Definitions – Techniques | Lets Talk Food (2024)

Unless otherwise noted the “How to” links in Techniques are to Better Homes and Gardens which has good explanations, nice pictures,and the odd video.

• Bake – To cook in an oven
• Baste – To moisten foods during cooking with drippings, water or seasoned sauce, to prevent drying or to add flavour.
• Beat – To mix ingredients together using a fast, circular movement. How to Beat Egg Whites.
• Blend – To mix ingredients together gently.
• Boil – To heat a food so that the liquid gets hot enough for bubbles to rise and break the surface
• Braise – To brown meat or vegetables in small quantity of hot fat, then to cook slowly in small amount of liquid either in the oven or on top of the stove. How to Braise Meat and Cabbage.
• Broil – A method of cooking, in which the heat source is above or below the food, it is placed on a rack or grate and the speed with which it cooks depends on how far away it is from the heating element and the foods thickness. How to Broil.
• Brown (ground meat) – To cook ground meat until no uncooked surfaces are visible prior to using it in a recipe. How to Brown Ground Beef.
• Brown – see Sear.
• Chop – To chop is to cut into small pieces. The pieces don’t have to be uniform. How to Chop an Onion
• Cream – To rub, whip or beat until a mixture is soft and fluffy. Usually describes the combining of butter and sugar for a cake
• Crimp – To pinch together two pastry edges to prevent the filling from escaping. How to Crimp Pie Crusts.
• Cut In – To blend a solid fat into a dry ingredient until the mixture is in the form of small particles.
• Deglaze – A technique whereby after sautéing a food, liquid is added to the pan to loosen the caramelized bits of food on the bottom used to make a pan sauce. How to Deglaze a Pan.
• Degrease – To skim the fat from the surface a hot liquid such as a soup, stock, or sauce.
• Dice – To cut into small cubes. To dice is like to chop, but the pieces are smaller.
• Dissolve – To stir a solid food and a liquid food together to form a mixture in which none of the solid remains. In some cases, heat may be needed in order for the solid to dissolve.
• Drain – To remove all the liquid from food
• Dredge – To coat a food, either before or after cooking, with a dry ingredient, such as flour, cornmeal, or sugar. How to Dredge Food.
• Fillet – To cut (meat or fish) into fillets (a piece or slice of boneless meat or fish)
• Fold – To gently combine a light substance with a heavier substance. The lighter of the two is placed on top and cut vertically into the heavier as the bowl is rotated a quarter turn with each series of strokes.
• Fry – A method of cooking food that uses a small amount of oil or fat in a shallow pan over relatively high heat. It differs from sautéing only in that the food being fried is usually in one piece eg. steaks or chops.
• Grate – See Shred
• Grease – To lightly coat with oil, butter, margarine, or non-stick spray so food does not stick when cooking or baking
• Julienne – To cut something into long strips. This can be done with many vegetables like carrots. How to Cut Thin Strips and Slivers
• Knead – To press, fold and stretch dough until it is smooth and uniform, usually done by pressing with the heels of the hands
• Marinate – To marinate is to take food and soak it in a mixture of spices, oil, and possibly vinegar to make it more tender and flavourful. You can generally marinate food for a half hour to days depending on the dish.
• Mash – To squash food with a fork, spoon, or masher
• Melt – To heat a food product until a liquefies
• Mince – You may hear the word mince a lot with garlic. Mincing is chopping something into very tiny pieces. The Whys and Hows of Chopping vs. Mincing.
• Mix – To stir ingredients together until well combined
• Preheat – To turn oven on ahead of time so that it is at the desired temperature when needed. The oven will usually report reaching the desired temperature in about 5 to 10 minutes but to ensure consistent heat wait 20 to 30 minutes (unless heating a baking stone then increase the time to 45 minutes).
• Pan-Fry – See Fry
• Pan Sauce – A sauce made by deglazing the sauté pan used to cook meat, poultry, or fish, etc. with wine, stock or both and adding various ingredients including herbs, shallots, capers, etc. The liquid is then reduced to sauce consistency.
• Peel – To strip or slip off outer coverings of some fruits or vegetables
• Poach – To cook something in liquid with a temperature ranging from 140°F to 180°F. Poaching is typically reserved for cooking very delicate items like eggs, fish, and fruit. How to Poach an egg.
• Proof – To dissolve yeast in warm water to prove that the yeast is alive, active, and capable of leavening dough for baking.
• Render – The process of removing fat from meat at low temperatures. The object can be having less fat in the meat or the collection of the fat to produce traditional cooking fats lard, tallow, or schmaltz
• Sauté – A method of cooking food that uses a small amount of oil or fat in a shallow pan over relatively high heat. It differs from frying only in that the pieces of food being cooked are usually small. How to Sauté.
• Sear – A method of cooking food in which the surface of the food (usually meat, poultry or fish) is cooked at high temperature until a caramelized crust forms. How to Sear.
• Shred – To push food across or through a shredding surface to make long, narrow strips. How to Shred Vegetables and Meat
• Sift – To put dry ingredients through a fine sieve.
• Simmer – To cook in liquid over low heat (low boil) so that bubbles just begin to form. How to Simmer.
• Slice – To cut completely through an object. It also refers to the piece of food produced by the cutting action ie slice of bread, pizza, meat etc
• Steam – To cook food over boiling water without putting the food directly in the water.
• Steep – To soak a dry ingredient in a hot liquid until the flavour is incorporated into the liquid.
• Stew – A method of cooking by which meat and/or vegetables are barely covered by a liquid and allowed to cook for a long time. Also refers to the finished dish.
• Stir Fry – To quickly cook small pieces of food over high heat while constantly stirring the food until it is crisply tender. How to Stir Fry.
• Sweat – To gently heat vegetables in a little oil or butter, with frequent stirring and turning to ensure that any emitted liquid will evaporate.
• Temper – A technique for increasing the temperature of a liquid prior to adding it to a hotter liquid. How to Temper Eggs.
• Thicken – A process to make a liquid more thick (as in thickening the turkey gravy). Common ingredients used to thicken liquids include cornstarch, egg yolk, cream, and whipped cream or butter just before service.
• Thin – To add a liquid to a preparation in order to make it less thick.
• Truss – To thread twine through the body of poultry for the purpose of holding the legs and sometimes the wings in place during cooking.
• Velvet – a Chinese cooking technique used in stir-frying. Meat is coated in a mixture of egg white and cornstarch (rice wine or dry sherry and salt are frequently added), marinated for up to 30 minutes, and then cooked very briefly in hot oil until the surface is just cooked. It is then ready to be finished in other dishes. About food has a recipe for traditional velveting
• Whip – To rapidly beat eggs, heavy cream, etc., in order to incorporate air and expand volume
• Whisk – To beat ingredients (such cream, eggs, salad dressings, sauces) with a fork or the looped wire utensil called a whisk so as to mix or blend, or incorporate air
• Zest – To remove the coloured peel of a citrus fruit (e.g. orange, lemon, lime) by using a grater, zester or vegetable peeler to remove the outermost part, avoiding the bitter white pith underneath. The peel itself is often referred to as zest.