the United Kingdom there are three mines, the largest of these is at Winsford in Cheshire producing on average a million tonnes per year. Salt domes are vertical diapirs or pipe-like masses of salt that have been squeezed up from underlying salt beds by mobilization due to the weight of overlying rock. Salt domes contain anhydrite, gypsum, and native sulfur, in addition to halite and sylvite and they are common along the Gulf coasts of Texas and Louisiana and are often associated with petroleum deposits. Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Romania and Iran also have salt domes, salt glaciers exist in arid Iran where the salt has broken through the surface at high elevation and flows downhill. In all of these cases, halite is said to be behaving in the manner of a rheid, unusual, purple, fibrous vein filling halite is found in France and a few other localities. Halite crystals termed hopper crystals appear to be skeletons of the cubes, with the edges present and stairstep depressions on, or rather in. In a rapidly crystallizing environment, the edges of the cubes simply grow faster than the centers, halite crystals form very quickly in some rapidly evaporating lakes resulting in modern artifacts with a coating or encrustation of halite crystals. Halite flowers are rare stalactites of curling fibers of halite that are found in certain arid caves of Australias Nullarbor Plain, halite stalactites and encrustations are also reported in the Quincy native copper mine of Hancock, Michigan. Halite is often used both residentially and municipally for managing ice, because brine has a lower freezing point than pure water, putting salt or saltwater on ice that is near 0 °C will cause it to melt. It is common for homeowners in cold climates to spread salt on their sidewalks and driveways after a snow storm to melt the ice. It is not necessary to use so much salt that the ice is melted, rather. Also, many cities will spread a mixture of sand and salt on roads during, in addition to de-icing, rock salt is occasionally used in agriculture
6.
Wok
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A wok is a versatile round-bottomed cooking vessel, originating from China. The use of the wok is very prevalent in South China and it is one of the most common cooking utensils in China and also found in parts of East, South and Southeast Asia, as well as becoming a popular niche cookware in all the world. Wok cooking is done with long-handled utensils called chahn or hoak, the long handles of these utensils allow cooks to work with the food without burning their hands. In Japan the wok is called a chūkanabe, in Indonesia the wok is known as a penggorengan or wajan. In Malaysia it is called a kuali or kawah, similarly in the Philippines, the wok is known as kawali, while bigger woks used for festivals and gatherings are known as kawa. The woks most distinguishing feature is its shape, classic woks have a rounded bottom. Hand-hammered woks are sometimes flipped inside out after being shaped, giving the wok a gentle flare to the edge that makes it easier to push food up onto the sides of the wok. Woks sold in western countries are found with flat bottoms—this makes them more similar to a deep frying pan. The flat bottom allows the wok to be used on an electric stove, a round bottom wok enables the traditional round spatula or ladle to pick all the food up at the bottom of the wok and toss it around easily, this is difficult with a flat bottom. With a gas hob, or traditional pit stove, the bottom of a round wok can get hotter than a flat wok, most woks range from 300 to 360 mm or more in diameter. Woks of 360 mm are the most common, but home woks can be found as small as 200 mm, smaller woks are typically used for quick cooking techniques at high heat such as stir frying. Large woks over a meter wide are used by restaurants or community kitchens for cooking rice or soup. The most common used in making woks today are carbon steel. Although the latter was the most common used in the past. Their light weight makes them easier to lift and quicker to heat, carbon steel woks, however, tend to be more difficult to season than those made of cast-iron. Carbon steel woks vary widely in price, style, and quality, the lowest quality steel woks tend to be stamped by machine from a single ply or piece of stamped steel. Less expensive woks have a tendency to deform and misshape. Cooking with lower quality woks is also difficult and precarious since they often have a hot spot
7.
Sea salt
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Sea salt is salt produced from the evaporation of seawater, rather than by being extracted from sedimentary deposits. It is used in cooking and cosmetics and it is also called bay salt or solar salt. Like mineral salt, production of sea salt has been dated to prehistoric times, some cooks believe it tastes better than salt from mines. However, there is little or no benefit to using sea salt over other forms of sodium chloride salts. Commercially available sea salts on the market vary widely in their chemical composition. Sea salt is mentioned in the Vinaya Pitaka, a Buddhist scripture compiled in the mid-5th century BC, the principle of production is evaporation of the water from the sea brine. In warm and dry climates this may be accomplished entirely by using solar energy, modern sea salt production is almost entirely found in Mediterranean and other warm, dry climates. Such places are today called salt works, instead of the older English word saltern and this was the pattern during the Roman and medieval periods around The Wash, in eastern England. There, the tide brought the brine, the extensive saltings provided the pasture, the fens and moors provided the fuel. The dilute brine of the sea was largely evaporated by the sun, in Roman areas, this was done using ceramic containers known as briquetage. Workers scraped up the salt and mud slurry and washed it with clean sea water to settle impurities out of the now concentrated brine. They poured the brine into shallow pans and set them on fist-sized clay pillars over a fire for final evaporation. Then they scraped out the salt and sold it. In rural areas of Sichuan, China, these traditional salt production methods lasted until industrialization in the 20th century, today, salt labelled sea salt in the US might not have actually come from the sea, as long as it meets the FDAs purity requirements. Some gourmets believe sea salt tastes better and has a better texture than ordinary table salt, in applications that retain sea salts coarser texture, it can provide a different mouth feel, and may change flavor due to its different rate of dissolution. The mineral content also affects the taste, the colors and variety of flavors are due to local clays and algae found in the waters the salt is harvested from. For example, some boutique salts from Korea and France are pinkish gray, black and red salts from Hawaii may even have powdered black lava and baked red clay added in. It may be difficult to distinguish sea salt from other salts, such as pink Himalayan salt, Maras salt from the ancient Inca hot springs, in comparison, table salt is more heavily processed to eliminate minerals and usually contains an additive to prevent clumping
8.
Egg as food
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Eggs are laid by female animals of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and fish, and have been eaten by humans for thousands of years. Bird and reptile eggs consist of an eggshell, albumen. The most popular choice for egg consumption are chicken eggs, other popular choices for egg consumption are duck, quail, roe, and caviar. Egg yolks and whole eggs store significant amounts of protein and choline, due to their protein content, the United States Department of Agriculture categorizes eggs as Meats within the Food Guide Pyramid. Despite the nutritional value of eggs, there are potential health issues arising from egg quality, storage. Chickens and other egg-laying creatures are widely kept throughout the world, in 2009, an estimated 62.1 million metric tons of eggs were produced worldwide from a total laying flock of approximately 6.4 billion hens. There are issues of variation in demand and expectation, as well as current debates concerning methods of mass production. In 2012, the European Union banned battery husbandry of chickens, bird eggs have been valuable foodstuffs since prehistory, in both hunting societies and more recent cultures where birds were domesticated. The chicken was probably domesticated for its eggs before 7500 BCE, chickens were brought to Sumer and Egypt by 1500 BCE, and arrived in Greece around 800 BCE, where the quail had been the primary source of eggs. In Thebes, Egypt, the tomb of Haremhab, built about 1420 BCE, shows a depiction of a man carrying bowls of ostrich eggs and other large eggs, presumably those of the pelican, as offerings. In ancient Rome, eggs were preserved using a number of methods, the Romans crushed the shells in their plates to prevent evil spirits from hiding there. In the Middle Ages, eggs were forbidden during Lent because of their richness, the word mayonnaise possibly was derived from moyeu, the medieval French word for the yolk, meaning center or hub. Egg scrambled with acidic fruit juices were popular in France in the 17th century, the dried egg industry developed in the 19th century, before the rise of the frozen egg industry. In 1878, a company in St. Louis, Missouri started to transform egg yolk and white into a light-brown, the production of dried eggs significantly expanded during World War II, for use by the United States Armed Forces and its allies. In 1911, the egg carton was invented by Joseph Coyle in Smithers, British Columbia, early egg cartons were made of paper. Bird eggs are a food and one of the most versatile ingredients used in cooking. They are important in many branches of the food industry. The most commonly used bird eggs are those from the chicken, duck and goose eggs, and smaller eggs, such as quail eggs, are occasionally used as a gourmet ingredient in western countries
9.
Spatula
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A spatula is a small implement with a broad, flat, flexible blade used to mix, spread and lift material including foods, drugs, plaster and paints. It derives from the Latin word for a piece of wood or splint. The words spade and spathe are similarly derived, the word spatula is known to have been used in English since 1525. Spatulas are usually used to out a dry measuring cup. It is a tool with two flat edges on a flexible blade, a spatula is usually short and about 8 inches long. A spatula also refers to a turner which is used to flip over pancakes, in kitchen utensils, a spatula is any utensil fitting the above description. One variety is used to lift and flip food items during cooking, such as pancakes, the blade on these are usually made of metal or plastic, with a wooden or plastic handle to insulate them from heat. A cookie shovel is a specialty spatula with a blade, made for scooping cookies off their pan. A frosting spatula is known as palette knife and is usually made of metal or plastic. Bowl and plate scrapers are sometimes called spatulas, in British English a spatula is similar in shape to a palette knife without holes in a flexible and or detachable blade. A wide-bladed utensil with holes in a solid blade used for turning food is a fish slice. In laboratories, spatulas and microspatulas are small stainless steel utensils, used for scraping, transferring, or applying powders, many spatula brands are also resistant to acids, bases, heat, and solvents, which make them ideal for use with a wide range of compound. A common type would be stainless steel spatulas, which are used because they are sturdy. They are resistant to deterioration from contact with boiling water, acids, bases, some of them come with Polyvinyl chloride plastic handle or riveted hardwood for better handling. Polystyrene spatulas are made for researchers because they are disposable, preventing any potential contaminations which occurs often with reusable spatulas and they are also ideal for handling lyophilized products or performing lyophilization
10.
