The Culinary Dictionary

Most cooking is just controlling how hot, how wet, and how fast.

A braise is a large cut cooked in shallow liquid that comes about a third to halfway up it; a stew is small, uniform…

Braising is searing food, then cooking it low and slow in a little liquid in a covered pot until tough collagen melts into gelatin.

Caramelizing is browning sugar with heat alone — around 320°F (160°C) — breaking it into hundreds of nutty, bitter-sweet flavour compounds.

Before food meets heat it often needs a coat or a prep step — for crust, for protection, or just so it cooks evenly.

Curing is preserving meat by drawing out water and driving in salt — and usually a small, measured amount of nitrite — so microbes…

Deglazing is adding liquid to a hot pan to dissolve the fond — the browned bits stuck to the bottom after searing or roasting…

Doneness is how far food — usually meat — is cooked, judged by internal temperature, not time.

The last minute is where a dish is won or lost.

Folding is gently combining a light, airy mixture — whipped egg whites or cream — into a heavier one without knocking the air out.

Knife cuts are about uniformity, not neatness for its own sake: pieces the same size cook at the same rate.

Marinating is soaking food in a seasoned liquid before cooking — mostly for surface flavour, not deep tenderness.

Mixing is air management.

Reducing is simmering a liquid uncovered so water evaporates, concentrating its flavour, colour, and body into something thicker and deeper.

Resting is letting cooked meat sit off the heat before you cut it, so the muscle fibres relax and far less juice runs out…

Sautéing keeps small pieces moving over a thin film of fat to brown them lightly and fast; searing holds a larger, still piece against…

Sautéing is cooking small, evenly cut pieces quickly in a thin film of fat over fairly high heat, keeping them moving.

Searing is cooking the surface of food in a very hot, dry pan until it browns.

Simmering is cooking in liquid held just below the boil — around 185–205°F (85–96°C) — where small bubbles rise lazily instead of churning.

Stir-frying is cooking small, uniform pieces fast over very high heat with constant motion.

Stock is a savoury liquid made by simmering bones (and aromatics) for hours so collagen breaks down into gelatin, giving body.

Stock is simmered from bones; broth is simmered from meat.

Tenderizing is loosening the muscle structure of meat so it chews more easily — by force, by enzymes, or by chemistry.

Thickening is mostly starch granules swelling in heat — or gelatin and reduction doing the work instead.