Big Cooking Concept #1

I told you [before](http://omnivorousfish.com/node/265) that we would start discussing larger concepts in cooking, so that you wouldn’t be shackled to recipes anymore. Well, let’s get started.

I want to start with the least known-of, understood and appreciated Big Cooking Concept among home cooks: Browning.

Well, duh, that means you make something brown. Yeah, genius, it does, but how do you get there? The best way to get us browning is to review the major types of hot cooking, which can be split into categories, based on two criteria: Heat and moisture. For example, direct dry cooking might be frying a pork chop. There’s no moisture involved and the meat is separated from the flame only by the pan. Indirect dry cooking might be roasting a rack of lamb in the oven. This is what makes things brown: browning occurs in the absence of moisture. There are also moist and wet cooking methods that are direct and indirect, like steaming, poaching, blanching steaming, braising (which is browning then cooking in liquid), [poeleing](http://omnivorousfish.com/node/176) (butter braising) and I’m sure a few others that I’m forgetting.

We’ll get to the method next time; I need to sleep before the next crazy Italian familial event: Nicky’s wedding. At least it’s not the Sicilian family…