Glossary of Cooking terms

Al dente: Generally, this cooking term is used when referring to the cooking of pasta and rice, but technically includes vegetables and beans too. Al dente is translated as ‘to the tooth’ meaning something cooked but left with a bite of firmness.

• Au gratin: Sprinkled with breadcrumbs and cheese, or both, and browned. The phrase ‘au gratin’ literally means “by grating” in French, or “with a crust”.

• Au jus: With its own juices from cooking, often refers to steak or other meat.

• Au sec: Description of a liquid that has been reduced until it’s almost nearly dry, a process often used in sauce making.

• Bake: To cook uncovered by dry heat, usually in an oven or oven-like appliance.

• Barding: To cover a meat with a layer of fat before cooking, it maintains the moisture of the meat while it cooks to avoid overcooking.

• Baste: To moisten foods with pan drippings or sauces during cooking to add flavor and prevent drying.

• Batter: A mixture of flour and liquid that is thin enough to pour.

• Beat: To mix rapidly in order to make a mixture smooth and light by incorporating air.

• Blanch: To cook food slightly in rapidly boiling water. Usually followed by dipping in cold water to stop the cooking process.

• Blend: The process of combining two or more ingredients so that they become smooth and uniform in texture and lose their individual characteristics.

• Boil: To heat a liquid over high heat until bubbles rise and break continually on the surface.

• Bone: Ironically, to bone a piece of meat is to remove the bone from it.

• Braise: Braising is an old French method of cooking meat. It uses a combination of dry and moist heat, dry being when the meat is seared at a high heat and moist when it’s gently cooked in a liquid. This cooking method is ideal with sinewy, tougher cuts of meat.

• Broil: Normally a cooking term used in the States, broil is what we know as grilling. Basically, you preheat the hot rod or grill at the top of your oven until it gets exceptionally hot. Place the food on an oven tray under the preheated grill until it browns and has some incredible flavour.

• Brining: The process of soaking meat in a brine, or heavily salted water, before cooking.

• Butterfly: Butterflying food refers to splitting it through the centre to thin it out, but not cutting through it entirely.

• Carmelize: To cook a fruit or vegetable slowly until it becomes brown and sweet. Also to cook sugar, or cook a food (like nuts) in sugar, slowly until it turns brown and sweet.

• Cartouche: A cartouche refers to a piece of greaseproof or baking paper that is used to create a lid over a pot or saucepan. Usually cut in a circle and placed over a dish with a small amount of liquid. In the instance of poaching, it stops steam from escaping, it can also prevent skins from developing on sauces.

• Chop: To cut food into small pieces.

• Clarify: Most often refers to butter, where the milk solids and water are rendered from the butterfat. This is done by gently melting the butter, allowing the two to separate and then skimming off the solids.

• Coddle: To coddle something is to cook it in water just below boiling point. More recently, the term specifically applies to eggs using a device called a coddler. The low cooking temperature produces a much softer egg than if you were to boil it. Coddling… definitely one of our favourite sounding cooking terms.

• Confit: Regularly recognised with duck, but can include other meats, where the meat is cooked in its own fat (or other fat if necessary) at a low heat.

• Consommé: A type of clear liquid that has been clarified by using egg whites and flavoured stock to remove fat.

• Coring: To remove the central section of some fruits, seeds and tougher material that is not normally consumed.

• Cream: To make a fat (like butter) soft and smooth by beating with a spoon or mixer. Also to cream together a soft fat with another food (like creaming together butter and sugar).

• Cube: Cut food into small cubes about ½” on all sides.

• Cure #1: To preserve meat or fish by drying, salting, or smoking.

• Cure #2: A non-heated method of cooking where the food item is packed with a salt mixture and left so that the moisture draws out.

• Curdle: When egg-based mixtures are cooked too quickly and the protein separates from the liquids, leaving a lumpy mixture behind.

• Cut in: A method of blending,

usually for pastry, where a fat is combined with flour. The method often refers to using a pastry blender to mix butter or shortening into the flour until the mixture is the size of peas.

• Deep fry: To cook food in a deep layer of hot oil.

• Deglaze: To loosen bits of food that have stuck on the bottom of a pan by adding liquid such as stock or wine.

• Dice: A knife skill cut – the exact measurement changes but the shape is always a small square.

• Dissolve: To combine a dry ingredient into a liquid over heat.

• Dollop: A small amount of soft food that has been formed into a round-ish shape. Yoghurt, whipped cream and mashed potatoes are all examples of foods that can be dolloped.