Peanut
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The peanut, also known as the groundnut and the goober and taxonomically classified as Arachis hypogaea, is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, being important to small and large commercial producers. It is classified as both a grain legume and, because of its oil content, an oil crop. World annual production of shelled peanuts was 42 million tonnes in 2014, atypically among crop plants, peanut pods develop underground rather than aboveground. It is this characteristic that the botanist Linnaeus used to assign the specific name hypogaea, as a legume, the peanut belongs to the botanical family Fabaceae, this is also known as Leguminosae, and commonly known as the bean, or pea, family. Like most other legumes, peanuts harbor symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in root nodules and this capacity to fix nitrogen means peanuts require less nitrogen-containing fertilizer and improve soil fertility, making them valuable in crop rotations. Peanuts are similar in taste and nutritional profile to tree nuts such as walnuts and almonds, the botanical definition of a nut is a fruit whose ovary wall becomes very hard at maturity. Using this criterion, the peanut is not a true nut, however, for culinary purposes and in common English language usage, peanuts are usually referred to as nuts. Cultivated peanut arose from a hybrid between two species of peanut, thought to be A. duranensis and A. ipaensis. The initial hybrid would have been sterile, but spontaneous chromosome doubling restored its fertility, the process of domestication through artificial selection made A. hypogaea dramatically different from its wild relatives. The domesticated plants are bushier and more compact, and have a different pod structure, the initial domestication may have taken place in northwestern Argentina, or in southeastern Bolivia, where the peanut landraces with the most wild-like features are grown today. From this primary center of origin, cultivation spread and formed secondary and tertiary centers of diversity in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Paraguay, over time, thousands of peanut landraces evolved, these are classified into six botanical varieties and two subspecies. Subspecies A. h. fastigiata types are more upright in their habit and have shorter crop cycles. Subspecies A. h. hypogaea types spread more on the ground and have longer crop cycles, the oldest known archeological remains of pods have been dated at about 7,600 years old. These may be pods from a species that was in cultivation. They were found in Peru, where dry conditions are favorable to the preservation of organic material. Almost certainly, peanut cultivation antedated this at the center of origin where the climate is moister, many pre-Columbian cultures, such as the Moche, depicted peanuts in their art. Cultivation was well established in Mesoamerica before the Spanish arrived, there, the conquistadors found the tlalcacahuatl being offered for sale in the marketplace of Tenochtitlan
11.
Popcorn
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Popcorn is a type of corn that expands from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Popcorn is able to pop like amaranth grain, sorghum, quinoa, when heated, pressure builds within the kernel, and a small explosion is the end result. Some strains of corn are now cultivated specifically as popping corns, there are various techniques for popping corn. Along with prepackaged popcorn, which is intended to be prepared in a microwave oven. These methods require the use of minimally processed popping corn, a larger-scale, commercial popcorn machine, which resembled a modern movie theater popcorn machine on a cart with large bicycle style wheels, was invented by Charles Cretors in the late 19th century. Unpopped popcorn is considered nonperishable and will last indefinitely if stored in ideal conditions, depending on how it is prepared and cooked, some consider popcorn to be a health food, while others caution against it for a variety of reasons. Popcorn can also have applications, ranging from holiday decorations to packaging materials. Corn was first domesticated in Mexico 9,000 years ago, archaeologists have discovered that people have known about popcorn for thousands of years. In Mexico, for example, they’ve found remnants of popcorn that dates to around 3600 BC, popping of the kernels was achieved manually through the 19th century, being sold on the east coast of the USA under names such as Pearls or Nonpareil. The term popped corn first appeared in John Russell Bartlett’s 1848 Dictionary of Americanisms, Popcorn is an ingredient in Cracker Jack, and in the early years of the product, it was popped by hand. Popcorns accessibility increased rapidly in the 1890s with Charles Cretors invention of the popcorn maker, Cretors, a Chicago candy store owner, created a number of steam powered machines for roasting nuts, and applied the technology to the corn kernels. By the turn of the century, Cretors had created and deployed street carts equipped with steam powered popcorn makers, during the Great Depression, popcorn was fairly inexpensive at 5–10 cents a bag and became popular. Thus, while businesses failed, the popcorn business thrived and became a source of income for many struggling farmers, including the Redenbacher family. During World War II, sugar rations diminished candy production, the snack was popular at theaters, much to the initial displeasure of many of the theater owners, who thought it distracted from the films. Their minds eventually changed, however, and in 1938 a Midwestern theater owner named Glen W. Dickson installed popcorn machines in the lobbies of his theaters, the venture was a financial success, and the trend soon spread. In 1970, Orville Redenbachers namesake brand of popcorn was launched, in 1981, General Mills received the first patent for a microwave popcorn bag, with popcorn consumption seeing a sharp increase by tens of thousands of pounds in the years following. At least six localities claim to be the Popcorn Capital of the World, Ridgway, Illinois, Valparaiso, Indiana, Van Buren, Indiana, Schaller, Iowa, Marion, Ohio, and North Loup, Nebraska. According to the USDA, corn used for production is specifically planted for this purpose, most is grown in Nebraska and Indiana
12.
Iron
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Iron is a chemical element with symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series and it is by mass the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earths outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earths crust, like the other group 8 elements, ruthenium and osmium, iron exists in a wide range of oxidation states, −2 to +6, although +2 and +3 are the most common. Elemental iron occurs in meteoroids and other low oxygen environments, but is reactive to oxygen, fresh iron surfaces appear lustrous silvery-gray, but oxidize in normal air to give hydrated iron oxides, commonly known as rust. Unlike the metals that form passivating oxide layers, iron oxides occupy more volume than the metal and thus flake off, Iron metal has been used since ancient times, although copper alloys, which have lower melting temperatures, were used even earlier in human history. Pure iron is soft, but is unobtainable by smelting because it is significantly hardened and strengthened by impurities, in particular carbon. A certain proportion of carbon steel, which may be up to 1000 times harder than pure iron. Crude iron metal is produced in blast furnaces, where ore is reduced by coke to pig iron, further refinement with oxygen reduces the carbon content to the correct proportion to make steel. Steels and iron alloys formed with metals are by far the most common industrial metals because they have a great range of desirable properties. Iron chemical compounds have many uses, Iron oxide mixed with aluminium powder can be ignited to create a thermite reaction, used in welding and purifying ores. Iron forms binary compounds with the halogens and the chalcogens, among its organometallic compounds is ferrocene, the first sandwich compound discovered. Iron plays an important role in biology, forming complexes with oxygen in hemoglobin and myoglobin. Iron is also the metal at the site of many important redox enzymes dealing with cellular respiration and oxidation and reduction in plants. A human male of average height has about 4 grams of iron in his body and this iron is distributed throughout the body in hemoglobin, tissues, muscles, bone marrow, blood proteins, enzymes, ferritin, hemosiderin, and transport in plasma. The mechanical properties of iron and its alloys can be evaluated using a variety of tests, including the Brinell test, Rockwell test, the data on iron is so consistent that it is often used to calibrate measurements or to compare tests. An increase in the content will cause a significant increase in the hardness. Maximum hardness of 65 Rc is achieved with a 0. 6% carbon content, because of the softness of iron, it is much easier to work with than its heavier congeners ruthenium and osmium. Because of its significance for planetary cores, the properties of iron at high pressures and temperatures have also been studied extensively
13.
Hawker (trade)
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A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported, the term is roughly synonymous with peddler or costermonger. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive items, whether stationary or mobile, hawkers often advertise by loud street cries or chants, and conduct banter with customers, so to attract attention and enhance sales. When accompanied by a demonstration or detailed explanation of the product, most of them are immigrants or laid-off workers, work for an average 10–12 hours a day, and remain impoverished. Though the prevalent license-permit raj in Indian bureaucracy ended for most retailing in the 1990s, in Kolkata, the profession was a cognisable and non-bailable offense. Over the years the street vendors have organized themselves into trade unions and associations, in fact, The National Association of Street Vendors of India based in Delhi, is a federation of 715 street vendor organizations, trade unions and non-governmental organizations. Kolkata has two such unions, namely the Bengal Hawkers Association and the Calcutta Hawkers Men Union, in September,2012, long-awaited Street Vendors Act was introduced in the Lok Sabha aimed at providing social security and livelihood rights, and regulated the prevalent license system. The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on 6 September 2013, the bill received the assent of the President of India on 4 March 2014. The commencement of the Act has not been notified, balut is a popular dish sold by hawkers in the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In both China and Hong Kong, hawkers inventories often include fish ball, beef ball, butzaigo, roasted chestnuts, in Singapore and Malaysia, these stands have become so successful that many have chosen to set up shop more permanently in a hawker center. Across Asia, stalls have been set up with little to no government monitoring, due to health concerns and other liability problems, the food culture has been seriously challenged in Indonesia, though without marked success. However, in Hong Kong, the lease versus licensed hawker restrictions have put a burden on this mobile food culture, the term Jau Gwei has been used to describe vendors often running away from local police. The costermongers of London, England were at their peak in the 19th century, organised, yet semi-obvious, they were ubiquitous, and their street cries could be heard everywhere. Street vendors in Latin America are known in local Spanish and Portuguese variously as vendedores ambulantes or simply ambulantes, in Argentina they are known as manteros. In Brazil, they are known as camelôs. Some ambulantes set up in a location while others are mobile. Some ambulantes sell their goods door-to-door, puestos are market stalls or stands. Street vendors face various regulations and fees, there are sometimes disputes between established merchants and ambulantes. In order to avoid overwhelming tourists or shoppers, ambulantes are known to establish territories, thieves stealing their goods can be a problem
14.
