Slide outline for Lesson 6.6. Thirteen slides, one day. Slides 4 and 5 are the review deck for the Cooking Methods Check. [Sal: take a photo of the two plated potatoes at the end of the period. That photo is a better review slide than anything stock.]
Dry Heat, Moist Heat, and Why
- Unit 6, Lesson 6.6
- Topic 6.2 Food Preparation Methods and Science
- Today: the same potato, two ways
Teacher notes
Image: a baked potato split open beside a boiled potato, both on the same plate.
Do now
- List every way you can think of to cook a potato
- One word each
- Go for six
Teacher notes
Build one list on the board from four students. Circle the ones that use water and underline the ones that do not, and do not say why yet.
Both of these are already going
- Same potato
- Same pound, same field, same day
- In thirty minutes one is brown and crisp and one is pale and soft
- Nothing changed but the water
Teacher notes
Image: an oven with a potato on a sheet pan, and a pot of water on a burner.
This is the hook. Point at the real oven and the real pot.
DRY HEAT: no water touching the food
- Bake: hot dry air in an oven, for batters and doughs
- Roast: the same air, hotter, for meat and vegetables
- Broil: heat from above only, very close, very hot
- Toast: dry heat on the surface until brown
- Sauté: a little fat in a hot pan, food kept moving, done fast
Teacher notes
Image: five small photos, one per method.
Sauté is the one students get wrong. Fat is not water, and fat gets hotter than water can. That is why things brown in it.
MOIST HEAT: water or steam surrounds the food
- Boil: fully covered, rolling, 212 degrees
- Simmer: lower heat, small bubbles at the edge, long cooking
- Steam: above the water, never touching it
- Poach: barely moving liquid, for delicate foods
Teacher notes
Image: four small photos, one per method.
The one sentence
- Dry heat drives water off the surface, so the surface can brown
- Moist heat surrounds the food with water or steam, so the surface stays wet and cannot brown
Teacher notes
Say it twice. This sentence is item 6 on the Cooking Methods Check.
We do not fry in this room
- Frying needs oil at 350 degrees or hotter
- A pot of hot oil is the one hazard this course does not take on
- Oil fires cannot be put out with water
- An oven or a broiler gets close to what a fryer does
Teacher notes
Say the reason, not just the rule. Students accept a rule with a reason and argue with a rule without one.
Browning, in plain words
- The surface gets hot and dry
- The sugars and proteins in it change into new compounds
- Those compounds are brown, and they smell and taste stronger
- Nothing browns until the surface water is gone
Teacher notes
Image: four stages of a piece of toast, pale to golden to brown.
Toast versus bread is the fastest example in the world. Use it.
Match eight foods to a method
- A chicken breast, a potato you want crisp, broccoli, rice
- An egg, a slice of bread, apple slices, a pound of dry pasta
- One method each, and a reason that says what the heat does
- Two of these have more than one right answer
Teacher notes
Groups of four with the method cards. Twelve minutes. Let them argue about the egg and the apple; both are intentionally open.
The question at your table
- Point at a card in the dry pile
- What is the water doing in that one?
Teacher notes
A "got it" answer says there is no water, or the water leaves. A group that puts steaming in the dry pile because no liquid touches the food gets a follow-up question, not an answer. That is a good mistake.
The demonstration record
- Color
- Texture
- Smell
- Taste, only if you choose to
Teacher notes
Plate both versions. Run the four rows out loud in order. Own fork, own plate, nobody reaches into a shared pan. Nobody has to taste anything and no reason is required.
The compare sentence
- You must use the words browning and moisture
- "The baked one is ___ because ___"
Teacher notes
Take three answers that use both words. Write the strongest one on the board and leave it up.
Exit card
- Dry heat is for ___
- Moist heat is for ___
- The food I would cook tomorrow is ___ by ___
Teacher notes
Sort into "got it" and "needs more." Tell students which methods they will personally run in Lessons 6.8 and 6.9; that buys you a quiet last five minutes.