Cooking Basics

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I started a thread like this before, but didn't follow up with it. The idea of this thread is to provide a sound understanding of basic terms and techniques used in cooking. Hopefully, we can all join together to create a comprehensive list of terms and techniques to enhance everyone's cooking knowledge and skills.

The format I will take is to give a term, its definition, and the technique for using or making it. All are invited to add to the list. We can do this a little at a time. Have fun with it.

a blanc - French term meaning "in white". It is used to describe various sauces, and meats that are not browned during the cooking process.

Acidulated Water - water to which lemon juice or vinager has been added to halt browning of raw potato, apples, pears, etc.

Aspic - The jelly-like substance that is a product of disolving collagen in hot liquid. Usually, aspic is formed when a rich meat broth is chilled. The collagen in the liquid comes from the bone marrow, and connecting tissues of meat. Aspics are used as flavor elements, and to mold various dishes. To obtain a simple, and flavorful beef aspic - Brown 1 pound of ground beef in a covered pan, trapping all juices. When the meat is cooked through, pour off the juices and chill. The fat will float to the top and harden. It is a simple matter to remove the hardened fat and obtain the aspic that has formed below it. The aspic can then be added to gravies, or used to make a gravy. It can also be frozen until enough has been made to sue as a mold, like jellow, with meat and veggies added to make intersting meals. Aspic can also be added to meat turrines, and when again chilled, turned out of the turine to make a home-made sandwich loaf, with the jelled aspic holding the meat particles in place.

I had a wonderful apetizer at a gathering where the host had used unflavored gelatine, along with clam juice and shreeded crab meat to make a delicious mold that you dipped into with crackers. It was dramatic to look at, and tasted fabulous.

Gleatine used for fruit flavored deserts such as Jello is a close cousin to an aspic, as it is obtained from boiled animal parts such as knuckles, bones, and bone joints which are boiled to disolve the collagen from the cartillage.

Acidify - to create an acidic environment with wich to change the PH level of a food or liquid. Acidic ingredients are used for many purposes, such as in pickling, preserving, as a sour element in recipes, and to react with alkali substance to leaven flour based products.
Example - Three bean salad is a combination of cooked beans that can range from kindey to waxed beans. After the beans are completely cooked, they are mixed together with chopped celery, or celery seed, sliced onion, sugar, sometimes garlic, sometimes dill, sugar, and vinager to create a sweet & tangy flavor that comes from mainly from the acidic vinager (sour flavor) and sugar (sweet) But you must be careful with htis dish as the acid will cauce the beans to firm up if they are not completely cooked through.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[Antiguadreams]

a handful of helpful meat cooking techniques. I appologize most are common knowledge among the viewers of the forum, but I'd love to see this turn into a fully fleshed out list of basic and advanced terms:

Braising: This is the process of taking a piece of meat and searing ALL SIDES of it in a very hot skillet. After the sides are seared, you place the meat in a dutch oven or similar container that holds a liquid, where the meat is finally cooked. You can braise in water, broth, sauces, or cream. An oven or a slow cooker are popular final destinations for braising. The key to braising is to make sure the meat is not fully immersed in liquid. The liquid lays underneath to add flavor.

Stewing: Identical to braising except for two steps: you fully immerse the meat in liquid for cooking, and you generally cut up the meat into smaller sizes prior to searing. Although some chefs omit the searing process, it is still reccomended to sear meat prior to stewing.

Fricassee: this is a stewing process normally reserved for white meat, meaning poultry, pork, or rabbit. The meat is stewed in gravy, and cream is typically added later.

Grilling: This is a method of cooking over open flame or coals, where a grill is the only boundary between the meat and the heat. This provides a fast, high temperature dry cooking enviroment that allows the Maillard reaction to take place (meaning roasty colored good tasting food), with those nifty racing stripes provided from the grill! Also flavors imparted from the cooking process, such as charcoal or smoked woods go into the meat.

