Tips for Eating Out Healthily: Decoding Restaurant Menus
Tips for Eating Out Healthily: Decoding Restaurant Menus
Do you know the difference between the various cooking techniques used at your favourite restaurant or café? When you look at a menu, it’s not just about the ingredients they list. The cooking style used can indicate whether it’s a healthy option, or if it includes additional high-calorie ingredients such as oil.
It’s important to understand the different cooking techniques, as it allows you to make informed choices about what you’re eating. So here is a quick cheatsheet of 20 common cooking terms that will help you better comprehend what your meal involves.
Baked
Cooked in a dry heat, such as an oven
Braised
Searing over a high heat, then adding a liquid such as stock or wine and simmering on a low heat
Blanched
A quick submersion into boiling water (this is often used with other techniques such as stir-frying)
Broiled
Similar to grilling, this cooks the ingredient close to an open flame (often resulting in charring/blackened ingredients)
Brined/in brine
Soaking raw meat in a liquid solution (including salt and sugar). This is often used with other techniques such as baking.
Caramelised
Cooking a meat or vegetable over a low heat until the carbohydrate breaks down into sugars.
Keep in mind, this is not about adding a caramel/sugar source!
Confit
This French method previously referred to any ingredient preserved by slow-cooking in any liquid. However, these days it is used mostly to refer to meat slow-cooked in its own fat (which is typically discarded before serving)
Cured
In most cases, cured refers to meats that have been preserved through salting. However, it can also be used in reference to smoked meats or fermented vegetables e.g. sauerkraut
Creamed
Food that is poached in milk/cream
Fried (deep fried/pan fried)
Cooked in oil at a high temperature. This may also include breading, battering or crumbing before cooking, which adds up to a lot of extra calories!
Marinated
Submerging food into a marinade (a liquid with a combination of ingredients, potentially including stock, alcohol, fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices) prior to cooking.
Poached
Simmering ingredients in water just below boiling point. This could also be done with stock/broth or even milk.
Roasted
Cooking in an oven for a long period of time. This can include basting – drizzling its own juices or another liquid over the top to keep the food moist.
Rotisserie
Meats are roasted in a specialty oven that has rotating spits. This cooks the meat evenly and helps to retain moisture.
Sauteed
Ingredients are cooked over a high heat with a small amount of fat such as oil or butter. This uses less fat compared to frying methods.
Seared
Browning a meat over a high heat to give the outside a crispy texture. This often goes hand in hand with other cooking methods such as roasting or braising.
Smoked
A dry-heat cooking method where ingredients are cooked via the smoke of burning wood.
Sous-vide
This has become a popular cooking method in recent years! It involves sealing ingredients into a plastic bag and slow-cooking for up to 24hrs in a water bath.
Steamed
Cooking ingredients over water in a sealed container, so the heat of the steam cooks them.
Stir-fried
Adding bite-sized ingredients including meat, rice and/or vegetables into a pan until cooked. This usually includes a sauce added part-way through or at the end.
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