List of cooking techniques

Cooking techniques

A

• Acidulate – to use an acid to prevent browning, alter flavour, or make an item safe for canning
• Al dente – to cook food to the point where it is tender but not mushy
• Amandine – a culinary term indicating a garnish of almonds. Dishes of this sort are usually cooked with butter and seasonings, then sprinkled with whole or flaked, toasted almonds.
• Amylolytic process – used in the brewing of alcohol from grains
• Anti-griddle – a kitchen appliance that flash freezes or semi-freezes foods placed on its chilled metal top.
• Aspic – food set in gelatin and shaped in a mold
• Au gratin – topping a dish with breadcrumbs or cheese then browning under a broiler
• Au jus – meat or sandwiches served with an unthickened sauce made from roast meat drippings
• Au poivre – a food item that is crusted with ground black pepper prior to cooking

  B

• Backwoods cooking – a method of cooking without the use of utensils that commonly takes place in the backwoods, often in combination with wild or conventional camping
• Baghaar – a cooking technique used in Pakistani cuisine and Indian cuisine in which cooking oil is heated and spices are added to fry. The oil is then added to a dish for flavoring.
• Bain-marie - a method of cooking where a container of food is placed in or above boiling water in order to heat gradually or to keep warm
• Baking
• Barding - wrapping meat in fat during roasting
• Barbecuing - slow cooking meat or fish with indirect heat and smoke.
• Baste - to periodically pour liquid over food as it roasts
• Blanching – a food, usually a vegetable or fruit, is scalded in boiling water, removed after a brief, timed interval, and finally plunged into iced water or placed under cold running water to halt the cooking process.
• Boiling
• Braising – a combination-cooking method that uses both wet and dry heats: typically, the food is first seared at a high temperature, then finished in a covered pot at a lower temperature while sitting in some amount of liquid.
• Bricolage - the preparation of a meal from whatever ingredients happen to be on hand.
• Brine - to soak food in salted water
• Broasting – a method of cooking chicken and other foods using a pressure fryer and condiments
• Browning – the process of partially cooking the surface of meat to help remove excessive fat and to give the meat a brown color crust and flavor through various browning reactions

  C

• Candy making – the preparation of candies and sugar confections made by dissolving sugar in water or milk to form a syrup, which is boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to caramelize
• Caramelization – the browning of sugar, a process used extensively in cooking for the resulting nutty flavor and brown color
• Carry over cooking – the phenomenon that food retains heat and continues to cook even after being removed from the source of heat.
• Casserole – food cooked and served in a casserole dish
• Charbroiling – a commonly used cooking device consisting of a series of grates or ribs that can be heated using a variety of means, and is used in both residential and commercial applications for a variety of cooking operations
• Cheesemaking – the craft of making cheese
• Chiffonade - To cut leaves into long thin strips
• Chinese cooking techniques – a set of methods and techniques traditionally used in Chinese cuisine. The cooking techniques can either be grouped into ones that use a single cooking method or a combination of wet and dry cooking methods.
• * Red cooking – also called Chinese stewing, red stewing, red braising and flavour potting, is a slow braising Chinese cooking technique that imparts a red color to the prepared food.
• * Velveting - coating pieces of raw meat or poultry in a mixture of cornstarch and liquid prior to cooking
• Clay pot cooking – a process of cooking food in a pot made from unglazed & natural clay
• Coddling – heating food in water kept just below the boiling point. Coddled egg may be prepared using this method.
• Concasse – to rough chop any ingredient, usually vegetables. This term is particularly applied to tomatoes, where tomato concasse is a tomato that has been peeled, seeded, and chopped to specified dimensions
• Conche – a surface scraping mixer and agitator that evenly distributes cocoa butter within chocolate, and may act as a 'polisher' of the s
• Confit – a generic term for various kinds of food that have been cooked in grease, oil or sugar water
• Cooking with alcohol – many dishes incorporate alcoholic beverages into the food itself
• Creaming – refers to several different culinary processes in baking, cooking and milk production
• * to combine ingredients into a smooth paste
• * to cook meat or vegetables in a thick dairy-based sauce
• * to mix puréed corn kernels with whole corn kernels
• * the butterfat-heavy portion of whole milk that, due to its fat content, separates from the milk and rises to the top
• Croquette - a small roll made of finely chopped meat and / or vegetables that is breaded and fried
• Culinary triangle – a concept described by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss involving three types of cooking; these are boiling, roasting, and smoking, usually done to meat.
• Curdling – the breaking of an emulsion or colloid into large parts of different composition through the physico-chemical processes of flocculation, creaming, and coalescence. Curdling is intentional and desirable in making cheese and tofu; unintentional and undesirable in making sauces and custards.
• Cured fish - fish preserved by fermentation, pickling, smoking, or some combination of these techniques
• Curing – various food preservation and flavoring processes of foods such as meat, fish and vegetables, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, nitrite, or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring, or cooking. The use of food dehydration was the earliest form of food curing.