Broiling: almost identical to Grilling as a high temperature is used, although its normally above the meat, not below, and is confined to your oven. You'll get all the benefits of the Maillard reaction, but the taste won't reflect that of grilling...meaning no good smokey eats from charcoal and wood additives. Although if you grill with propane, you're essentially broiling already, but with a bottom heat source. :P

Roasting: although this used to mean rotiserie back in the day, we normally refer to roasting as putting meat in an over without a large amount of liquid, and allowing dry heat to cook the meats. The meat is basted periodically with the liquid that is provided at the bottom of the pan, to keep the meat from drying out. The temperature for roasting is less than that of broiling or grilling, but still makes use of the Maillard reaction for browing.

tartare: this is the act of taking a meat which is relatively safe to eat raw (such as beef or scallops) while fresh, and obtained from a reputable source, and cutting it fine and serving raw. Ground beef and thinly cut steak, seasoned, are traditional forms or Tartare. Generally a raw egg is served on top. I personally don't reccomend this dish unless I raise the chickens that lay the eggs myself. :P

Pan Frying: this form of frying for meats allows the use of minimal oil, which is healthier than some other forms of cooking. The process provides more browning, and requires meat to be flipped at least once for proper cooking. Getting the pan to the right temperature and KEEPING IT THERE is essential to good frying, as well as knowing what temperature to keep it at for the type of meat you are cooking. Generally speaking, you want to cook slower to allow the center to cook, so you aren't stuck with a charred outside and a raw inside.

 

[AnyoneCanCook]

I noticed that sauteing was not listed, likely because it is the easiest technique to learn when you are younger. I have noticed, however, that many people make mistakes in sauteing, namely:

Overcrowding a pan
Too low of too high of heat
Too little or too much oil

 

[Mark Webster]

I am glad you are putting this information out especially for new cooks. As a adjunct instructor and a full time chef I am constantly being asked about the basic cooking techniques ie dry/moist heat methods.

 

[cara]

pin it ;o)

 

[Valouth]

This is really great! Thanks for sharing this with us

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Poach - to delicately cook in low temperature liquid, with just enough heat to cook the food without allowing the liquid to boil. Fish, fruits, and eggs are popular foods to poach. Usually, the liquid is seasoned so that the foods poached in them pick up intended flavors.

Simmer - to allow a soup or sauce to cook at a low temperature, usually at a low boil (liquid bubble gently). The lower cooking temperature allows the food soup or sauce to cook without the risk of burning to the pan bottom. Stirring every so often is still recommended.

Kabob - a method of grilling where the food is cut into bite-sized chunks and skewered, seasoned, and cooked over open flame. any fruits, vegetables, and meats can be placed on a kabob as long as they are firm enough to stay on the skewer through the cooking process. Popular items include pineapple, most meats, onion chunks, peppers, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, etc.

Grilled flavor - contrary to popular belief, the typical grilled flavor is not a product of high heat. Rather, it is caused by food juices and fat dripping down onto a heat source, lava rock or steel plates on a gas grill, charcoal or wood in a charcoal grill. When the juices hit the heat source, they quickly burn and create smoke. The smoke particles deposit onto the meat and other food surfaces and flavor whatever is being cooked in that smokey environment. To get stronger grilled flavor, cover the grill to trap the smoke. To reduce the grilled flavor, keep the lid open. To reduce it more still, place the food on aluminum foil over the heat source to prevent food juices from dripping onto the heat source. So, when you see the TV commercial extolling the virtues of the stove-top grill pan, and how it creates that grilled flavor by making those pretty stripes, you know that the commercial is playing to ignorance. The stripes aren't the flavor creators, the smoke is, and unless you have a commercial air removal system above your stove, don't try to get it in the house.

