Cooking, Preparation and Planning

From ingredients to a finished dish

Cooking well is not only about following a recipe. It is about choosing the right method for the food, preparing it with skill, planning your time, and judging the result honestly. This module works through four things: - Cooking methods: the moist, dry and fat-based ways of applying heat.\n- Preparation skills: handling, weighing and shaping food safely and neatly.\n- Planning: writing a time plan so a whole meal is ready together.\n- Evaluation: testing a dish by its appearance, aroma, taste and texture. The actual cooking cannot be done on a screen, so this module teaches the knowledge behind it, the part the written exam and the planning of the assessment reward.

Words for cooking and planning

Five terms you need before you use them. Learn what each one means.

Match each preparation skill to what it means

Moist methods against dry methods

Cooking methods split into families, and the first split is whether water is involved. Knowing the difference guides every choice you make.

Which method suits the food?

You want to cook a delicate piece of fish so it stays tender and does not fall apart. Which method is best?

• Steaming, because gentle moist heat keeps it tender
• Deep frying in very hot oil
• Fierce grilling until well charred
• Roasting for a long time in a hot oven

Tap the two fat-based cooking methods

Tap the TWO methods that cook food in hot fat or oil.

• Shallow frying in a little oil in a pan
• Deep frying with the food fully in hot oil
• Boiling in a pan of water
• Grilling under a fierce dry heat

Why we cook food at all

Cooking is not only about making food warm. It changes food in several useful ways, and a good answer can give more than one reason. Cooking can make food safer to eat by destroying harmful microbes, and it can make some foods easier to digest. It also improves flavour, aroma and texture, turning raw ingredients into something far more appealing, and it adds variety, since the same ingredient can be boiled, baked or fried into very different dishes. Finally, cooking makes some foods edible that could not be eaten raw at all. Keep these reasons in mind, because a question on why we cook expects more than the word warm.

Pick the true cooking facts

Select the TWO statements that are true.

• Steaming can keep more of some vitamins than boiling in lots of water
• A time plan helps get every part of a meal ready together
• Dry methods such as grilling always keep food more moist than steaming
• Sensory evaluation means only tasting a dish and nothing else

Order how to plan and make a dish

Put the stages of planning and making a dish in the order you would work through them.

• Choose the dish and check the recipe and skills needed
• Write a time plan and a shopping list
• Set out the ingredients and equipment ready to cook
• Prepare, cook and present the dish in order
• Evaluate the finished dish against your plan

One time plan, one hot meal

Follow how one student planned a simple pasta meal so everything was ready at the same moment.\n\nBefore cooking: she read the recipe, wrote down each step with a time beside it, and laid out every ingredient and pan so nothing had to be hunted for later. During cooking: she started the sauce first because it took longest, put the pasta water on to heat while the sauce simmered, and cooked the pasta only near the end so it was fresh. At the end: the sauce and the pasta were ready together, and she checked the dish by its look, its smell and its taste before serving. The secret was not speed. It was fitting the slow jobs and the quick jobs together so nothing was left waiting or overcooked.

Complete the cooking and planning facts

Cooking food in or over water or steam uses a _____ method. Cooking food in hot oil uses a _____ method. Setting out every ingredient and tool before you start is called _____ en place. Judging a dish by its look, smell, taste and texture is _____ evaluation.

Build a cooking point

Choose the words that complete this statement about cooking well.

The cooking and planning run

Five questions on cooking methods and planning. Three lives.

Plan the meal

Read each planning problem and choose the best response, then think about why.

• You must serve a hot main dish and a cold dessert ready at the same time. What helps most?
• A guest you are cooking for cannot eat nuts. What must you do when planning the dish?
• You want to know whether a new recipe actually tastes good before you rely on it. What should you do?

Explain how to plan and cook a dish well

A student in the year below has to plan and make a dish for the first time. Explain how to do it well using what this module has covered.

• Explain the difference between moist, dry and fat-based cooking methods
• Explain why we cook food, giving at least two reasons
• Explain how a time plan and getting everything ready first help
• Explain how to choose a cooking method to suit a particular food
• Finish by explaining how to evaluate a finished dish