Chestnut
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The chestnut group is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce, Chestnuts belong to the family Fagaceae, which also includes oaks and beeches. Unrelated but externally similar species of horse chestnut are abundant around Europe, other trees commonly mistaken for chestnut trees are the chestnut oak and the American beech, both of which are also in Fagaceae. The name chestnut is derived from an earlier English term chesten nut, the name Castanea is probably derived from the old name for the sweet chestnut, either in Latin or in Ancient Greek. Another possible source of the name is the town of Kastania in Thessaly, Greece, more probable, in the Mediterranean climate zone, chestnut trees are rarer in Greece because the chalky soil is not conducive to the trees growth. Kastania is located on one of the relatively few sedimentary or siliceous outcrops and they grow so abundantly there, their presence would have determined the places name. Still others take the name as coming from the Greek name of Sardis glans – Sardis being the capital of Lydia, Asia Minor, the name is cited twice in the King James Version of the Bible. In one instance, Jacob puts peeled twigs in the troughs to promote healthy offspring of his livestock. Although it may indicate another tree, it indicates the fruit was a staple food in the early 17th century. These synonyms are or have been in use, Fagus castanea, Sardian nut, Jupiters nut, husked nut, Chestnut trees are of moderate growth rate to fast-growing for American and European species. Their mature heights vary from the smallest species of chinkapins, often shrubby, to the giant of past American forests, C. dentata that could reach 60 m. Between these extremes are found the Japanese chestnut at 10 m average, followed by the Chinese chestnut at about 15 m, when standing on their own, they spread on the sides and develop broad, rounded, dense crowns at maturity. The two latters foliage has striking yellow autumn colouring and its bark is smooth when young, of a vinous maroon or red-brown colour for the American chestnut, grey for the European chestnut. The leaves are simple, ovate or lanceolate, 10–30 cm long and 4–10 cm wide, with sharply pointed, the flowers follow the leaves, appearing in late spring or early summer or into July. They are arranged in long catkins of two kinds, with both kinds being borne on every tree, some catkins are made of only male flowers, which mature first. Each flower has eight stamens, or 10 to 12 for C. mollissima, the ripe pollen carries a heavy, sweet odour that some people find too sweet or unpleasant. Other catkins have these pollen-bearing flowers, but also carry near the twig from which these spring, two or three flowers together form a four-lobed prickly calybium, which ultimately grows completely together to make the brown hull, or husk, covering the fruits. Chestnut flowers are not self-compatible, so two trees are required for pollination, all Castanea species readily hybridize with each other
15.
Black sand
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Black sand is sand that is black in color. One type of sand is a heavy, glossy, partly magnetic mixture of usually fine sands. Another type of sand, found on beaches near a volcano. While some beaches are made of black sand, even other colour beaches can often have deposits of black sand. Larger waves can sort out sand grains leaving deposits of heavy minerals visible on the surface of erosion scarps, Black sands are used by miners and prospectors to indicate the presence of a placer formation. Placer mining activities produce a concentrate that is composed mostly of black sand. Several gemstones, such as garnet, topaz, ruby, sapphire, and diamond are found in placers and in the course of placer mining, purple or ruby-colored garnet sand often forms a showy surface dressing on ocean beach placers. When lava contacts water, it cools rapidly and shatters into sand, much of the debris is small enough to be considered sand. A large lava flow entering an ocean may produce enough basalt fragments to build a new black sand beach almost overnight. The famous black sand beaches of Hawaii, such as Punaluu Beach and Kehena Beach, were created virtually instantaneously by the violent interaction between hot lava and sea water. Since a black sand beach is made by a flow in a one time event. For this reason, the state of Hawaii has made it illegal to remove sand from its beaches. Further, a sand beach is vulnerable to being inundated by future lava flows, as was the case for Hawaiis Kaimū, usually known simply as Black Sand Beach. Black sand has formed beaches in places, including the below. Eustatius St. Kitts Nevis Jamaica Dominica St
16.
Chinese cuisine
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Chinese cuisine is an important part of Chinese culture, which includes cuisines originating from the diverse regions of China, as well as from Chinese people in other parts of the world. The preference for seasoning and cooking techniques of Chinese provinces depend on differences in historical background, imperial, royal and noble preference also plays a role in the change of Chinese cuisines. Because of imperial expansion and trading, ingredients and cooking techniques from other cultures are integrated into Chinese cuisines over time, the most praised Four Major Cuisines are Chuan, Lu, Yue and Huaiyang, represents West, North, South and East China cuisine correspondingly. Modern Eight Cuisines of China are Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan, the color, smell and taste are the three traditional aspects to describe Chinese food, also the meaning, shape and nutrition. While, cooking should be appraised from ingredients, cuttings, cooking time and it is considered inappropriate to use knives on dining table. Chopsticks are the eating utensils for Chinese food, which can be used to cut. Chinese society greatly valued gastronomy and developed a study of the subject based on its traditional medical beliefs. Chinese culture initially centered around the North China Plain, the first domesticated crops seem to have been the foxtail and broomcorn varieties of millet, while rice was cultivated in the south. By 2000 BC, wheat had arrived from western Asia and these grains were typically served as warm noodle soups, however, instead of baked into bread as in Europe. Nobles hunted various wild game and consumed mutton, pork, dog, grain was stored against famine and flood and meat was preserved with salt, vinegar, curing, and fermenting. The flavor of the meat was enhanced by cooking it in animal fats though this practice was restricted to the wealthy. By the time of Confucius in the late Zhou, gastronomy has become a high art and he was recorded discussing about the principles of dining, The rice would never be too white, the meat would never be too finely cut. When it was not cooked right, man would not eat, when it was cooked bad, man would not eat. When the meat was not cut properly, man would not eat, when the food was not prepared with the right sauce, man would not eat. Although there are plenty of meat, they should not be cooked more than staple food, there is no limit for alcohol, before a man get drunk. During Shi Huangdis Qin dynasty, the empire expanded into the south, by the time of the Han Dynasty, the different regions and cuisines of Chinas peoples were linked by major canals and leading to greater complexity in the different regional cuisines. Not only is seen as giving qi, energy, but food is also about maintaining yin. Salt was used as a preservative from early times, but in cooking was added in the form of soy sauce, and not at the table
17.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
18.
Dry roasting
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Dry Roasting is a process by which heat is applied to dry foodstuffs without the use of oil or water as a carrier. Unlike other dry heat methods, dry roasting is used with such as nuts. Dry roasted foods are stirred as they are roasted to ensure even heating, dry roasting can be done in a frying pan or wok, or in a specialized roaster. Dry roasting changes the chemistry of proteins in the food, changing their flavor, roasted spices are commonly prepared by adding various herbs, spices and sugars in the frying pan and roasting until brown
19.
Searing
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Searing is a technique used in grilling, baking, braising, roasting, sautéing, etc. in which the surface of the food is cooked at high temperature until a caramelized crust forms. Similar techniques, browning and blackening, are used to sear all sides of a particular piece of meat, fish, poultry. To obtain the desired brown or black crust, the surface must exceed 150 °C, so searing requires the meat surface be free of water. Nonetheless, it remains an essential technique in cooking meat for several reasons, The browning creates desirable flavors through caramelization, the appearance of the food is usually improved with a well-browned crust. The contrast in taste and texture between the crust and the interior makes the food more interesting to the palate, typically in grilling, the food will be seared over very high heat and then moved to a lower-temperature area of the grill to finish cooking. In braising, the seared surface acts to flavor, color, the incorrect belief that searing meat seals in the juices is widespread and still often repeated. This theory was first put forth by Justus von Liebig, a German chemist and food scientist, the notion was embraced by contemporary cooks and authors, including Auguste Escoffier. It is more cited in regards to larger cuts, especially steaks and chops, of non-poultry meats such as beef, pork, lamb. Simple experimentation can test the theory, in two similar cuts of meat are cooked, one of which is seared and one of which is not. Each piece is then cooked normally in a preferred method until each reaches exactly the same predetermined internal temperature and they are then weighed to see which lost more moisture. As early as the 1930s, such experiments were carried out, moisture in liquid and vapor form continues to escape from a seared piece of meat
20.
