Cooking Patterns > Cooking Tool Patterns

Pan Cooking

Pan Cooking Patterns, Tips, and Tricks

• All foods
  • You almost always preheat the surface when using a pan on the stove top
  • If you’re not sure what temperature to cook at, but you really need to cook the food, not just warm it up, keep the temp at medium-high (7-8)

• All foods except frozen foods (cooked dry) and some meats (cooked in its own juices)
  • When cooking in a pan, you should almost always add oil, or an oil substitute, 80% of the time, unless the food has its own juices or you want to use the pan like a dry grill. You can interchangbly use canola oil (a type of vegetable oil) or olive oil for almost every meal that requires oil.

• Frozen foods like parathas, etc.
  • When heating up frozen foods, you should almost always cook on medium (6) for a longer time so that it cooks evenly. Otherwise, if you cook at a higher temp the whole time, the outside will be cooked but the inside will still be cold. When the food is almost done, you can then turn the heat up to medium-high or high to make the outside a little crispy.

• Anything with a flat shape like sandwiches, parathas, some frozen foods
  • When cooking flat food on a pan, you always cook one side till its done, flip it, then cook the other side till its done. Or cook them till their halfway done and flip twice in between. If you are making an omlet or something similar and you don’t want to flip it, you should put a cover on the pan so the steam heats the top side.

• Small diced foods like home fries, sauteed vegetables
  • When cooking diced or other small chunks of food, you should constantly stir and tumble the food so all sides are cooked.