• Drain: To remove all liquid using a colander, strainer, or by holding the lid or a plate against the food while tilting the container.

• Dredging: To coat moist foods with a dry ingredient before cooking to provide an even coating.

• Dress: Dress has two definitions when it comes to cooking, firstly to coat foods (mostly salad leaves) in a sauce. It also refers to preparing poultry, fish and venison for cooking, which essentially is breaking them down off of their carcasses and sectioning the meat.

• Effiler: To remove the ends and the string from green beans.

• Fillet: Most commonly known as a very tender cut of beef, but can also refer to the meat of chicken and fish.

• Flake: Refers to the process of gently breaking off small pieces of food, often for combining with other foods. For example, you would flake cooked fish to combine with cooked, mashed potatoes to make fish cakes.

• Flambé: The process of cooking off alcohol that’s been added to a hot pan by creating a burst of flames. The fumes are set alight and the flame goes out when the alcohol has burnt off.

• Fold: To combine ingredients by using a gentle circular motion to cut down into the mixture, slide across the bottom of the bowl to bring some of the mixture up and over the surface.

• Frenching: The process of removing all fat, cartilage, and meat, from rib bones on a roast by cutting between the bones, often referring to lamb, beef, or pork rib.

• Fry: To cook in hot fat. Pan-fry in a small amount of fat over medium heat. Deep-fry in hot fat deep enough for the food to float.

Grill

Grilling food is applying dry heat to food either from above or below. In South Africa, grilling refers to cooking food under the grill in your oven (in the States this is called broiling) or can also refer to cooking food in a pan with grill lines.

Glaze

A glaze is a sticky substance coated on top of food. It is usually used in terms of baking or cooking meats where a marinade will be brushed over the food continuously to form a glaze.

Gratin

A gratin is a topping that is often either breadcrumbs or grated cheese that forms a brown crust when placed under a hot grill.

Grease

Refers to applying a fat to a roasting tray or cake tin to ensure that food doesn’t stick.

Grind

To break something down into much smaller pieces, for example, coffee beans or whole spices.

• Garnish: To decorate with a small amount of food that enhances the appearance and flavor of the dish.

• Grate: To scrape food against the holes of a grater (or chop in a blender or food processor) to make fine, medium, or coarse particles.

• Grease: To lightly coat with oil or fat to keep food from sticking to the pan when cooking or baking.

• Hull: Refers to the husk, shell or external covering of a fruit. More specifically, it is the leafy green part of a strawberry.

• Infuse: To allow the flavour of an ingredient to soak into a liquid until the liquid takes on the flavour of the ingredient.

Jacquarding: This cooking term means the process of poking holes into the muscle of meat in order to tenderise it, also known as needling.

Jus lie: Meat juice that has been lightly thickened with either cornflour or any binding thickener.

Julienne: Refers to a knife skill cut where the shape resembles matchsticks.

• Knead: To press, fold and stretch dough until it is smooth usually done by pressing the heels of the hands.

Larding: The process of inserting strips of fat into a piece of meat that doesn’t have as much fat, to melt and keep the meat from drying out.

Liaison: A binding agent of cream and egg yolks used to thicken soups or sauces.

• Macerate: The soaking of an ingredient, usually fruit, in a liquid so that it takes on the flavour of the liquid. Can also be used to soften dried fruit.

• Marinate: To soak food in a liquid (called a marinade) to tenderize or add flavor.

• Mash: To squash food with a fork, spoon, or masher to make it smooth.

• Mince:To finely divide food into uniform pieces that are smaller than diced or chopped foods.

• Mise en place: This is the OG of kitchen cooking terms and means the preparation of ingredients, such as dicing onions, chopping veggies or measuring spices, before starting to cook. 

Nappe: The act of coating a food with a thin, even layer.

Needling: Injecting fat or flavours into an ingredient to enhance its flavour.

• Panade: A mixture of starch and liquid that’s added to ground meat for hamburger patties/meatballs. Usually a mixture of bread, breadcrumbs or panko with milk, buttermilk or yoghurt.

• Pané: This cooking term refers to coating in breadcrumbs.

• Par cooking: The process of not fully cooking food, so that it can be finished or reheated later.

• Parboil: To boil food only slightly, often used to soften foods like potatoes before roasting them. Helps to speed up the cooking process.

• Pare or peel: To remove the outer covering of foods by trimming away with a knife or vegetable peeler.

• Paupiette: A thin, flattened piece of meat, rolled with a stuffing of ingredients i.e, vegetables, which is then cooked before served.