Baste - to pour a flavored liquid over roasting or grilling foods. Again, there is much misinformation about what basting does and doesn't do. It is a popular belief that basting makes meat more juicy. This just isn't true. The outside layer of meat, especially foods with a skin such as turkey or whole chickens, becomes a barrier to liquid absorption when it is heated. What basting does do is deposit particles of flavor molecules from accumulated pan juices, or basting sauces onto the outer surface of the food being cooked. The flavor molecules stick to the food surface as the liquid evaporates from the skin. When you baste the next time, more flavor molecules are added. This happens each time you baste the meat. Basting does create a flavorfull skin, but also increases the cooking time as the oven or barbecue is cooled each time you open it to baste the food.

Lardoon - slivers of fat placed into slits made in turkey, chicken, and large meat roasts. The fat may come in the form of smokey bacon, or fat that has been trimmed from a ham, or even a steak. ON the grill, as the meat cooks, some the fat will permeate the meat, making it more juicy, succulent, and add flavor. Some of the fat will drip from the skin onto the heat source and create smoke. In the oven, the lardoons will again permeat the meat, and roll accross the skin to self-baste the meat.

Knead - the act of folding and pressing, especially four-based doughs, too both homogenize ingredients, and deveop gluten for breads, and rolls. Some products such as taffy, pastillage, fondant, and gumpaste can also be kneaded, again to equally distribite ingredients and collorings throughout the product. Typically, the product to be kneaded, is folded from the edge to the center, and pushed downward with the heel of the hands. The product is turned 45 degrees on its central axis, and again folded and pressed. This action is repeated until the desired puurpose is achieved.

Clarify - to remove particulate matter from a liquid. Examples, butter is heated until it liquifies, and is then skimmed of all foam and butter solids to form what we call clarified butter, and Indians (from India) call Ghee. broths are clarified by making an egg and vegetable raft that attracts particulates to it from the boiling liquid. The end result is called a consume'. Pressed fruit is often placed in a strainer and allowed to drip its clarified liquid into a container to make clear jellies that contain all of the fruit flavor, but none of the fruit.

Steam - verb - To heat food in steam from boiling water until it is cooked. STeaming retains more of the natural nutritional value of most foods, helps keep the natural food colors more intact, and adds little or no unwanted flavors to that food. Steaming is often a superior way to cook vegetables. It can also be used with meats where no browning is desired. Fish, hot-dogs, ribs, and other meats are often steamed. The ribs are then subject ot other cooking methods depending on the cook and the desired results. Some pudding and custards are steamed. Poaced eggs made in a poaching pan are cooked by both the heat action of steam, and are poachedin the butter that lies in the botom of the poaching cups.

En Papillote - a French cooking method that envelops the food in a parchment paper enclosure. The food steams in its own juices and fats, and is served in the paper envelop. It has a dramatic look and is popular at high-end restaurants. The technique is simple and can be found on many sites on the internet.

Sous-Vide (pronounced soo-vide)- to slowly cook food in a vacuum sealed plastic bag. The food is cooked at very low temperatures of many hours (160 degrees for ten or more hours), resulting in very flavorful, succulent, and tender food. Meats come out amazingly tender when cooked sous-vide. Also, since there is no where for any seasonings or juices to go, any food cooked this way will be characterized by rich flavor. The only downside is that meats are gray and unappetizing to look at and so should be sauced to add color and visual appeal.

That's all for today kids.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[Antiguadreams]

to add on a bit about sous-vide, the vacuum sealed meats are cooked via poaching at around 140 degrees. Also to comment about poaching in general...if you maintain your water at the desired internal temp of your meats, you can safely cook with reduced fear of overcooking your dish. So for example, if your shrimp needs to be cooked to 165, set the water temp to 165 and let it go at it. When the internal temp of the shrimp meets the water temp, its done. and you can safely leave it in the water for a half hour or an hour without any ill effects. just make sure the water is over 140 degrees to prevent bacterial infection.

Stir-fry: this is the act of cooking vegetables at high temperature without covering. the key is to keep the contents of your pan constantly moving, so the high temperature does not have the opportunity to burn/stick your food to the pan. so STIR your FRYing veggies!

