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Most people don’t know it, but the list of “techniques” you need to know to cook effectively is really quite short. Several techniques are really quite similar, and others are really obvious, so while we’ll mention everything, not everything will have a huge explanation of what it is. The more complex or esoteric processes we’ll cover in the next chapter.
- Bake. Cooking in an oven using dry heat. To have crispness in the food you bake, bake it uncovered. To retain moisture, bake things covered.
- Baste. Pretty simple – spooning liquid over the top of cooking food to keep it moist.
- Beat. This is different from stirring in that you use an implement like a whisk, and usually involves two or more ingredients that need to be mixed until the whole is a uniform texture.
- Blanch. Dropping food into boiling water for a very short time in order to preserve color, texture, and nutritive elements, or a technique to remove skin on vegetables, fruits, or nuts.
- Blend. Combining ingredients using a spoon, whisk, or similar tool until the mixture is smooth and uniform. This may also involve a blender or food processor.
- Boil. This should be pretty obvious. A rolling boil is when the liquid has become so hot that the bubbles form quickly.
- Braise. Cooking food (usually meat or veggies) by initially browning them in fat or oil, then adding some liquid to the pot, and cooking, covered, at a low temperature.
- Broil. Cooking directly under or above an extremely hot element.
- Brown. This is cooking quickly over high heat for a short time, so that the surface of the food turns brown.
- Caramelize. This means one of two things: melting sugar over low heat until it turns into a golden brown syrup, or a technique for cooking vegetables, especially onions, until golden brown. When onions are caramelized, they typically turn clear.
- Chop. Cutting a food into coarse, irregular pieces.
- Core. Technique by which the center of a fruit is removed. A core is much more stiff and generally contains seeds.
- Cut in. This is a technique to distribute solidified fats (such as shortening) into dry ingredients by crisscrossing two knives, using the side of a table fork, a wire whisk, or cutting with a pastry blender in a rolling motion. You “cut” the mixture until the pieces reach your desired size.
- Cube. Chopping food into squares ½ inch in size or larger.
- Dash. Less than ⅛th of a teaspoon of a particular ingredient.
- Deglaze. This is a process by which fats and bits of food that are stuck to a frying pan are removed using a small amount of liquid. Popular deglazing liquids include broths, stocks, wine, and strong liquors, like whiskey.
: Deglazing with alcohols is mildly dangerous. If you deglaze with alcohols, remove the pan from the heat first, pour the alcohol in, and then replace the pan on the burner. Stand back as you do so, because the pan will flare up. Singing off your eyebrows isn’t a fun thing. - Drizzle. This involves taking a sauce or topping of some sort and pouring thin lines of that sauce all over a particular food.
- Flake. This involves using the tines of a fork to break away small pieces of food, for example, cooked fish.
- Flute. This involves squeezing the edge of a pastry with your fingers to make a finished, ornamental-looking edge. The resulting pattern should look like a sine-wave, which is the typical shape for the edge of a pie crust.
- Fold. Folding a mixture involves taking a spatula and scooping along the bottom of the bowl, and “folding” the lower material over the top. Do this in quadrants – in other words, fold ¼ of the mixture, turn the bowl a quarter turn, repeat. Continue just until the mixture is blended. The purpose is to combine without loss of air.
- Grease, or Grease and Flour. Greasing a pan involves taking shortening and rubbing it along the surfaces of a baking pan to keep the food from sticking to the pan. Flouring it involves throwing a small amount of
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