I have learnt different types of cooking methods, health,safety, hygiene, cutting boards and knife skills.
There are 13 types of cooking methods such as:
- Blanching: It is a complete cooking method preserving chlorophyll, but breaking down plant acids.
- Poaching: Gentle cooking process done in water just below boiling point.
- Boiling: Cooking food in rapid boiling water
- Steaming: Cooking food in hot moist air.
- Frying: Deep fry: Frying food that is totally submerged.
- Shallow frying: Placed in oil covering half the medium of food.
- Sauter: Quick frying of food in a pan with little oil: medium to high heat.
- Roasting: Cooking large joints in a dry heat.
- Gratinating: Food prepared au gratin has high fat content and is browned on the surface.
- Baking: Cooking food in dry heat, moistened by its ingredients.
- Stewing: Moist cooking methods for tough meats.
- Braising: Combination of roasting and stewing in a braisiere on stove or oven.
- Glacing: Same application as braising but used for white meat only.
- Pot roasting: Cooking of poultry in a fat medium in a pot.
Uniform:
Chef Bennie: This keeps your hair out of the food.
Apron: Protects the clothing from getting dirty or protects you from dangerous substances or oil splashes.
Chef jacket: A chef jacket is double breasted that prevents your body from the heat and when you need to work at an function and have no time to change you can just overlap it with a clean side.
Black pance: This colour pance doesn't show the dirt that you have messed.
Hard shoes: It protects your feet from falling objects and support your feet, the soles of the shoe must have grip so that you do not slip and fall.
Necktie: It catches and absorbs facial perspiration. This also prevents you from getting sick due to extreme fluctuations between the stove tops and the fridge's.
Knife skills:
It is important that your fingertips are not sticking out. The knife must be able to slide pass the knuckles, this prevents you from cutting your fingers.
Julienne: 2mm x 3cm matchstick cut, used for presentation.
Brunoise: It is cut into dice or cubed shape from julienne (2mm x 2mm).
Chiffonade: Leafy vegetables cut into fine strips.
Mirepoix: This is rough cuts. shape and size does not matter. this is used for stocks, soups or sauces.
Cutting boards:
- White board: Used for bread and dairy products
- Red board: Use for raw meat
- Green board: Used for fruits and vegetables
- Blue board: Used for fish and shell fish
- Brown board: Used for cooked meat
- Yellow board: Used for chicken and poultry.
The reason for using different types of boards is to prevent cross contamination.
