Choosing Healthy Foods

by Chris Jennings, Northeastern Dining Quality Assurance Manager Braising – Sauteing – Pan Frying – Steaming. These were just some of the cooking techniques demonstrated this week in the latest segment of Cooking 101. The main topic of focus were dry and moist heat cooking methods. Follow NUDining on Instagram! Dry heat refers to cooking foods where the heat transfers to the food without any moisture and typically involves temperatures of 300ºF or higher. Examples would be sautéing, roasting, baking, grilling and deep frying to name a few. And yes, despite initial hesitations, deep frying and pan frying are in fact dry heat cooking methods since you are submerging the food in hot liquid fat and not relying on a water-based moisture. Moist heat refers to cooking foods with a water-based moisture, be it water, steam, stock, wine, etc. Cooking temperatures typically range from 140ºF-212ºF and examples include braising, stewing, poaching, simmering, boiling and steaming. Our student chef...

by Northeastern Dining Quality Assurance Manager Chris Jennings We dove right into stocks and sauces this week. Chef Tom had a beautiful chicken stock already simmering before class started. The aroma filtered thru the XK and set the tone for a stimulating experience on how to create your own stocks and sauces. Once we covered the different types of stocks and how to create them thru many variations, we figured we would transform some of them into sauces. Most sauces require a thickening agent and the type of thickening agent used depends on the desired texture, flavor and appearance of the sauce you want. Many were discussed but the class tried their hand at it with a roux, corn starch, beurre manié and a liaison. Quite a bit of whisking, tempering, and straining was involved but the end results were very nice. The goal was achieved. We transformed chicken stock into chicken velouté; a Béchamel sauce became a Mornay sauce; but the highlight was the hollandaise. Chef Andy and Chef Jenn...

Chris Jennings - Northeastern Dining Quality Assurance Manager We rolled right into Session II of the Cooking 101 series last evening in the XK. Before you start cooking your food, it is generally a good idea to cut it to your needs; so we worked on knife skills. Chef Tom helped us identify some different types of knives from a French Knife to a Slicer to a Boning Knife and what applications they are best suited for. In order to make sure that our knives where not dull, a honing demonstration needed to make the sharp edges keener. After some quick safety tips and discussion on potential cross contamination we started to rock - our knives that is! With fingers tucked in and knife tip on the board the cutting began. Everyone started by trying their hand at dicing and chopping. By the end of the evening we had some great brunoise onion, julienne carrot, and paysanne potato to name a few. It was a job well done by everyone. The best part of the evening was that no one cut themselves (phew!...