Baking
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Baking is a method of cooking food that uses prolonged dry heat, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones. The most common baked item is bread but many types of foods are baked. Heat is gradually transferred from the surface of cakes, cookies, as heat travels through it transforms batters and doughs into baked goods with a firm dry crust and a softer centre. Baking can be combined with grilling to produce a hybrid barbecue variant by using both methods simultaneously, or one after the other, Baking is related to barbecuing because the concept of the masonry oven is similar to that of a smoke pit. Because of historical social and familial roles, baking has traditionally performed at home by women for domestic consumption and by men in bakeries. When production was industrialized, baking was automated by machines in large factories, the art of baking remains a fundamental skill and is important for nutrition, as baked goods, especially breads, are a common but important food, both from an economic and cultural point of view. A person who prepares baked goods as a profession is called a baker, all types of food can be baked, but some require special care and protection from direct heat. Various techniques have developed to provide this protection. In addition to bread, baking is used to prepare cakes, pastries, pies, tarts, quiches, cookies, scones, crackers, pretzels, and more. Larger cuts prepared without stuffing or coating are often roasted. Roasting, however, is suitable for finer cuts of meat. One of these is the known as en croûte, which protects the food from direct heat. Meat, poultry, game, fish or vegetables can be prepared by baking en croûte, the en croûte method also allows meat to be baked by burying it in the embers of a fire – a favourite method of cooking venison. In this case, the casing is made from a paste of flour. Salt can also be used to make a protective crust that is not eaten, another method of protecting food from the heat while it is baking, is to cook it en papillote. In this method, the food is covered by baking paper to protect it while it is being baked, the cooked parcel of food is sometimes served unopened, allowing diners to discover the contents for themselves which adds an element of surprise. Eggs can also be used in baking to produce savoury or sweet dishes, in combination with dairy products especially cheese, they are often prepared as a dessert. For example, although a baked custard can be made using starch, baked custards, such as crème caramel, are among the items that need protection from an ovens direct heat, and the bain-marie method serves this purpose
21.
Roasting
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Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat where hot air envelops the food, cooking it evenly on all sides with temperatures of at least 150 °C from an open flame, oven, or other heat source. Roasting can enhance flavor through caramelization and Maillard browning on the surface of the food, Roasting uses indirect, diffused heat, and is suitable for slower cooking of meat in a larger, whole piece. Meats and most root and bulb vegetables can be roasted, any piece of meat, especially red meat, that has been cooked in this fashion is called a roast. A roast joint of meat can take one, two, even three hours to cook—the resulting meat is tender, also, meats and vegetables prepared in this way are described as roasted, e. g. roasted chicken or roasted squash. For roasting, the food may be placed on a rack, in a pan or, to ensure even application of heat. If a pan is used, the juice can be retained for use in gravy, Yorkshire pudding, during oven roasting, hot air circulates around the meat, cooking all sides evenly. There are several plans for roasting meat, low-temperature cooking, high-temperature cooking, each method can be suitable, depending on the food and the tastes of the people. A low-temperature oven,95 °C to 160 °C, is best when cooking with large cuts of meat, turkey and this is not technically roasting temperature, but it is called slow-roasting. The benefit of slow-roasting an item is less moisture loss and a tender product. More of the collagen that makes meat tough is dissolved in slow cooking, at true roasting temperatures,200 °C or more, the water inside the muscle is lost at a high rate. Cooking at high temperatures is beneficial if the cut is tender enough—as in filet mignon or strip loin—to be finished cooking before the juices escape. A reason for high temperature roasting is to brown the outside of the food, fast cooking gives more variety of flavor, because the outside is brown while the center is much less done. The combination method uses high heat just at either the beginning or the end of the cooking process, searing and then turning down to low is also beneficial when a dark crust and caramelized flavor is desired for the finished product. The objective in any case is to retain as much moisture as possible, while providing the texture, as meat cooks, the structure and especially the collagen breaks down, allowing juice to come out of the meat. So meat is juiciest at about medium rare while the juice is coming out, during roasting, meats and vegetables are frequently basted on the surface with butter, lard, or oil to reduce the loss of moisture by evaporation. In recent times, plastic bags have become popular for roasts. These cut cooking times and reduce the loss of moisture during roasting and they are particularly popular for turkeys. Until the late 19th century, roasting by dry heat in an oven was called baking, Roasting originally meant turning meat or a bird on a spit in front of a fire
22.
Smoking (cooking)
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Smoking is the process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. Meats and fish are the most common smoked foods, though cheeses, vegetables, and ingredients used to make such as whisky, smoked beer. In Europe, alder is the traditional smoking wood, but oak is often used now. In North America, hickory, mesquite, oak, pecan, alder, maple, and fruit-tree woods, such as apple, cherry, other biomass besides wood can also be employed, sometimes with the addition of flavoring ingredients. Chinese tea-smoking uses a mixture of uncooked rice, sugar, and tea, some North American ham and bacon makers smoke their products over burning corncobs. Peat is burned to dry and smoke the barley used to make whisky. In New Zealand, sawdust from the native manuka is commonly used for hot smoking fish, in Iceland, dried sheep dung is used to cold-smoke fish, lamb, mutton and whale. Historically, farms in the Western world included a building termed the smokehouse. This was generally well-separated from other buildings both because of the danger and because of the smoke emanations. The smoking of food directly with wood smoke is known to contaminate the food with carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the smoking of food dates back to the time of primitive cavemen. As caves or simple huts lacked chimneys, these dwellings could become very smoky, until the modern era, smoking was of a more heavy duty nature as the main goal was to preserve the food. Large quantities of salt were used in the process and smoking times were quite long. The advent of modern transportation made it easier to transport food products long distances. Smoking became more of a way to flavor than to preserve food, in 1939 a device called the Torry Kiln was invented at the Torry Research Station in Scotland. The kiln allowed for uniform mass-smoking and is considered the prototype for all modern large-scale commercial smokers, smokehouse temperatures for cold smoking are typically done between 20 to 30 °C. In this temperature range, foods take on a smoked flavor, cold smoking does not cook foods. Meats should be cured before cold smoking. Cold smoking can be used as an enhancer for items such as chicken breasts, beef, pork chops, salmon, scallops
23.
Grilling
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Grilling is a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above or below. Grilling usually involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, food to be grilled is cooked on a grill, a grill pan, or griddle. Heat transfer to the food when using a grill is primarily through thermal radiation, heat transfer when using a grill pan or griddle is by direct conduction. In the United States, when the source for grilling comes from above. In this case, the pan that holds the food is called a broiler pan, direct heat grilling can expose food to temperatures often in excess of 260 °C. Grilled meat acquires a distinctive roast aroma and flavor from a process called the Maillard reaction. The Maillard reaction only occurs when foods reach temperatures in excess of 155 °C, marination may reduce the formation of these compounds. Grilling is often presented as an alternative to cooking with oils, although the fat. In Japanese cities, yakitori carts, restaurants, or shops can be found and these contain charcoal-fired grills and marinated grilled meat on a stick. Yakiniku is a type of food where meat and/or vegetables are grilled directly over small charcoal or gas grills at high temperatures. In Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand, a food item from food vendors is satay. In Germany, the most prominent outdoor form of grilling is using the gridiron over a bed of burning charcoal, care is taken that the charcoal does not produce flames. Often beer is sprinkled over the sausages or meat and used to suppress flames, the meat is usually marinated before grilling. Besides charcoal, sometimes gas and electric heat sources are used, other methods are used less frequently. In Argentina and Uruguay, both asado and steak a la parrilla are staple dishes and even hailed as national specialties, in Sweden, grilling directly over hot coals is the most prominent form of grilling. Usually the meat is Boston butt, pork chops or pork fillet and it is also common to cook meat and vegetables together on a skewer, this is called grillspett. In the United Kingdom, Commonwealth countries, and Ireland, grilling refers to cooking food directly under a source of direct. The grill is usually a part of an oven where the food is inserted just under the element
24.
Rotisserie
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This method is generally used for cooking large joints of meat or entire animals, such as pigs or turkeys. The rotation cooks the meat evenly in its own juices and allows access for continuous self-basting. In medieval and early modern kitchens, the spit was the way of cooking meat in a large household. A servant, preferably a boy, sat near the turning the metal rod slowly and cooking the food. Mechanical turnspits were later invented, first powered by dogs on treadmills, the spit could also be powered by a turbine mounted in the chimney with a worm transmission for torque and speed conversion. Spits are now driven by electric motors. Rotisserie can also refer to a device used for rotisserie cooking. The word comes from French where it first appeared in Paris shops around 1450, additionally, in restaurants employing the Escoffierian brigade de cuisine, the rotisseur is the chef responsible for all spit-roasted, oven roasted, grilled and in some cases fried foods. It is commonly known in Latin America as A la brasa and this style mounts the spit horizontally. They are often used to cook whole chickens or roasts of various meats including beef, the design may include a single spit mounted over an open broiler or grill, a single spit mounted within an otherwise-conventional oven, or many spits mounted within a large industrial oven. The latter are used to mass-produce roasted meats for sale to consumers. In this style of rotisserie, balance is important, if the object to be cooked is far out of balance, it will impose a heavy load on the drive mechanism or cause the mechanism to fail to turn. Loose chicken legs or wings can cause the mechanism to jam. For these two reasons, some skewering skill is required, high-end consumer ovens commonly come with a rotisserie. In these cases, the drive mechanism is usually concealed within the oven. The rotisserie is used by removing the normal cooking racks, a carrier may be needed to provide one or both bearing points for the spit. The speed of rotation can vary, depending on the type of food being cooked, large animals, such as whole pigs, are often cooked at speeds ranging from 3 rpm to 1 rpm. Ron Popeil, inventor of the Ronco Showtime rotisserie oven, claims that 6 rpm is a speed for cooking a variety of food
25.