• Pickle: The process of preserving food in a brine, which is a salt or vinegar solution.

• Pinch: A tiny amount of flavoring added to a dish — the amount you can hold between your thumb and forefinger.

• Pit: To remove the pit or seed from a fruit.

• Plump: To soak dried fruit in liquid until they swell.

• Poach: To cook food over low heat in a small amount of hot, simmering liquid.

• Puree: To mash foods until perfectly smooth by hand or in a blender or food processer.

• Preheat: To turn oven on ahead of time so it is ready when needed (usually takes 5-10 minutes).

• Purée: Cooked food, usually vegetables, that have been mashed or blended to form a paste-like consistency.

• Reconstitute: To restore a dried food to its original consistency, or to change its texture, by letting it soak in warm water.

• Reduce: To boil liquid off to reduce the volume.

• Refresh: To halt the cooking process, usually that of vegetables after being blanched, by plunging them into ice-cold water.

• Render: Using a low heat to melt the fat away from a food item, usually a piece of meat. This rendered fat can then be used to cook with.

• Roast: Technically defined as a method of dry cooking a piece of meat, where the hot air envelopes the food to cook it evenly and to allow it to caramelise nicely.

• Roux: A roux is a flour and fat mixture cooked together, which acts as a thickener in soups, stews and sauces. (link to mother sauce article)

• Saute: To cook or brown food quickly in a little hot fat (oil or butter).

• Scald: To bring liquid to a temperature just below the boiling point.

• Score: Shallow, diagonal cuts made on the surface of meat and vegetables for the purpose of rendering fat, encouraging crispiness and flavour absorption.

• Sear: To brown very quickly over high heat to develop flavor and improve appearance. This is often done before braising the food, to give it added flavour and is not usually intended to cook the food all the way through.

• Shallow fry: To cook food in a shallow layer of preheated oil.

• Shred: To cut or tear into long, narrow pieces.

• Sift: To put dry ingredients through a sifter or strainer to remove lumps or add air.

• Simmer: To cook liquid over low heat at just below the boiling point so tiny bubbles form slowly.

• Skim: To remove fat or scum from the surface of a liquid.

• Slice: To cut food into thin pieces.

• Steam: To cook food on a rack or in a colander in a covered pan over a small amount of boiling water.

• Steep: Similar to infuse, steeping is the process of allowing dried ingredients to soak in a liquid until the liquid has taken on the flavour of the ingredient.

• Stew: To cook food over low heat in a large amount of simmering liquid for a long time.

• Stir fry: To quickly cook small pieces of food over high heat while constantly stirring until it is crisp-tender.

• Sweat: This refers to the gentle cooking of vegetables in butter or oil under a lid, so that their natural liquid is released to aid the cooking process. Often vegetables cooked this way will end up looking translucent.

• Temper: To temper is the process of adding a small quantity of a hot liquid to a cold liquid in order to warm the cold liquid slightly. This is often be done before adding delicate ingredients to a hot mixture, where their format may be affected. An example of this would be adding eggs to a hot mixture – in order to prevent them curdling or scrambling you would add a little of the hot mix to the eggs and incorporate before adding the eggs into the heated mixture. Another example would be adding a cornflour slurry to a hot mixture; a little of the hot mixture is added to the slurry to temper the temperature before adding the mix back to the main mixture.

• Thaw: To change from frozen to liquid slowly.

• Toss: To mix foods lightly with a lifting motion using forks or spoons.

• Tourner: To cut and peel ingredients such as parsnips or potatoes into a barrel-like shape. For aesthetic purposes but also to ensure that they cook properly.

• Truss: To bind the legs and wings of a bird to its body, ensuring it maintains an even shape so that none of the extremities dry out.

• Ultra-pasteurization: The process of heating up milk products to 137 degrees celsius for a few seconds and chilling it down rapidly, resulting in milk that’s 99.9% free from bacteria and extending its shelf-life.

• Vandyke: To cut a zig-zag or decorative pattern around fruit or vegetables to create decorative garnishes for food presentation.

• Velouté: A type of savoury sauce in which a light stock, such as chicken or fish, is thickened with a flour that is cooked and then allowed to turn light brown, thickened with a blond roux.

• Whip: To beat rapidly to mix in air and make food light and fluffy. Usually used for egg whites or heavy cream.

• Whisk: The process of using a whisk to incorporate air into food or to blend ingredients together smoothly.

• Zest: Refers to removing the outer part of citrus (called the zest) either by using a grater, a peeler or a knife.