Three types of stove top cooking, include sauteing, simmering, and steaming.
Sauteing is cooking food at a high heat in a little oil. The foods are usually cut into small pieces, to help with fast cooking. A lot of times, I see this type of cooking for the veggies in a recipe. Onions and green peppers are chopped small and sauteed for a few minutes before adding meats a lot of times. When sauteing, make sure you either stir the foods often or jerk the pan to flip the foods around, to prevent burning. Also, you want to use a large enough pan so that all the foods can lie in the pan in one layer. This helps the foods to cook evenly and quickly. The amount of oil you use is key - only enough to coat the bottom of the pan. You don't want to have it deep enough to FRY the foods. Just enough to keep them foods from sticking to the pan and to give a little flavor.
The next type is simmering. This is when you cook foods in hot liquids kept at or just below boiling. Crockpots simmer foods. The types of foods you would simmer are stews, soups, and chilis. Also, if you're cooking rice, this is also simmering - you bring the liquid to a boil, then lower the temp to keep the foods cooking but not enough to boil them continuously.
Lastly, there is steaming. There are pans made specifically for this type of cooking. The process of steaming includes bringing a pot of water to a boil, placing the steamer on top of that pot and placing the foods in the steamer to cook. The steam from the boiling water cooks the foods. This is recommended for veggies, to retain the most vitamins in them. It is also great to avoid burning foods! :) You can cook practically anything this way.
Now, the next time you have a recipe that calls for a particular way of cooking, you will know exactly what they're talking about!
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