  D

• Deep frying - to cook by submerging food in hot fat or oil
• Deglazing
• Degreasing
• Dough sheeting – used by bakeries and rolls out dough into a dough sheet with a desired even dough thickness prior to baking
• Dredging - to coat the exterior of food with a dry material prior to cooking
• Dry roasting
• Drying – to preserve food by removing moisture, either by use of a modern food dehydrator or by the traditional method of allowing sun and wind to evaporate moisture
• Dum pukht – or slow oven cooking, is a cooking technique associated with the Awadh region of India, in which meat and vegetables are cooked over a very low flame, generally in sealed containers.
• Dutch oven cooking – A Dutch oven is well suited for long, slow cooking, such as in making roasts, stews, and casseroles. Virtually any recipe that can be cooked in a conventional oven can be cooked in a Dutch oven. They are often used in outdoor cooking, such as when camping.

  E

• Earth oven – one of the most simple and long-used cooking structures. At its simplest, it is a pit in the ground used to trap heat and bake, smoke, or steam food.
• Egg wash – usually beaten eggs sometimes mixed with another liquid, usually water or milk, which is brushed onto the surface of a pastry before baking
• Emulsify - to combine two liquids that have a natural tendency to separate into one homogeneous mass
• En papillote – food is put into a folded pouch or parcel and then baked
• En vessie – a cooking method in which a meat or other dish is cooked in a bladder
• Engastration – a method of cooking in which the cook stuffs the remains of one animal into another animal
• Engine Cooking – cooking food from the excess heat of an internal combustion engine, typically the engine of a car or a truck
• Escagraph - writing made out of food

  F

• Fermentation
• Fillet - to remove bones from meat or fish
• Flambé - to pour alcohol over food and then ignite
• Flattop grill
• Foam
• Food preservation
• * Canning – involves the cooking of foods in sealed cans, among other processes
• * Curing
• * Home canning
• Fondue
• Fricassee
• Frost - to apply icing to the exterior of baked goods
• Fruit preserves
• Frying - to cook food in oil
• *Chicken Frying – battering and pan-frying a piece of beefsteak

  G

• Garnish - to add a decorative element to a plate of food prior to serving
• Gentle frying
• Glazing
• Gratin
• Grilling

  H

• Hāngi – a traditional New Zealand Māori method of cooking food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven still used for special occasions.
• Hibachi
• High-altitude cooking
• Homogenization
• Hot salt frying
• Huff paste

  I

• Indirect grilling
• Infusion – the process of extracting chemical compounds or flavors from plant material in a solvent such as water, oil or alcohol, by allowing the material to remain suspended in the solvent over time. A common example of an infusion is tea, and many herbal teas are prepared in the same way.

  J

• Jugging – is the process of stewing whole animals, mainly game or fish, for an extended period in a tightly covered container such as a casserole or an earthenware jug.
• Juicing
• Julienning - to cut food into long thin strips

  K

• Kalua – a traditional Hawaiian cooking method that utilizes an imu, a type of underground oven
• Karaage – a Japanese cooking technique in which various foods — most often chicken, but also other meat and fish — are deep fried in oil, similar to the preparation of tempura.
• Kho – a cooking technique in Vietnamese cuisine in which a protein source such as fish, shrimp, poultry, pork, beef, or fried tofu is braised on low heat in a mixture of fish sauce, sugar, and water or a water substitute such as young coconut juice. It's similar to stew.
• Kinpira – a Japanese cooking style that can be summarized as a technique of "sauté and simmer". It is commonly used to cook root vegetables and other foods.