Toast
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Toast is sliced bread about 1⁄2 inch thick that has been browned by exposure to radiant heat. This browning is the result of a Maillard reaction altering the flavor of the bread, toasting is a common method of making stale bread more palatable. Bread is often toasted using a toaster, but toaster ovens are also used, toast is commonly eaten with butter or margarine and sweetened toppings, such as jam or jelly. Regionally, savoury spreads, such as butter or yeast extracts. When buttered, toast may also be served as an accompaniment to savoury dishes, especially soups or stews, toast is a common breakfast food. While slices of bread are most common, bagels and English muffins are also toasted, scientific studies in the early 2000s found that toast may contain carcinogens caused by the browning process. The word toast, which sliced bread singed by heat comes from the Latin torrere. The first reference to toast in print is in a recipe for Oyle Soppys that dates from 1430. In the 1400s and 1500s, toast was discarded or eaten after it was used as a flavouring for drinksIn the 1600s, toast was still thought of as something that was put it into drinks. Shakespeare gave this line to Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor,1616, Go, fetch me a quart of Sacke, toast has been used as an element of American haute cuisine since at least the 1850s. In a modern kitchen, the usual method of toasting bread is by the use of a toaster. To use a modern toaster, sliced bread is placed into the slots on the top of the toaster, the toaster is tuned to the correct setting. The toast is ready when the lever pops up along with the toast, if the bread is insufficiently toasted, the lever can be pressed down again. Bread toasted in a conventional toaster can sweat when it is served and this occurs because moisture in the bread becomes steam while being toasted due to heat and when cooled the steam condenses into water droplets on the surface of the bread. It can also be toasted by a toaster which are often used in hotels, restaurants. These work by having one heating element on the top and one on the bottom with a conveyor belt in the middle which carries the toast between the two heating elements. This allows toast to be made consistently as more slices can be added at any time without waiting for ones to pop up. Bread can also be toasted under a grill, in an open oven and this oven toast is usually buttered before toasting
26.
Blanching (cooking)
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The meaning of blanch is to whiten, but this is not always the purpose of blanching in cooking. Food is blanched to soften it, or to partly or fully cook it, when almonds or pistachios are blanched, the skin of the nut softens and can be easily removed later. Blanching may simply mean boiling in water for a period to remove unpleasant flavours such as tannins. For example, a treatment for African yam bean, is dehulling followed by blanching in water for 40 minutes at 100 °C. It is recommended that protein-rich salads to be eaten cold be prepared by immersing these protein foods in boiling water for 30 seconds followed by fast chilling, in addition celery, which is almost always a component of these salads…should be treated so as to minimize its bacterial content. In the case of French fries, blanching consists of pre-cooking the French fries in oil at a lower temperature prior to finishing them at a higher temperature, the blanching step cooks the interior of the potato, while the second step at the higher temperature crisps the outside. Parboiling How to Blanch Almonds at about. com
27.
Boiling
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Transition boiling is an intermediate, unstable form of boiling with elements of both types. The boiling point of water is 100 °C or 212 °F, boiling water is used as a method of making it potable by killing microbes that may be present. Clostridium spores can survive this treatment, but as the infection caused by this microbe is not water-borne, boiling is also used in cooking. Foods suitable for boiling vegetables, starchy foods such as rice, noodles and potatoes, eggs, meats, sauces, stocks. As a cooking method it is simple and suitable for large scale cookery, tough meats or poultry can be given a long, slow cooking and a nutritious stock is produced. Disadvantages include loss of water-soluble vitamins and minerals, commercially prepared foodstuffs are sometimes packed in polythene sachets and sold as boil-in-the-bag products. Nucleate boiling is characterized by the growth of bubbles or pops on a heated surface, in general, the number of nucleation sites are increased by an increasing surface temperature. An irregular surface of the vessel or additives to the fluid can create additional nucleation sites, while an exceptionally smooth surface, such as plastic. Under these conditions, a liquid may show boiling delay. As the boiling surface is heated above a temperature, a film of vapor forms on the surface. Since this vapor film is less capable of carrying heat away from the surface. The point at which this occurs is dependent on the characteristics of boiling fluid, transition boiling may be defined as the unstable boiling, which occurs at surface temperatures between the maximum attainable in nucleate and the minimum attainable in film boiling. If a surface heating the liquid is significantly hotter than the liquid then film boiling will occur, where a layer of vapor. This condition of a vapor film insulating the surface from the liquid characterizes film boiling, in distillation, boiling is used in separating mixtures. This is possible because the rising from a boiling fluid generally has a ratio of components different from that in the liquid. The elimination of micro-organisms by boiling follows first-order kinetics—at high temperatures it is achieved in time and at lower temperatures. Boiling does not ensure the elimination of all micro-organisms, the bacterial spores Clostridium can survive at 100 °C but are not water-borne or intestine affecting, thus for human health, complete sterilization of water is not required. Though the boiling point decreases with increasing altitude, it is not enough to affect the disinfecting process, boiling is the method of cooking food in boiling water, or other water-based liquids such as stock or milk
28.
Decoction
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Decoction is a method of extraction by boiling herbal or plant material to dissolve the chemicals of the material, which may include stems, roots, bark and rhizomes. Decoction involves first mashing the plant material to allow for maximum dissolution, Decoction can be used to make herbal teas, leaf teas, coffees, tinctures and similar solutions. A decoction is also the name for the resulting liquid, although this method of extraction differs from infusion and percolation, the resultant liquids can sometimes be similar in their effects, or general appearance and taste. The term dates back to 1350–1400 from present participle stem of Latin decoquere, in herbalism, decoctions are usually made to extract fluids from hard plant materials such as roots and bark. To achieve this, the plant material is usually boiled for 1–2 hours in 1-5 liters of water, concoction Percolation Infusion Maceration Tincture Herbalism How To Make a Herbal Decoction from unexplained. net
29.
Parboiling
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Parboiling is the partial boiling of food as the first step in cooking. The word is a portmanteau of partial and boil used by Americans to describe Blanching, the word is often used when referring to parboiled rice. Parboiling can also be used for removing poisonous or foul-tasting substances from foodstuffs, the food items are added to boiling water and cooked until they start to soften, then removed before they are fully cooked. Parboiling is usually used to cook an item which will then be cooked another way such as braising, grilling. Parboiling differs from blanching in that one does not cool the items using cold water or ice after removing them from the boiling water, sometimes raw rice or paddy is dehusked by using steam. This steam also partially boils the rice while dehusking and this process generally changes the colour of rice from white to a bit reddish. This type of rice is eaten in the districts of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada of Karnataka state, in the state of Kerala, and in most parts of Tamil Nadu, Bihar, West Africa and the Afro-Caribbean diaspora are also accustomed to parboiling rice. Blanching Parbaking Parcooking The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Kitchen Dictionary at Recipe*zaar
30.
Coddling
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In cooking, to coddle food is to heat it in water kept just below the boiling point. In the past, recipes called for coddling fruit, but in recent times the term is only applied to coddled eggs. The process is either done in a pan or pot. The word coddle evolved from the name of a drink, caudle
31.
Creaming (food)
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L Creaming is used to refer to several different culinary processes. Creaming, in sense, is the technique of softening solid fat, like shortening or butter, into a smooth mass. The technique is most often used in making buttercream, cake batter or cookie dough, the dry ingredients are mixed or beaten with the softened fat until it becomes light and fluffy and increased in volume, due to the incorporation of tiny air bubbles. These air bubbles, locked into the fat, remain in the final batter and expand as the item is baked. It then gives it a nice finish to the cake, creamed food, in cooking, denotes food that is prepared by slow simmering or poaching in milk or cream. Some typical creamed dishes include creamed corn and creamed chipped beef on toast, some commercial preparations of creamed food substitute water and a starch for all or some of the milk or cream. This produces a creamy texture with no actual cream or milk used, Creaming in milk production is the process by which cream rises to the top of un-homogenized milk. In this sense, the word is similar to the term creaming as it is used in chemistry
32.
Infusion
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An infusion is also the name for the resultant liquid. The process of infusion is distinct from decoction, which involves boiling the plant material, or percolation, the first recorded use of essential oils was in the 10th or 11th century by the Persian polymath Avicenna, possibly in The Canon of Medicine. Tea is far older than this, dating back to the 10th century BC as the earliest recorded reference, an infusion is a very simple chemical process used with botanicals that are volatile and dissolve readily, or release their active ingredients easily, in water, oil or alcohol. The botanicals are typically dried herbs, flowers or berries, the liquid is typically boiled and then poured over the herb, which is then allowed to steep in the liquid for a period of time. The liquid may then be strained or the herbs otherwise removed from the liquid, unless the infusion is to be consumed immediately, it may then be bottled and refrigerated for future use. The amount of time the herbs are left in the liquid depends on the purpose for which the infusion is being prepared, usually steeping for not more than 15 to 30 minutes, or until the mix cools, will create a beverage with optimal flavor. Steeping for a longer time typically results in a somewhat bitter-tasting infusion, four hours, however, is a more appropriate length of time for achieving herbal potency if health benefits are the priority. Quantities of the herb and liquid used will vary according to the herb or how strong the infusion is required to be, a common proportion used is 28 g of herb to 0.5 L of liquid. There have been several accessories and techniques for removing the steeped or left over products that were used to infuse liquids such as water, oil, the use of a metal steeper, which looks like a metal clamp. Tea infusers work as strainers and assist in removal of used herbs, leaves, french presses are commonly used to infuse water with various teas and coffee. Lastly, and most commonly used, the tea bag, tea bags today are made with filter paper and filled with various tea flavors. A common example of an infusion is tea, most varieties of tea call for steeping the leaves in hot water, although some variants call for decoction instead. Many herbal teas are prepared by infusion, as well, lemon, chamomile, senna, apple, ginger, rooibos, herbal infusions in water and oil are both commonly used as herbal remedies. Coffee can also be made through infusion, but is often made through percolation. Plants with desirable flavors may be steeped in an oil or vinegar for an extended period, the infused oil or vinegar is often sold still containing the plant. Chiles, lemon, garlic, and many plants may be used. There can be ambiguity in the labeling of oils, for example, what is described as sesame oil may be oil extracted from sesame seeds
33.
