Resident Chef Peter Gorton is an award winning Master Chef of Great Britain and has been cooking since the age of 16. Peter now runs his own restaurant, Gorton’s in Tavistock.
Baking put simply is fully cooking something in an oven. Just about anything can be baked, including breads, desserts, fish, poultry, meat and vegetables.
How to bake fish
Fish has flaky delicate flesh that tastes best when it’s prepared with care. Baking fish enables you to control the cooking temperature and limit how much you handle the fish. Baking fish is not complicated but there are a few handy tricks and tips to know to ensure you get the very best results.
- You can bake fish steaks, fillets, seafood or whole fish. Baking cooks fish quickly at a high temperature.
- People tend to worry about their fish drying out. If you leave your fish in the oven for even a few minutes too long, this could mean the difference between a moist piece of fish and a slightly dried out one. You need to check the fish often when it is cooking and remember that it keeps cooking for a couple of minutes after you remove it from the oven.
- The general rule is to bake the fish for 10 minutes for every inch of its thickness. 230C/450F is a suitable temperature for most baked fish recipes. Unless the fish is an inch or less thick you should turn it half way through the cooking time.
- Cooking times also vary depending on the density of the fish. While cooking fish tuck any thin ends underneath so it cooks evenly.
How to bake cakes
- To help a cake rise higher make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature before you begin.
- To disperse salt and spices in butter add them to the butter when creaming rather than including them in the dry ingredients.
- For light airy cakes bake them in the bottom third of the oven.
- To test if the cake is cooked use a toothpick or skewer inserted into the centre – it should come out clean or almost clean.
Bread tips
Using different glazes when baking breads will produce crusts of varying colours and textures. An egg yolk will brown the crust, an egg white glaze will produce a shiny crust, while whole eggs will give both sheen and colour. Milk mixed with melted butter or oil creates a soft crust, water will produce a crisp crust. Brush or spray prior to baking, and for an extra crisp crust, repeat 10 minutes before removing from the oven. Mixing water and whole eggs will produce a shiny brown, crisp crust. Honey makes a soft sweet crust.
Notes on pastry
The more I learn about pastry the more I find that the ingredients are forgiving and the process does allow for occasional minor mistakes. Of course pastry making can be elevated to the level of art, but practically speaking it is a craft.
There are two basic requirements – an environment that minimises the possibility of mistakes and measuring accurately. Beyond that, patience and organisation matter as much as anything.
- Pastry requires very few ingredients so make sure you choose the best quality, local ingredients.
- When sugar is used in pastry it produces a crisp result, similar to but more fragile than a savoury short crust pastry.
- Short crust pastry has a higher ratio of fat to flour, which produces a shorter pastry that is harder to handle and softer in texture than those with more flour, so handle less than other pastry.
Happy baking!
For more information about Peter visit www.petergortonmasterchef.co.uk