What is roast? Have seen several very different directions...

[auntdot]

Jennyma am sorry, I did not feel like tying the entire quote.

But their definition of roasting still seems confined to meat, and I include chicken therein.

My point, and I may have made it poorly, is that it matters not to me if one calls dry cooking, usually at an elevated temperature, roasting or baking.

That is all. No harm meant. And I think I mentioned that not everything tossed in an oven is roasted or baked. The term braised was there.

Take care.

 

[jennyema]

I agree, but I think they were using meat as an example. I take their definition and also their def of "baking" to mean that they are essentailly the same thing.

 

[Andy M.]

It appears there is no reason, other than convention, that a whole chicken is roasted while a cut up chicken is baked.

 

[T-roy]

Actually, the Food Lover's Companion defines roasting as this: "To oven-cook food in an uncovered pan, a method that usually produces a well-browned exterior and ideally a moist interior. Roasting requires reasonably tender pieces of meat or poultry. "

I don't know, that sounds suspiciously like broiling to me.

Roasting the kinder gentler way to broil...

Baking the kinder gentler way to roast.

 

[ChefJune]

Let me modify my earlier definition. I would say roasting applies to savory dishes while baked applies to sweets.

Not always, Andy. Quinces are roasted in dry heat, usually with sugar or some other sweetener.

 

[pacanis]

And don't forget...... While chestnuts are roasted on an open fire, marshmallows are toasted.

 

[Barbara L]

I roast a roast and bake a cake.

In California, Minnesota, and Missouri we "baked" cakes, but in South Carolina they "cook" cakes!

Barbara

 

[sherifffruitfly]

I don't know, that sounds suspiciously like broiling to me.

Roasting the kinder gentler way to broil...

Baking the kinder gentler way to roast.

Baking/roasting is *completely* different from broiling/grilling. The former cooks via the hot air, while the latter cooks via heat energy transmitted directly from source to food.

Else I'm completely confused.

 

[GotGarlic]

I don't know, that sounds suspiciously like broiling to me.

Roasting the kinder gentler way to broil...

Baking the kinder gentler way to roast.

Baking/roasting is *completely* different from broiling/grilling. The former cooks via the hot air, while the latter cooks via heat energy transmitted directly from source to food.

Else I'm completely confused.

No, you're correct. I think of roasting as creating a browned, caramelized crust on food, like roasted turkey, chicken, veggies, etc. The temp depends on the size and density of the food you're roasting, so turkey is roasted at a lower temp than veggies. Baking is dry cooking in the oven, but baked potatoes, for example, don't have a browned exterior crust, while roasted ones do.

 

[pacanis]

Yes, but if you smear a potato with butter, wrap it in foil and bake it in the oven, it comes out entirely different than one simply pricked and set on the grate to bake. I don't think the exterior of the food has anything to do with whether it's baked or roasted.
But I'll bet if you took that same potato, set it on a cookie sheet, drizzle oil on it and baked it, you would be more likely to call it roasted. Especially if they were smaller sized and you were doing a bunch of them.

I'm thinking that adding something to the exterior of what you are cooking leans it towards the roasted camp as long as it's not made of grain, as in a cake or pie crust. I think roasting adds another element to the cooking process, unless it's covered with foil like the potato I mentioned.
Where "Roast and Boast" falls into this I don't know.....

 

[Andy M.]

Yes, but if you smear a potato with butter, wrap it in foil and bake it in the oven, it comes out entirely different than one simply pricked and set on the grate to bake...

Actually, when you wrap a potato in foil and put it into a hot oven, you are steaming it. The moisture within the potato is trapped inside the foil and steams it. That's why you get a thin, miost skin using this process.

 

[pacanis]

Next time I order a baked potato in a restaurant and I'm looking at a potato wrapped in foil on my plate, I will send it back then
I would like to see the look on the server's face when I tell them I did not order it steamed

I know what you're saying though.
But why wouldn't it be considered boiled in butter, since I'll bet the butter is bubbling beneath the foil? When I think steamed I think something that heats a medium that creates steam that surrounds, not something immersed in the medium already.

And all this is what the original poster was getting at.... Funny how the name of food and the cooking methods can vary when basically you are cooking the stuff the same way.... roast prime rib, baked ham

 

[Michael in FtW]

LOL - if you play the semantics game and look for all the exceptions to the rules - you're going to be as confused as a dog with two tails!

 

[T-roy]

Baking/roasting is *completely* different from broiling/grilling. The former cooks via the hot air, while the latter cooks via heat energy transmitted directly from source to food.

Else I'm completely confused.

I'm confused too, but it's a fun thread.

If I put a roast on my gas grille's rotisserie and grill or roast or broil or bake it....Umm...does it matter if the cover is open or closed?

 

[Andy M.]

I'm confused too, but it's a fun thread.

If I put a roast on my gas grille's rotisserie and grill or roast or broil or bake it....Umm...does it matter if the cover is open or closed?

YES! It absolutely matters!

 

[T-roy]

YES! It absolutely matters!

Thanks, I thought it might.