Poaching (cooking)
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Poaching is a type of moist-heat cooking technique that involves cooking by submerging food in a liquid, such as water, milk, stock or wine. Poaching is differentiated from the other moist heat cooking methods, such as simmering and boiling and this temperature range makes it particularly suitable for delicate food, such as eggs, poultry, fish and fruit, which might easily fall apart or dry out using other cooking methods. Poaching is often considered as a method of cooking because it does not use fat to cook or flavor the food. This moist-heat cooking method uses a sautoir or other cooking vessel, heat is transferred by conduction from the pan, to the liquid. Shallow poaching is best suited for boneless, naturally tender, single serving size, sliced or diced pieces of meat and this preparation involves smearing the inside of the pan with whole butter and adding aromatics into the pan. The items to be cooked are then placed on top of the aromatics presentation side up, cold poaching liquid is then poured in until the product is partially submerged then heated. The liquid should never be allowed to boil but kept as close to boiling as possible, a more contemporary technique of shallow poaching involves BPA free plastic bags and is very convenient for the home cook. This technique is similar to shallow poaching but the product is fully submerged, the pot used for deep poaching should hold the food, liquid, and aromatics comfortably, with enough room to allow the liquid to expand as it heats. There should also be enough space so that the surface can be skimmed if necessary throughout cooking, a tight-fitting lid may be helpful for bringing the liquid up to temperature. The poaching liquid traditionally uses a court bouillon which consists of an acid and aromatics, although any flavorful liquid can be used in poaching. The liquid should ideally be around 160–185 °F, but when poaching chicken, it is vital that the chicken reach a temperature of at least 165 °F in the core. A significant amount of flavor is transferred from the food to the cooking liquid, for maximum flavor, the cooking liquid is usually reduced and used as the base for a sauce. Poached eggs are cooked in water and vinegar, fish in white wine, poultry in stock. The liquid used for shallow poaching is typically called a cuisson, Poaching allows the proteins to denature without pulling out too much moisture out of the food. For this reason, it is important to keep the low and to keep the poaching time to a bare minimum. Typically an egg is poached just to the point where the white is no longer runny, some people say creating a whirlpool helps with poaching eggs because it really helps the egg stay together, wrapping the white around the yolk. Water is a relatively efficient conductor of heat, but it also has a fairly low limit to its maximum potential temperature, as such, it is a technique that applies itself to a broad spectrum of methods and results. It is used to food at a low temperature for extended periods
34.
Simmering
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Simmering is a food preparation technique in which foods are cooked in hot liquids kept just below the boiling point of water, but higher than poaching temperature. To keep a pot simmering, one brings it to a boil and then reduces the heat to a point where the formation of bubbles has almost ceased, simmering ensures gentler treatment than boiling to prevent food from toughening and/or breaking up. Simmering is usually a rapid and efficient method of cooking, food that has simmered in milk or cream instead of water is sometimes referred to as creamed. The appropriate simmering temperature is a topic of debate among chefs, in Japanese cuisine, simmering is considered one of the four essential cooking techniques. Food prepared in a crockpot is simmered, examples include stews, chili, soups, etc. Bulgarian traditional food, especially meat dishes are often simmered for extended periods of time. Examples include stews, soups, Vanyas, etc, in traditional Dutch and Flemish cuisine, less tender cuts of beef are simmered for several hours to obtain Carbonade flamande. Traditionally a small flame is used, fed by burning oil, on modern stoves, the source of heat is put very low, or a simmering plate is used to diminish the heat. Usually a cast iron pan is used with a thick bottom, the meat is ready if it can be easily torn apart into threads. Some modern gas ranges are equipped with a burner, with such burners usually located at the rear of the range. Many electric ranges have a simmer setting
35.
Slow cooker
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A slow cooker, also known as a Crock-Pot, is a countertop electrical cooking appliance used to simmer at a lower temperature than other cooking methods, such as baking, boiling, and frying. This facilitates unattended cooking for hours of dishes that would otherwise be boiled, pot roast, soups, stews. A wide variety of dishes can be prepared in slow cookers, including ones typically made quickly, such as cocoa, the Naxon Utilities Corporation of Chicago, under the leadership of Irving Naxon, developed the Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker. Naxon was inspired by a story his Jewish grandmother told about how back in her native Lithuanian town, her mother made a stew called cholent, a 1950 advertisement shows a slow cooker called the Simmer Crock, made by the Industrial Radiant Heat Corp. of Gladstone, NJ. The Rival Company bought Naxon in 1970 and reintroduced it under the Crock-Pot name in 1971, slow cookers achieved popularity in the US during the 1970s, when many women began to work outside the home. They could start dinner cooking in the morning going to work. In 1974, Rival introduced removable stoneware inserts making the appliance easier to clean, the brand now belongs to Sunbeam Products, a subsidiary of Jarden Corporation. Other brands of this appliance include Cuisinart, GE, Hamilton Beach, KitchenAid, Magic Chef, West Bend Housewares, and the now defunct American Electric Corporation. A basic slow cooker consists of a round or oval cooking pot made of glazed ceramic or porcelain, surrounded by a housing, usually metal. The lid itself is made of glass, and seated in a groove in the pot edge, condensed vapor collects in the groove. The contents of a pot are effectively at atmospheric pressure. A slow cooker is quite different from a pressure cooker and presents no danger of a pressure release. The crock, or ceramic pot, itself acts as both a container and a heat reservoir. Slow cookers come in capacities from 500 mL to 7 L, because the heating elements are generally located at the bottom and often also partway up the sides, most slow cookers have a minimum recommended liquid level to avoid uncontrolled heating. Many slow cookers have two or more heat settings, some have continuously variable power, most slow cookers have no temperature control and deliver a constant heat to the contents. The temperature of the contents rises till it reaches boiling point, at a lower setting, it may just simmer at a temperature below the boiling point. Newer programmable rice cookers may be used as slow cookers, to use a slow cooker, the cook places raw food and a liquid, such as stock, water, or wine, in the slow cooker. Some recipes call for pre-heated liquid, the cook puts the lid on the slow cooker and turns it on
36.
Smothering (food)
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Smothering meat, seafood or vegetables is a cooking technique used in both Cajun and Creole cuisines of Louisiana. The technique involves cooking in a pan over low heat with a small amount of liquid. The meat dishes cooked in this fashion are typically served over boiled or steamed rice as a rice and gravy. It is often done in a cast iron pot or dutch oven, a large variety of meats are smothered in South Louisiana cuisine, including both domestic animals and wild game. Domestic animals cooked in this fashion include chicken, domestic duck, pork, beef, wild game commonly cooked in this fashion include squirrel, rabbit, nutria rat, feral pig, woodcock, wild duck, and venison. Raised on Rice and Gravy, a 2009 documentary film by Conni Castille and Allison Bohl, chronicles the prevalence of the dish at local plate lunch houses, in French, the word étouffée means smothered. Étouffée can be using different shellfish, the most popular version of the dish being Crawfish Étouffée. Originally étouffée was a dish in the Acadiana area surrounding Breaux Bridge. In the late twentieth century a waiter at the popular Bourbon Street restaurant Galatoires brought the dish in to his employer to try, the dish was added to their menu and other restaurants in the city soon followed, with the dish gaining in popularity with locals and tourists alike. Many Cajun restaurant owners claim that étouffée is the most popular dish on their menus, varieties of vegetables cooked by smothering include cabbage, okra, potatoes and corn. The vegetables are kept burning by the addition of animal fats or oils
37.
Steeping
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Steeping is the soaking in liquid of a solid so as to extract flavours or to soften it. The specific process of teas being prepared for drinking by leaving the leaves in heated water to release the flavour, herbal teas may be prepared by decoction, infusion, or maceration. Some solids are soaked to remove an ingredient, such as salt from smoked ham or salted cod, one example is the steeping of corn, part of the milling process. As described by the US Corn Refiners Association, harvested kernels of corn are cleaned, in the process their moisture content rises from 15% to 45% and their volume more than doubles. The gluten bonds in the corn are weakened and starch is released, the corn is then ground to break free the germ and other components, and the water used, which has absorbed various nutrients, is recycled for use in animal feeds. Dried teas as loose tea or tea bags are prepared for drinking by steeping the leaves in just boiled or heated water to release the flavour and this is often done in a cup, mug, teapot, pitcher or urn. A tea infuser or a tea strainer may be used to assist in this process, steeping grain is a part of beer making
38.
