What is "sauteing"

vb. (present participle of saute English)

n. cooking in fat or oil in a pan or griddle [syn: frying]

Sautéing ( or , ; from the French sauté , lit. "jumped, bounced" in reference to tossing while cooking) is a method of cooking food that uses a small amount of oil or fat in a shallow pan over relatively high heat. Ingredients are usually cut into pieces or thinly sliced to facilitate fast cooking. The primary mode of heat transfer during sautéing is conduction between the pan and the food being cooked. Food that is sautéed is browned while preserving its texture, moisture, and flavor. If meat, chicken, or fish is sautéed, the sauté is often finished by deglazing the pan's residue to make a sauce.

Sautéing may be compared with pan frying, in which larger pieces of food (for example, chops or steaks) are cooked quickly in oil or fat, and flipped onto both sides. Some cooks make a distinction between the two based on the depth of the oil used, while others use the terms interchangeably. Sautéing differs from searing in that searing only browns the surface of the food. Olive oil should not be used to sauté due to its low smoke point. Clarified butter, rapeseed oil and sunflower oil are commonly used for sautéing, but most fats will do. Regular butter will produce more flavor but will burn at a lower temperature and more quickly than other fats due to the presence of milk solids, so clarified butter is more fit for this use.