Sweating: Cooking aromatics in oil at a high temperature, to release flavor and prepare aromatic veggies for incorporation into the rest of the dish. This is found primarily with onions and garlic. you always start by putting your oil in the pan, then cook your onions/garlic for a short time to tender them and get all those great flavors flowing.

Aromatics? This term refers to veggies that add flavor to a dish by releasing their strong oils by cooking. onions and garlic are classic aromatics.

 

[theages]

Blanch: To plunge food (usually vegetables and fruits) into boiling water briefly, then into ice water to stop the cooking process. Blanching is used to firm the flesh, to loosen skins (as with peaches and tomatoes) and to heighten and set color and flavor.

 

[philso]

Goodweed of the North,

this is a good idea, but i think to make it actually easily useful, you might try to ask around on the board and see if there is a tech weenie (not used in a perjorative sense) that could advise as to how to get all the terms grouped together alphabetically. otherwise, people will either have to view each page looking for the term they want or, if they do a search, sift through a bunch of other posts.

maybe people could reply with quote or copy the original post into their reply and insert their new term in the correct place or something.

sorry i don't have any real advice; i'm rather computer challenged myself!

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Calling all tech wizards! Setting up a sort routine to put the above, and any future posts on this thread in alphabetical order is a great idea. Can it be done? 2nd question; with all of the alphabetized info already available on the WWW for those who are willing to search, is it worth the effort?

My basic cooking tip for today: When making quickbreads, that is, any batter based bread or cake that uses baking powder, or baking soda and an acid to leaven the product, greater loft, or a lighter product can be obtained by seperating the egg used in the recipe, and beating the egg white into a marangue, then folding the marangue into the batter. Also, 3 tbs. of cooking fat, be it butter, oil, or whatever, will give a more moist end product than will lesser amounts of fat. When using all-purpose flour in quickbreads, beat only until the ingredients are combined as overmixing will develop the gluten in the flour, resulting in a tougher end product.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[Andy M.]

I just started reading this thread and see there is a lot of good information here. Thanks to all who have taken the time to create and post these great explanations.

I do feel we have an obligation to ensure the information we provide here is as accurate as we can make it. We should not be publishing erroneous information under the guise of fact.

Also, we should all use SPELL CHECKER.

In reading over the definitions posted to date, I have encountered a few I don’t feel are completely accurate. Here they are with my version following:


Kabob - a method of grilling where the food is cut into bite-sized chunks and skewered, seasoned, and cooked over open flame.

A kabob or kebab (there are a number of spelling variations) is not a method of grilling but a piece of food that is cooked, usually on a skewer.


Grilling: …Also flavors imparted from the cooking process, such as charcoal or smoked woods go into the meat.

Smoked woods or charcoal are not a necessary part of grilling. Perhaps desirable to some, but not a requirement of the definition.

Broiling: …You'll get all the benefits of the Maillard reaction, but the taste won't reflect that of grilling...meaning no good smokey eats from charcoal and wood additives. Although if you grill with propane, you're essentially broiling already, but with a bottom heat source. :P

…and if you broil with natural gas or electric heating elements, you are already grilling but with a top heat source. :P

Definitions should not include opinion, even tongue in cheek.

Scientific evidence shows that the grilled flavor of meats is the result of meat juices vaporizing on the hot surfaces of the coals or lava rocks in the grill rather than from the charcoal or wood coals used as the heat source. Also refer to Goodweed’s definition of GRILLED FLAVOR.

Slowly cooking foods in a smoker where smoking wood products provide significant flavor are in a different category.

Sweating: Cooking aromatics in oil at a high temperature, to release flavor and prepare aromatic veggies for incorporation into the rest of the dish. This is found primarily with onions and garlic. You always start by putting your oil in the pan, then cook your onions/garlic for a short time to tender them and get all those great flavors flowing.

The primary difference in sweating aromatics as opposed to sautéing aromatics is that sweating should be done over lower heat so no color is imparted to the aromatics. Successfully sweated aromatics should not be browned. Sautéed aromatics should have some browning.