Stew
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A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables or meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used. While water can be used as the liquid, wine, stock. Seasoning and flavourings may also be added, stews are typically cooked at a relatively low temperature, allowing flavors to mingle. Stewing is suitable for the least tender cuts of meat become tender. This makes it popular in low-cost cooking, cuts having a certain amount of marbling and gelatinous connective tissue give moist, juicy stews, while lean meat may easily become dry. Stews may be thickened by reduction or with flour, either by coating pieces of meat with flour before searing, or by using a roux or beurre manié, thickeners like cornstarch or arrowroot may also be used. Stews are similar to soups, and in some there may not be a clear distinction between the two. Generally, stews have less liquid than soups, are much thicker, while soups are almost always served in a bowl, stews may be thick enough to be served on a plate with the gravy as a sauce over the solid ingredients. Stews have been made since ancient times, herodotus says that the Scythians put the flesh into an animals paunch, mix water with it, and boil it like that over the bone fire. The bones burn very well, and the paunch easily contains all the meat once it has been stripped off, in this way an ox, or any other sacrificial beast, is ingeniously made to boil itself. Amazonian tribes used the shells of turtles as vessels, boiling the entrails of the turtle, other cultures used the shells of large mollusks to boil foods in. There is archaeological evidence of these practices going back 8,000 years or more, there are recipes for lamb stews and fish stews in the Roman cookery book Apicius, believed to date from the 4th century AD. Le Viandier, one of the oldest cookbooks in French, written in the early 14th century by the French chef known as Taillevent, has ragouts or stews of various types in it, the first written reference to Irish stew is in Byrons The Devils Drive, The Devil. A rebel or so in an Irish stew, stew is traditionally known as an English dish and has been a household favorite for centuries. In meat-based stews, white stews, also known as blanquettes or fricassées, are made with lamb or veal that is blanched, or lightly seared without browning, and cooked in stock. Brown stews are made with pieces of red meat that are first seared or browned, before a browned mirepoix and sometimes browned flour, stock and wine are added
39.
Bain-marie
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A bain-marie is also used to melt ingredients for cooking. Under the outer container of the bain-marie is a heat source, typically the inner container is immersed about halfway into the working fluid. The insulating action of the water helps to keep contents of the pot from boiling or scorching. Using different working fluids in the container will result in different maximum temperatures. A contemporary alternative to the traditional, liquid-filled bain-marie is the electric dry-heat bain-marie, the dry-heat form of electric bains-marie often consumes less energy, requires little cleaning, and can be heated more quickly than traditional versions. They can also operate at higher temperatures, and are much less expensive than their traditional counterparts. Electric bains-marie can also be wet, using hot water or vapor, or steam. The open, bath-type bain-marie heats via a small, hot-water tub, chocolate can be melted in a bain-marie to avoid splitting and caking onto the pot. Special dessert bains-marie have an insulated container and are used as a chocolate fondue. Cheesecake is often baked in a bain-marie to prevent the top from cracking in the centre, custard may be cooked in a bain-marie to keep a crust from forming on the outside of the custard before the interior is fully cooked. The humidity from the steam that rises as the water helps keep the top of the custard from becoming too dry. Classic warm sauces, such as Hollandaise and beurre blanc, requiring heat to emulsify the mixture, some charcuterie such as terrines and pâtés are cooked in an oven-type bain-marie. Thickening of condensed milk, such as in confection-making, is easily in a bain-marie. Controlled-temperature bains-marie can be used to heat frozen breast milk before feedings, bains-marie can be used in place of chafing dishes for keeping foods warm for long periods of time, where stovetops or hot plates are inconvenient or too powerful. A bain-marie can be used to re-liquefy hardened honey by placing a glass jar on top of any improvised platform sitting at the bottom of a pot of boiling water. In small scale soap-making, a bain-maries inherent control over maximum temperature makes it optimal for liquefying melt-and-pour soap bases prior to molding them into bars and it offers the advantage of maintaining the base in a liquid state, or reliquefying a solidified base, with minimal deterioration. Similarly, using a bath, traditional wood glue can be melted. The name comes from the medieval-Latin term balneum Mariae—literally, Marys bath—from which the French bain de Marie, the devices invention has been popularly attributed to Mary the Jewess, an ancient alchemist
40.
Sous-vide
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The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and retain moisture. The method was first described by Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford in 1799 and it was re-discovered by American and French engineers in the mid-1960s and developed into an industrial food preservation method. The method was adopted by Georges Pralus in 1974 for the Restaurant Troisgros in Roanne and he discovered that when foie gras was cooked in this manner, it kept its original appearance, did not lose excess amounts of fat, and had better texture. Another pioneer in sous-vide is Bruno Goussault, who researched the effects of temperature on various foods. As chief scientist of Alexandria, Virginia-based food manufacturer Cuisine Solutions, as may also be done in traditional poaching, sealing the food in sturdy plastic bags keeps in juices and aroma that otherwise would be lost in the process. If the food is removed from the heat too late, it becomes overcooked, as a result of precise temperature control of the bath and the fact that the bath temperature is the same as the target cooking temperature, very precise control of cooking can be achieved. Additionally, temperature, and thus cooking, can be very even throughout the food in cooking, even with irregularly shaped or very thick items. Fat on meat, which may become rancid with prolonged exposure to air, the degree of accuracy and constancy of cooking temperature required varies with the food cooked. But for an egg, which has proteins that denature at different temperatures, cooking times for normal cooking are determined by when the center of the cooked item reaches a few degrees below the targeted temperature. Then heating should be stopped immediately, while resting the food, if the heating continues, the food will be overcooked. The time taken for the center of food to reach the temperature depends on the initial temperature, the thickness and shape of the food. One limitation of sous-vide cooking is the fact that browning happens at much higher temperatures, the flavors and ‘crust’ texture developed by browning are generally seen as very desirable in the cooking of certain types of meat, such as a steak. The flavors and texture produced by browning cannot be obtained only the sous-vide technique. This secondary browning is done briefly, and sometimes at higher heat than normally used, so as to only the surface of the food. Similarly, the skin of fish can be cooked at high temperatures after the sous-vide to make the skin crisp, food safety is a function of both time and temperature, a temperature usually considered insufficient to render food safe may be perfectly safe if maintained for long enough. Some sous-vide fish recipes, for example, are cooked below 55 °C, however, people with compromised immunity should never eat food that has not been properly pasteurized. Women eating food cooked sous-vide while pregnant expose themselves and/or their unborn children to risk, pasteurization kills the botulism bacteria, but the possibility of hardy botulism spores surviving and reactivating once cool remains a concern as with many preserved foods, however processed. For that reason, Baldwin’s treatise specifies precise chilling requirements for ‘cook-chill’, pasteurised food can then be stored for up to two weeks at around 3 °C sealed within the vacuum pack
41.
Double steaming
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Double steaming, sometimes called double boiling, is a Chinese cooking technique to prepare delicate food such as birds nest soup and shark fin soup. The food is covered with water and put in a ceramic jar. This technique ensures there is no loss of liquid or moisture from the food being cooked, in Cantonese, double steaming is called dun. The meaning of the Chinese character for dun in Cantonese is different from that in Mandarin and this technique is also common in Fujian, a neighbouring province of Guangdong. Cantonese cuisine is famous for its slow-cooked soup, one famous dish of this kind is called the winter melon urn. It is prepared by emptying the inside of a melon to make an urn. The outside of the melon is often carved with artistic patterns. The inside is filled with soup ingredients, such as Chinese cured ham. The whole urn, complete with its original melon lid, is double-steamed for at least four hours, the flavour of the soup is soaked into the flesh of the melon. The whole melon and its contents are brought to the dinner table, the soup is served by scooping out the liquid and the inside wall of the melon. In this case, the edible melon takes the place of the double steaming jar and this application is possible because winter melon has a waxy, and thus waterproof, rind. Winter melon is believed to be nourishing and it is cooked with ingredients that are believed to be too yin or too yang. A dessert dish called double-steamed frog ovaries in a coconut is traditionally prepared for women, Chinese medicinal ingredients, spices, and rock sugar, are placed inside a young coconut to soak in the original coconut juice. The filled coconut is then double-steamed for several hours, the whole coconut is served whole at the table after dinner. The contents and the wall of the coconut are scooped out to be consumed. Steaming Double boiler Bain-marie List of steamed foods
42.
Steaming
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Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. This is often done with a steamer, a kitchen appliance made specifically to cook food with steam. In the American southwest, steam pits used for cooking have been found dating back about 5,000 years, steaming is considered a healthy cooking technique that can be used for many kinds of food. Steaming works by boiling water continuously, causing it to vaporize into steam, the food is kept separate from the boiling water but has direct contact with the steam, resulting in a moist texture to the food. This differs from double boiling, in food is not directly exposed to steam, or pressure cooking. Such cooking is most often done by placing the food into a food steamer, the steamer usually has a lid that is placed on the top of the container during cooking to allow the steam to cook through the food. When a steamer is unavailable, food can be steamed inside a wok, some modern home microwave ovens include a structure to cook food by steam vapor produced in a separate water container, providing a similar result to being cooked by fire. There are also specialized steam ovens available, some of the earliest examples of steam cooking have been found in Cochise County, Arizona, where steam pits were used for cooking about 10,000 years ago. In Chinas Yellow River Valley, early steam cookers made of stoneware have been found dating back as far as 5000 BCE, from the eighth century CE, thin cypress strips were used to make steamers, today they are constructed from bamboo with slatted bases. The classic steamer has a chimney in the center, which distributes the steam among the tiers, in Western cooking, steaming is most often used to cook vegetables—it is rarely used to cook meats. However, steamed clams are prepared by steaming, with Chinese cuisine, vegetables are usually stir fried or blanched and seldom steamed. Seafood and meat dishes are steamed, for example, steamed whole fish, steamed crab, steamed pork spare ribs, steamed ground pork or beef, steamed chicken and steamed goose. Rice can be steamed too, although in Chinese cooking this is referred to as cooking rather than steaming. In Thailand steaming is the definition of minimalist cooking, steaming fish in Thai-style gently cooks the fish until just tender. Wheat foods are steamed as well, examples include buns and Chinese steamed cakes. Steamed meat dishes are common in Chinese restaurants than in traditional home cooking. Commercially sold frozen foods formerly had instructions to reheat by steaming, until the rise in popularity of home microwave ovens, overcooking or burning food is easily avoided when steaming it. Individuals preferring to avoid additional fat intake may prefer steaming to methods which require cooking oil, steaming also results in a more nutritious food than boiling, because fewer nutrients are leached away into the water, which is usually discarded
43.
