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> use the term "broiling" for shallow/pan-frying. Unusual word here. I don't think that's right; it's more used for what you do in the oven under the "broil"

• thaumasiotes 5y ago
  Speaking as an American... I was aware that "broiling" was a cooking method, but I have no concept of what it involves. After checking a dictionary, I still don't -- wikipedia redirects "broiling" to "grilling", and Merriam-Webster defines "broil" as "to cook by direct exposure to radiant heat: grill", with an example given of "broil the steak in the oven". I would be more likely to use "bake" for heating something in an oven, though I'm uneasy about applying "bake" to a steak; I'd probably just say "cook the steak in the oven". I would use "fry" for cooking something in oil; I would not personally use "sauté" at all. I note further that neither Merriam-Webster nor wikipedia seems to be aware of a distinction between grilling and baking, or at least not one they're willing to articulate. I would have said that baking involves being cooked within an oven and grilling involves being cooked on top of a hot surface.
  • ska 5y ago
    Oh, I agree lots of American's don't use the word broil; I was (obviously not clearly) trying to say that those who do use it probably use it because there oven has a setting marked "broil". For ovens that have that, it usually means heat only using the top element (and sometimes only full blast), so the heat is only coming from above. I think fry is more often used than saute, and often context dependent (e.g. fried chicken may imply deep fried, fried onions doesn't) This latter may be regional.
  • unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    Grilling is _under_ a hot surface. Like broiling. But when you broil you use a different pan. Or something. Now if you want a really weird distinction: baking and roasting. Same appliance, much more similar temperatures than you might think, often only subtly different prep. You might think, no, you "bake" things that rise or are transformed by the process, like dough. But you might also "bake" potatoes and fish. Or you might say that roasting involves oil and basting, but you might baste baked fish. Or roasting involves an open dish or tray. But often so does baking. In this case it really is a kind of convention in English, in the same way that adjective order force is a convention. We generally consistently use one word for a given application or a given origin of the food. Messes with my head.
    • thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > Grilling is _under_ a hot surface. Absolutely not. Grilling is on top of a hot surface, often underneath the open atmosphere. The sky is not a hot surface.
      • unfocussed_mike 5y ago
        This is another word disagreement then. You mean grilling of the kind that is also done _outdoors_ there. Heating on wire above fire. Like the Aussies we call it "barbecuing". They do it all the time; here it is understandably done very infrequently, and is generally known to reliably summon rain. In a British kitchen, certainly domestically, what is called "grilling" does involve cooking on a wire grill, but invariably under a radiating heat element positioned above the food. In, like, 100% of cases. With my gas cooker it's a separate (eye level) set of gas jets. In an electric cooker it's either a specific element mounted on the roof of the smaller top oven, or it's a use of only one of the two or more elements in that oven. But the grill is always above. If we cook food in its own juices on an heated flat surface indoors, that would be a "griddle" or a "hot plate" -- that's what the commercial burger cooking machinery is called. Essentially nobody has that equipment inside their homes; safety standards would tend not to allow it. This is one of those things that shows that no nation owns the meaning of a word.
        • thaumasiotes 5y ago
          > If we cook food in its own juices on an heated flat surface indoors, that would be a "griddle" or a "hot plate" -- that's what the commercial burger cooking machinery is called. To me a hot plate is a (small, portable) substitute for a stove, rather than being the device you use to cook the food, which would rest on top of the stove or hot plate. They are best known for being something college students can smuggle into dorm rooms. I occasionally visit a fondue restaurant which offers, among other options, a "grill" for the meat course, and the grill is a griddle (a lightly curved slab of iron rested on a heat source) with no cover. You also make me curious what you think of the George Foreman Grill, which as I understand it is a ridged, hinged, self-heating griddle that you fold around whatever hopefully-flat thing you want to grill. Almost exactly the same as a waffle iron, except it's a "grill" instead. Anyway, outdoor grilling is certainly a part of American culture, but the American concept of a "grill" is not restricted to that, and clearly includes cooking on a griddle. (To your earlier point, I tend to agree that there are many words that basically just mean "cook", and the particular word used is determined by convention according to the object being cooked. Bread is baked; beef is not baked, even if what you do to the beef is identical to what you do to the bread.)