Braising is particularly appropriate for less tender cuts of meat because long cooking with moist heat can soften the texture of collagen, bringing much flavorful meat within the range of palatability. Stews, pot roasts, and sometimes vegetables are among the dishes prepared this way. Braising may be done in a covered container in the oven, on the range, or in a covered steam jacketed kettle or tilting fry pan.
The many roles of liquids
In all the moist heat methods of cooking, the moisture or liquid does a great deal more than simply conduct heat to a product. It interacts with the food being cooked in ways that can influence the final taste and texture. It softens not only the collagen of meats but also the cellulose of vegetables. On the other hand, moist heat can have negative effects. It can rob vegetables of vitamins, flavor, and color unless carefully managed, and it can leach flavor from meats. If you cook a turkey wrapped in foil, it will be practically tasteless.
A cooking liquid can play an important part in the flavor of a dish. You often season vegetables by adding salt to the cooking water. You can enhance the flavor of a product by adding herbs and spices and wine to the cooking liquid, as in simmering shrimp and poaching fish and chicken. If the liquid is to become part of the finished dish, as it does in soups and sauces, you build in the flavor very carefully to produce the final taste you want.
Vegetables and meats will give up flavor to liquid in which they are cooked. You can often use the liquid as stock in making a sauce or soup. Many dishes depend for their success on the right balance between liquid and product, the length of time they stay together, and the right temperature for bringing about a successful conclusion.
DRY HEAT COOKING
Dry heat cooking methods transfer heat without use of water or steam. They may rely on hot air, hot fat, radiation, or hot metal.
Cooking with hot air or radiant heat
Consider the following definitions.
Bake is to cook by heated air in an enclosed area called an oven. The term typically applies to pastries, cookies, breads, certain vegetables, and casseroles. It does not apply to braised dishes that are cooked in the oven in covered containers.
Roast is to cook by heated air, usually in an enclosed space such as an oven or barbecue pit (note the similarity to baking). The term also applies to cooking on a revolving spit before an open fire, hardly a common method in industry today, but the way everything was roasted for several thousand years. Spit roasting is a radiant heat method. The term roasting nearly always refers to meats. Some ovencooked meats are said to be baked-ham, fish, meat loaf- though the cooking method is the same as roasting.
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