[Sca-cooks] A Question of Spit Roasting....

[sjk3 at cornell.edu]

> Here's how I was taught:
>
> Roasting:  Cooking with indirect, dry heat, usually low heat but not
> necessarily
> Braising:  Indirect low wet heat with a liquid
> Broiling or grilling:  High, direct dry heat
> BBQ:  Low, direct wet or dry heat
> Hot-Smoking: Low, indirect wet heat
>
> "Direct heat" means that there is nothing between the heat source and the
> food.  Indirect heat is where either the heat source is on the side or
> above, or something that redirects or distributes the heat intervenes (e.g.
> a roasting pan, some additional liquid or veggies, a smoker duct, etc.)
>
> -Lorenz

I would have thought direct heat would have meant contact between the food
and heat source, and anything else was indirect.  There isn't "nothing"
between heat and food in your definition of "direct heat"  (air isn't
nothing), though its true there is nothing solid.  Also, the difference (I
thought) between broiling and grilling was the order of the parts
involved:

broiling:
heat
food
pan

grilling:
food
pan
heat

And I still don't know what to call cooking in an oven as opposed to
over or beside a fire/coals.

Sandra