Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Learning to Cook Lesson Three, I Sauted and Seared

Hello blog. It's Wednesday and that's means it's leftover day. I have now completed my third cooking lesson. Chef David presented a demonstration on the right technique to properly saute. News flash! I thought saute meant "saute onions." I didn't think it meant what it means.
I learned what you can saute, and how easy it is when you know the right way. It helped me a lot to understand what the first two steps are. I may or may not have already been doing these two steps, but I didn't realize what I was doing… and why. Chef David opened my eyes and helped me know the why as well as the how of quick cooking or sauteing. 

What Does Technique Mean? In Lesson 3, the word, Technique, pops up. I am blank whenever one of the chefs on Food Network or Chopped says, "technique." What the heck is technique? Well, Chef David also uses the word, and so I finally decided to look it up to see if the dictionary definition would shed light on this.

According to Webster, technique means the manner and ability with which a cook employs the technical  skills of cooking. Huh? What exactly are technical skills of cooking? Not much help. Then the dictionary says technique is the body of specialized procedures and methods used in cooking. Okay, that's a little clearer. Technique means a method of performance or a way of accomplishing X. I'm guessing that's doing something such as chopping and slicing.

Technical skill refers to the ability to apply cooking procedures or methods so as to effect the desired cooked result. Now, we're talking. I think I get it… at last. In other words, technique refers to how you do it... how you chop, puree or mix to get the desired result. I'm learning. Yea!

I really enjoyed learning by seeing his demonstrations… vegetable, potato and chicken recipes I could easily follow with an excellent outcome. Yea! I also liked the tip concerning paper towels. That helped me. In fact, I wanted to make sure I "had" this lesson bite, so I repeated the class [a nice feature of this streaming and DVD cooking course]. It's sounds silly to say, but the best part of Chef David's cooking course is Chef David and his style, personality and thorough explanations, especially for a beginner [that's me].

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