The fat used does not have to be oil.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Andy; you are indispensible around here. Do you know that?

However, that being said, I'm not sure that we aren't both a bit correct with Kabob, or Kebob. From Miriam-Webster Dictionary, I found the following, and I quote: "
Main Entry: ke·bab
Variant(s): or ke·bob also ka·bob \kə-ˈbäb also ˈkā-ˌ\
Function: noun
Etymology: ultimately from Arabic or Persian kabāb, from Turkish kebap
Date: 1673
: cubes of meat (as lamb or beef) marinated and cooked with vegetables usually on a skewer


A kabob or kebab (there are a number of spelling variations) is not a method of grilling but a piece of food that is cooked, usually on a skewer.

I was going to try to argue the point. However, after comparing my original definition, and your explanation to Webster's, I believe you are the more correct, as Kebob is a noun rather than a verb. And so, again my freind, I bow my hat to you.

Thanks for the corrections.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[spork]

clearly, this project is a wiki app
which i think is open source

a DC wiki on basic cooking terms, open to edit by members, is a great idea!

 

[philso]

wiki app? open source?

ok. i've looked things up on wiki, but never added anything.

so, i thinking i'd look up how to do it, i googled "culinary terminology". it turns out that there are tons of cooking dictionaries out there already. here are a few:

Cooking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Category:Cooking techniques - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linda's Culinary Dictionary Index, Food Dictionary, Food Glossary, Culinary Glossary, A Dictionary and History of Cooking, Food, and Beverage Terms

abalone Definition in the Food Dictionary at Epicurious.com

Culinary Dictionaries and Glossaries

Home Cooking Glossary of Cooking and Food Recipes from A to Z

Food Lorists: Culinary Terminology

Cooks Recipes | Cooking Dictionary: Culinary Terms From A to Z


well, you get the picture. i'm willing to help some, but i think we'll need to think of how to make a better, easier-to-use product.

1 thing i noticed with most sites is that they are laden with ads which take a long time to load and then you have to go to the letter of the alphabet, that has to load, etc., etc.

i like the layout of the wiki where all the terms are laid out for you to see at a glance. maybe we could attempt something like that!?

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

All Wikki aside, back to the business of giving information;

Cure - alters the texture and flavor of raw meat through the addition of salt, herbs and spices, sugar, water, and sometimes living microbial cultures.

There are two curing techniques of which I'm aware - wet cure and dry cure.

Wet curing is done with bacon, ham and similar products. The raw meat is injected or soaked in a flavored solution that infuses salt, sugar, and smoke flavoring into the meat. The meat is then stored under temperature and moisture controlled conditions for a specified period of time before it is either sold to be cooked, or further processed by the maker. American bacon is cured and sold uncooked. Ham is wet cured, then cooked or smoked before selling to the public.


Dry Cure is a method where the meat is ground, and mixed with a bacterial culture, sugar, salt, sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate, and various hebs and spices, then usually filled into a casing, and allowed to ferment, or cure in a temperature and humidity controlled environment. Hard salami, pepperoni, and soprasetta are three examples of dry cured sausages. The bacterial cultures consume the sugars in the sausage and give off acids that chemically "cook" the meat and fats. The acid also becomes strong enough to inhibit the growth of harmful orgnizms in the meat. The sodium nitrates and nitrites are used to prevent the growth of the bacterial agent that produces botulism. Herbs and spices are used for flavoring. Hard salamis have a mold culture applied to the casing to prprotect the sausage from other oranizms that might be harmful. It is harmless and is washed away before the salami is sold.

Both of these techniques should be left to the experts as when done improperly, can be very dangerous. Feel free owever to use the wet cure technique to make your own bacon, or hams, as these meats are cooked to destroy nasty critters. Also, if the term - cotto - is in the sausage name, it is a cooked sausage, i.e. cotto salami.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North