Blackening (cooking)
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Blackening is a cooking technique used in the preparation of fish and other foods. Often associated with Cajun cuisine, this technique was popularized by chef Paul Prudhomme. The food is dipped in melted butter and then dredged in a mixture of herbs and spices, usually some combination of thyme, oregano, chili pepper, peppercorns, salt, garlic powder and it is then cooked in a very hot cast-iron skillet. The characteristic brown-black color of the crust results from a combination of browned milk solids from the butter, while the original recipe calls for redfish, the same method of preparation can be applied to other types of fish and other protein sources, such as steak or chicken cutlets
44.
Deep frying
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Deep frying is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot fat, most commonly oil, rather than the shallow oil used in conventional frying, done in a frying pan. Normally, a deep fryer or chip pan is used for this, industrially, Deep frying may also be performed using oil that is heated in a pot. Deep frying is classified as hot-fat cooking method, typically, deep frying cooks foods quickly, all sides of a food are cooked simultaneously as oil has a high rate of heat conduction. The term deep frying and many modern deep-fried foods were not invented until the 19th century, early records and cookbooks suggest that the practice began in a few European and Arabian countries before other countries adopted the practice. Deep frying is popular worldwide, with deep-fried foods accounting for a portion of global caloric consumption. Although the nouns deep-fried, deep-frying, and the verb deep-fry were not documented until 1916,1932, and 1933, one of the earliest known practices of deep frying came from the Egyptians in the 5th millennium BCE. Later developments included the Greeks deep frying food in oil in the 5th century BCE. In the 1st century CE, a Roman cookbook, Apicius, appears to list the ancient Romans first use of deep frying to prepare Pullum Frontonianum, the practice of deep frying spread to other parts of Europe and Arabia in the following centuries. Deep-fried foods such as funnel cakes arrived in northern Europe by the 13th century, falafel arrived in the Middle East from population migrations from Egypt as soon as the 14th century. The deep frying of food in Japan was likely introduced by Portuguese the 16th century, evidence of potato frying can be found as early as the late 17th century in Europe. Modern deep frying began in the 19th century with the popularity of cast iron. French fries, invented in the late 18th century, became popular in the early 19th century western Europe, doughnuts were invented in the mid-19th century, with foods such as onion rings, deep-fried turkey, and corn dogs all being invented in the early 20th century. In recent years, the growth of fast food has expanded the reach of deep-fried foods, Deep frying food is defined as a process where food is completely submerged in hot oil at temperatures typically between 350 °F and 375 °F. One common method for preparing food for deep frying involves adding multiple layers of batter around the food, such as cornmeal, flour, or tempura, breadcrumbs may also be used. After the food is submerged in oil, the surface of it begins to dehydrate and it undergoes Maillard reactions which break down sugars and proteins, once the surface is dehydrated, it forms a crust which prevents further oil absorption. The heat conducts throughout the food causing proteins to denature, starches to undergo starch gelatinization, while most foods need batter coatings for protection, it is not as necessary for cooked noodles and potatoes because their high starch content enables them to hold more moisture and resist shrinking. Meats may be cooked before deep frying to ensure that they are done inside while keeping juiciness, when performed properly, deep frying does not make food excessively greasy, because the moisture in the food repels the oil. The hot oil heats the water within the food, steaming it, as long as the oil is hot enough and the food is not immersed in the oil for too long, oil penetration will be confined to the outer surface
45.
Pan frying
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Pan frying is a form of frying characterized by the use of minimal cooking oil or fat, typically using just enough oil to lubricate the pan. In the case of a greasy food such as bacon, no oil or fats may be needed, as a form of frying, pan frying relies on oil as the heat transfer medium and on correct temperature and time to retain the moisture in the food. Because of the coverage, the food must be flipped at least once to cook both sides. A pan fry takes place at lower heat than does a sauté and this is because the food to be pan-fried, such as chicken breasts, steak, pork chops or fish fillets, is not cut into small pieces before cooking. Pan frying requires a lower heat so that the exterior of the food does not overcook until the interior reaches the proper temperature. The same amount of oil is used as for a sauté – just enough to glaze the pan –, the oil should always be hot enough to ensure that the moisture in the food can escape in the form of steam. The force of the keeps the oil from soaking into the food. Generally, a cooking vessel is used for pan frying than deep frying. A denser cooking vessel is better than a less dense pan because that mass will improve temperature regulation, an electric skillet can be used analogously to an electric deep fryer and many of these devices have a thermostat to keep the liquid at the desired temperature. Foods to be pan-fried are sometimes covered with a batter or breading, batters consist of dried ingredients such as flour or cornstarch in conjunction with liquids such as milk, water or other beverages. Breading can be as simple as dusting the food in flour or more commonly what is called the standard breading procedure. The standard breading procedure involves first dusting the food in flour, then dipping it in beaten eggs, season the food with salt and pepper prior to coating. Allowing the food to rest for 15–30 minutes before frying enables the breading to stick to the food with greater tenacity, shallow frying Sautéing Deep frying Frying pan
46.
Reduction (cooking)
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In cooking, reduction is the process of thickening and intensifying the flavor of a liquid mixture such as a soup, sauce, wine, or juice by simmering or boiling. Reduction is performed by simmering or boiling a liquid such as stock, fruit or vegetable juices, wine, vinegar and this is done without a lid, enabling the vapor to escape from the mixture. Different components of the liquid will evaporate at different temperatures. It thus can be seen as a form of distillation, capturing those components that have the highest boiling point. While reduction does concentrate the flavors left in the pan, reducing too much will drive away all liquid in the sauce, leaving a sticky, burnt coating on the pan. Simmering not only develops the maximum flavor, but also allows impurities to collect at the top. Boiling diffuses the impurities into the liquid and results in a bitter taste, see also Martha Holmberg, Modern Sauces, pages 199-205 and 236-38. However, she also has recipes in which sauces are boiled, the importance of simmering sauces is illustrated also in Americas Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook, page 232. Broths are also simmered rather than boiled, and for the same reasons, see, e. g. Sharon Tyler Herbst and Ron Herbst, The New Food Lover’s Companion, 5th edition page 627
47.
Stir frying
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Stir frying is a Chinese cooking technique in which ingredients are fried in a small amount of very hot oil while being stirred in a wok. The technique originated in China and in recent centuries has spread into parts of Asia. Many claim that this quick, hot cooking seals in the flavors of the foods, as well as preserving their color and texture. Well into the 20th century, while restaurants and affluent families could afford the oil and fuel needed for stir fry, stir fry cooking came to predominate over the course of the century as more people could afford oil and fuel, and in the West spread beyond Chinese communities. The term stir-fry was introduced into the English language in Buwei Yang Chaos book How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, the Chinese character chao is attested in inscriptions on bronze vessels from the Eastern Zhou period, but not in the sense of stir frying. Dry stirring was used in the Han dynasty to parch grain, although there are no surviving records of Han dynasty stir frying, archaeological evidence of woks and the tendency to slice food thinly indicate that the technique was likely used for cooking. The term chao appears for the first time in the sense of stir frying in the Qimin Yaoshu, in sources from the Tang dynasty, chao refers not to a cooking technique, but to a method for roasting tea leaves. It reappears as a method in a dozen recipes from the Song dynasty. The Song period is when the Chinese started to use oil for frying instead of animal fats. Until then, vegetable oil had been used chiefly in lamps, historically, stir frying was not as important a technique as boiling or steaming, since the oil needed for stir frying was expensive. The increasingly commercial nature of city life in the late Ming and Qing periods also favored speedy methods, but even as stir frying became an important method in Chinese cuisine, it did not replace other cooking techniques. By the late Qing, most Chinese kitchens were equipped with a wok range convenient for stir-frying because it had a hole in the middle to insert the bottom of a wok into the flames. Stir frying was brought to America by early Chinese immigrants, and has used in non-Asian cuisine. The term stir fry as a translation for chao was introduced in the 1945 book How To Cook and it was designed by the authors husband, the linguist Yuen Ren Chao. The book told the reader Roughly speaking, chao may be defined as a big-fire-shallow-fat-continual-stirring-quick-frying of cut-up material with wet seasoning and we shall call it stir-fry or stir for short. The nearest to this in western cooking is sauté, because stir-frying has such critical timing and is done so quickly, it can be called blitz-cooking. In the West, stir fry spread from Chinese family and restaurant kitchens into general use, one popular cookbook noted that in the health-conscious 1970s suddenly it seemed that everyone was buying a wok, and stir frying remained popular because it was quick. Many families had difficulty fitting a family dinner into their crowded schedules, broadly speaking, there are two primary techniques, chao and bao
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