aromatics: Fragrant vegetables used to flavor stocks, soups and such.
Celery, onion, shallots, carrots, and parsnips are the most widely used.
braise: To cook with much liquid, slowly and usually for a long time.
brown, browning: Cooking in a skillet or sautée pan with a minimal amount of fat, using moderately high heat, so that
the food being cooked actually turns brown on its surface. It is important to continue until this brown color
is achieved: it is the visual evidence that flavor has been greatly improved.
cutting in: When making pie crust you must mix butter or shortening with flour. This is done by putting the flour into a bowl,
then the shortening, and then cutting the shortening into smaller and smaller bits with 2 table knives until the shortening
and flour are well mixed. The motion of the knives are opposed to one another much like the action of a pair
of scissors. This is called cutting in. A pastry cutter can be used instead of knives and is faster.
Here are pictures of before and after:
deglaze: To loosen and dissolve the residue left in a pan after sautéing so that this residue, or fond, can be
transferred to another vessel. This is done by pouring off any remaining fat, adding water, stock or wine and then
scraping and stirring until the fond is freed. Here is a relevant Wikipedia article.
film: When you read "film a sautée pan with oil and..." that means put enough oil in it so that its entire bottom is covered with oil.
I suppose using the word film makes cooks feel as though they aren't really using much fat, but it is a rather counterintuitive
term as one can't coat the bottom of a pan with a film; the oil will pool together leaving some areas bare.
fish frames: These are what is left after filleting a fish: bones and some of the flesh and the head (provided that you started with one).
fond: Used by the French as we use the term stock, and used often in the US to indicate the browned residue in the pan after a sautée,
The French term for this is sucs. Here is a relevant Wikipedia article.
gratin, gratinée: A gratin is a browned crust, usually of crumbs and cheese, topping a dish. Such a dish may itself
be called a gratin, as may the ingredients the crust was prepared from. Gratinée then means "made with a crusty browned topping."
plate: Used as a verb, "plate the cutlet", et cetera just means put it on a plate.
prove, proof: to let a sponge develop which proves the yeast is active.
punch down: is the expression used to describe the deflation of risen dough before shaping or baking the dough or letting it
rise again. I usually do this with a soft fist so I suppose I am really punching the dough. When the dough is deflated
I always reshape the dough for the next step.
reduce, reduction: Reducing means boiling off water so that the volume of a stock or other liquid is lessened.
Obviously, the concentration of flavor and salt will be increased. When a mixture has been reduced it may be called a reduction.
roux: a thickener or binder used in the preparation of sauces, made from fat, usually butter, and flour.
sauté, sautéeing: Cooking food in a small amount of butter or oil (see film) over high heat so that it browns as it cooks.
This is a very common and useful method. It is done in a sautée pan or a skillet and differs from frying in
the amount of fat used. Frying uses much more: the food is immersed at least halfway in the fat when frying.
simmer: The state that just precedes boiling, where a liquid quivers at the boiling point and only rarely do bubbles form at the
heated surface and rise.
sponge: in breadmaking, the initial mixture of yeast, water and flour, usually pretty runny.
sweat, sweating: A method of cooking, usually with vegetables. It is much like sautéeing but using lower heat.
The idea is to slowly drive off moisture without browning what is being sweated. I sometimes like to do moist sweating.
Easy to do, one simply covers a sweat with a glass lid and uses a bit higher heat. The water cooking out of the vegetables is condensed by the pan lid
and drips back onto them so that they stay very moist as they cook in oil. The advantages of moist sweating are that the
food cooks more rapidly and it is much less likely to be scorched. However, food staying so moist will not brown or caramelize
and may contain more water than is wanted. This is easily dealt with by removing the cover when the vegetables are almost
done and carefully finishing them as the water is driven off.
zest: the colored outer layer of the skin of a citrus fruit.
