system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Differences among Broiling, Roasting, and Baking

I just call all of those "sticking it into an oven"
gpt
I just learned about broiling recently, but let's talk about baking first.

When you bake, you cook the food by surrounding it with hot air. Because the hot air is all around the food, the food cooks from all the sides. If you use a toaster oven, you'll notice that the heating elements are not really on when you bake. They only turn on to keep the air at the temperature you set. Heat transfer occur from the hot air inside and the hot walls of the oven. In short, **baking happens from all directions via convection and radiation.**

According to JOY OF COOKING, roasting and baking are the same. I'd say the difference is that baking is for bread stuffs, and roasting is for meat stuffs.

When you broil something, you cook it from one direction with radiant heat. If you set your toaster oven to broil, only the top elements turn on. And they stay on, full strength, to brown your food. You're also supposed to put the food as close to the elements as possible and leave the door slightly open. It should be designed to stay slightly open for broiling. If you use your big oven, broiling happens beneath the heater elements in the smaller lower tray (not the bigger compartment). Same thing here with the door, you leave it slightly open. The result is similar to that of grilling. You get very nice browning on your food. (Excellent way of cooking meat if you don't want to grill outside). So broiling is **directional cooking mostly via radiant heat.**

**When broiling, if you don't leave the door open, you end up with a pseudo baking situation and you cook the other side of the food before you can brown the food on both sides. This is undesireable.*

Edit: word choice.

**Bonus generic broiling recipe:**

1. Preheat broiler.
1. Take meat and pat dry.
1. Add lots of seasoning of your choice.
1. Broil one side until browned.
1. Flip over and broil until brown.
1. Enjoy.