Glossary
Every term used in the guide, in one place. Skim it once; come back when a word stops making sense.
- Aromatics
- Flavor-building ingredients — onion, garlic, ginger, celery, carrot, herbs, spices — cooked in fat early to form the base of a dish.
- Blanch
- Briefly boil (then often shock in ice water) to par-cook, set color, or loosen skins.
- Braise
- A combination method: sear in dry heat for flavor, then cook low and slow partly submerged in liquid to melt tough connective tissue into tenderness.
- Brine
- Salt dissolved in water (a wet brine, ~3–6%) that food soaks in to season it through and help it hold moisture. A dry brine is salt rubbed on and left to rest — same effect, no dilution.
- Broken (emulsion)
- An emulsion that has separated back into distinct fat and water — greasy and split rather than creamy. Usually fixable by rebuilding slowly with fresh emulsifier or water.
- Carryover cooking
- The continued rise in a food's internal temperature after it leaves the heat, as warmth from the outer layers travels inward. Pull food a few degrees early to account for it.
- Caramelization
- The browning of sugars by heat alone (no protein needed), starting around 160–170 °C, producing sweet, nutty, toffee-like flavors.
- Conduction
- Heat transfer by direct contact — food against a hot pan. Intense, but only reaches surfaces actually touching the heat.
- Convection
- Heat transfer by a moving fluid — hot air in an oven, bubbling water, swirling oil. Surrounds food on all sides.
- Deglaze
- To add liquid to a hot pan and scrape up the browned fond, dissolving that flavor into the makings of a sauce.
- Doneness
- How thoroughly food is cooked, best measured by internal temperature (e.g. ~55 °C for medium-rare beef) rather than time or color.
- Dry heat
- Methods with no water at the surface — searing, roasting, grilling, frying — that let the surface exceed 100 °C and therefore brown.
- Emulsion
- A stable mixture of two liquids that don't normally combine (fat and water), achieved by breaking one into tiny droplets dispersed through the other. Vinaigrette, mayonnaise, pan sauce.
- Emulsifier
- A molecule that bridges fat and water, coating droplets so they can't recombine. Egg yolk (lecithin) and mustard are common examples.
- Fond
- The browned bits left stuck to the pan after searing — concentrated, savory flavor, and the starting point for a pan sauce.
- Maillard reaction
- The browning reaction between amino acids and sugars under heat (~140–165 °C+), producing hundreds of savory, roasted, toasty aroma compounds. The crust on seared meat and toast.
- Mise en place
- "Everything in its place" — having all ingredients prepped, measured and within reach before you start cooking.
- Moist heat
- Methods using water or steam — boiling, steaming, poaching, braising — capped near 100 °C. Gentle and tenderizing, but cannot brown.
- Monter au beurre
- Finishing a sauce by whisking in cold butter off the heat, emulsifying it for gloss and body.
- Poach
- Cook gently in liquid held well below a boil (~60–85 °C), for delicate foods like eggs and fish.
- Radiation
- Heat transfer as infrared waves across a gap, no contact needed — a grill, broiler or open flame. Browns facing surfaces quickly.
- Render
- To gently melt solid fat (e.g. from bacon or duck skin) out of food by heating it, leaving the rest crisp and releasing usable fat.
- Rest
- Letting cooked meat sit before cutting, so carryover evens out the temperature and juices settle back into the meat.
- Sauté
- To cook quickly in a little fat over fairly high heat, with some browning. (From the French for "jump" — tossing the pan.)
- Sear
- To brown a surface hard and fast in intense dry heat, building crust and flavor.
- Smoke point
- The temperature at which a fat starts to smoke and break down. Match the fat to the heat — sturdy oils for searing, delicate ones for low heat and dressings.
- Sweat
- To cook aromatics gently in fat over low-to-medium heat without browning, drawing out sweetness and softening them for a clean-tasting base.
- Umami
- The fifth basic taste — deep savoriness, the "meaty" moreish quality of aged cheese, soy, mushrooms, tomato, stock and seared meat.