  L

• Larding - to thread strips of chilled pork fat through a roast
• Liquid nitrogen can be used for flash freezing and shattering
• Low-temperature cooking

  M

• Maceration
• Marination
• Meat cooking techniques
• Microwave cooking
• Mincing
• Mongolian barbecue
• Mother sauces - in French cooking, the five "fundamental" sauces as defined by Auguste Escoffier

  N

• Nappage
• Nixtamalization – a process for the preparation of maize, or other grain, in which the grain is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater, and hulled.

  O

• Once-a-month cooking – Preparing and cooking all the meals you need for an entire month in a single day.
• Outdoor cooking – Involves techniques and specialized equipment for preparing food in outdoors environments. Equipment used includes mess kits and portable stoves, among others.

  P

• Pan frying – characterized by the use of minimal cooking oil or fat ; typically using just enough oil to lubricate the pan
• Parbaking
• Parboiling
• Pascalization
• Paste
• Pasteurization
• * Flash pasteurization
• * Pasteurized eggs
• Pellicle – a skin or coating of proteins on the surface of meat, fish or poultry, which allow smoke to better adhere the surface of the meat during the smoking process
• Pickling
• Pig roast
• Poaching
• Pre-ferment
• Pressure cooking – the process of cooking food, using water or other cooking liquid, in a sealed vessel—known as a pressure cooker, which does not permit air or liquids to escape below a pre-set pressure.
• Pressure frying
• Proofing
• Pulling
• Purée

  R

• Reconstitution - the process of assembling a palatable food product from processed sources
• Reduction
• Rendering
• Ricing
• Rillettes
• Roasting
• Robatayaki
• Rotisserie, also known as spit-roasting
• Roux -equal quantities of flour and fat cooked together to a sandy texture used to make a thickening agent

  S

• Sautéing
• Score - to cut shallow grooves, often in a diamond pattern, into a cut of meat
• Schwenker
• Searing – a technique used in grilling, baking, braising, roasting, sautéing, etc., in which the surface of the food is cooked at high temperature until a crust forms from browning.
• Seasoning
• Separating eggs
• Shallow frying
• Shirred eggs
• Shrivelling
• - to remove the outer casing of a food item, such as an ear of corn or the shell of an oyster
• Simmering
• Skimming
• Slow cooker
• Smoking
• Smothering
• Souring
• Sous-vide
• * Thermal immersion circulator
• Spatchcock – poultry or game that has been prepared for roasting or grilling by removing the backbone, and sometimes the sternum of the bird and flattening it out before cooking.
• Spherification
• Steaming
• * Food steamer
• Steeping
• Stewing
• Stir frying
• Straight dough
• Stuffing – an edible food mixture, often a starch, used to fill a in another food item
• Sugar panning
• Supreme – has different meanings in cooking and culinary arts depending upon the food type
• Sweating – the gentle heating of vegetables in a little oil or butter, which usually results in tender, sometimes translucent, pieces
• Swissing
• Syringe – for injecting fillings in foods

  T

• Tandoor – a cylindrical clay or metal oven used in cooking and baking in Southern, Central and Western Asia, as well as in the Caucasus.
• Tataki
• Tempering - several meanings depending on the context:
• * Tempering, a method of increasing the shine and durability of chocolate couverture
• * Tempering — bringing meat to room temperature before cooking; or bringing food up to temperature slowly as in sous vide
• * Tempering – a cooking technique and garnish used in the cuisines of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, in which whole spices are fried briefly in oil or ghee to liberate essential oils from cells and thus enhance their flavours, before being poured, together with the oil, into a dish.
• Tenderizing – a process to break down collagens in meat to make it more palatable for consumption
• Teriyaki
• Thermal cooking – uses the concept of the haybox whereby placing hay or straw around a cooking pot of heated food the meal continues to cook without fuel.
• Thermization – a method of sterilizing raw milk with heat
• Thickening
• Transglutaminase – a protein binder, called meat glue
• Truss - to tie the legs and wings of poultry in a way that promotes even cooking
• Turbo cooking
• Turkey fryer

  V

• Vietnamese cooking techniques – Many common culinary terms exist that are unique to Vietnam

  W

• Whip
• Wok cooking – The wok is used in a significant amount of cooking methods.

  Z

• Zest - the colourful outer layer of citrus fruits, often scraped off and used as a flavouring ingredient