Introduction To Cookery

1. Introduction To Cookery 1. Definition Cookery is defined as a “chemical process”, the mixing of ingredients; the application and withdrawal of heat; decision-making, technical knowledge and manipulative skills. In the more advanced stages, a further element occurs-that of creativity. Cookery is considered to be both an art and a technology.

2. Food preparation is a modern term in professional cookery. It denotes preparation and cooking. It follows a flow pattern which commences with the purchasing and selection of materials, their handling, processing and the ultimate presentation of the dishes to the customer, where “food service” takes over. In French, the word “cuisine” denotes the art of cooking- preparing dishes, and the place the kitchen in which they are prepared.

3. The origin of cooking The art of cooking is ancient. The first cooking was a primitive man, who had put a chunk of meat close to the fire, which he had eat to warm himself. He discovered that the meat heated in this way was not only tasty but it also much easier to masticate. From that moment in unrecorded past, cooking has evolved to reach the present level of sophistication.

4. Classes Of Professional Cookery There are three classes of professional cookery associated with the craftsman and they are graded according to the quality of the materials used. The classes are: • Cuisine simple, or plant cookery, where the basic necessities are used and the craftsman produces dishes of the highest standard possible with a minimum number of materials.

5. Cuisine bourgeois, or middle class cookery. This type of cookery provides better materials and in the hands of the craftsman , these materials produce more complicated dishes of a better quality. • Cuisine haute, or high cookery where the very best possible materials are used. The craftsmen use these materials to their best advantage and produce dishes of the best quality. This class produces highly complicated dishes, i.e, classical dishes. For professional cookery this class is popular.

6. In Indian cuisine, there are two classes: simple and high class. • Simple cookery is confined to the preparation of the everyday, practical type of dishes. These are prepared quite simply and are very popular. • The high class cookery has a wider range of variety. In it, expensive materials are used to prepare complicated and elaborate dishes mughlai dishes being the most popular ones in India. • In Indian cuisine, there are two classes: simple and high class:

7. Staff • Staff • A career in the food service industries in any service capacity can be particularly demanding on the employee. An individual should be willing in terms of efforts to learn the skills involved. • Personal quality that a chief need to demonstrate in the capacity of his or her work are given in table.

9. An individual has to be committed in terms of efforts and should be willing to learn the skills involved. A chef may find himself or herself working odd shifts at odd times and on odd days. The motivation to succeed life entirely within the individual. • The staff working in the kitchen should avoid stress, economizing all movements, combine tasks simultaneously, planning and organizing activities well in advance, anticipating pitfalls and difficulties, simplifying tasks where possible.

10. The person planning should be familier with the safe preparatory techniques for handling food and equipment. He should enlist reliable help for suppliers and order and cost out ingredients and expanse accurately. Contamination of food is always a possibility when the bacteria, moulds and yeast are present in our environment.

11. Both management and employees of catering establishment have a responsibility to the public to ensure high standard of personal hygiene and hygiene of food and equipments. The establishment should observe help and hygiene regulation for catering operations.

12. To prevent food contamination, hygiene of the food handlers and the hygiene of the kitchen and its equipment and hygienic food storage rules should be observed. Personal hygiene is very important for food handlers. The staff sould wear a hairnet; skin disorders should be looked after; comfortable shoes should be worn; naild cut and hands washed with warm, soapy water before handling foods, after visiting the toilet, after eating and smoking. Difference between a professional and an amateur is that professional cookery involves not only skills and knowledge but also an aptitude for fine cooking.

13. Molecular gastronomy Molecular gastronomy includes the study of how different cooking temperatures affect eggs, and their viscosity, their surface tension, and different ways of introducing air into them. Spherification of juices and other liquids is a technique of molecular gastronomy

14. Molecular gastronomy is a subdiscipline of food science that seeks to investigate, explain and make practical use of the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients that occur whilecooking, as well as the social, artistic and technical components of culinary and gastronomic phenomena in general.Molecular gastronomy is a modern style of cooking, which is practiced by both scientists and food professionals in many professional kitchens and labs and takes advantage of many technical innovations from the scientific disciplines. • The term "molecular gastronomy" was coined in 1992 by late Oxford physicist Nicholas Kurtiand the FrenchINRA chemist Hervé This. Some chefs associated with the term choose to reject its use, preferring other terms such as "culinary physics" and "experimental cuisine".

15. FLAMBING FOOD • The term flambé is French for "flaming" or "flamed." The food is topped with a liquor, usually brandy, cognac, or rum and lit afire. The volatile alcohol vapor burns with a blue tint, leaving behind the faint flavor of the liquor or liqueur. This technique is used by chefs in the kitchen to burn off the raw alcohol flavor from a dish as well for dramatic flair at the table. 

16. Only liquors and liqueurs with a high alcohol content can be used to flame foods, and those with a higher proof will ignite more readily. Beer, champagne, and most table wines will not work.  The liquor must be warmed to about 130 degrees F., yet still remain well under the boiling point, before adding to the pan. (Boiling will burn off the alcohol, and it will not ignite.) Always remove the pan from the heat source before adding the liquor to avoid burning yourself. Vigorously shaking the pan usually extinguishes the flame, but keep a pot lid nearby in case you need to smother the flames. The alcohol vapor generally burns off by itself in a matter of seconds.