Sautéing

The Academic Dictionary of Foreign Words defines restovat as frying in fat until the moisture has gone, with sautéed liver and potatoes as examples. The older standard dictionary of literary Czech marks the verb as colloquial, borrowed from German, meaning to fry or stew in fat.

Its French counterpart sauter, literally to jump, comes from Latin saltare; the culinary phrase faire sauter un mets is recorded from 1767. Escoffier defines the sauté as cooking dry, that is solely in fat – butter, oil or grease. He applies it to cut-up poultry and game and to small cuts such as tournedos, cutlets and noisettes, and the thinner and smaller the pieces, the faster they must be browned.

After lifting out the meat, Escoffier swills the pan with liquid for the sauce and returns the meat to it only long enough to warm through. The brown colour and aroma of sautéed food come mainly from the Maillard reaction between sugars and amino acids.