Aerate	To incorporate air to make ingredients lighter. Sifting flour is an example of the process. Whipped butter is another. Air is whipped in, thus making the butter lighter and increase in volume.
Aging	Keeping meats and a or cheese in a controlled environment for a specific amount of time in a controlled and ventilated atmosphere to permit natural flavoring and tenderizing.
Al dente	"To the tooth," in Italian. Pasta is cooked just to a firm and chewy texture.
Allemande	In French Cooking it means in the German style. Sauce Allemande is made from veal stock, cream, egg yolks and lemon juice.
Aromatics	Seasonings to enhance the flavor and aroma usually herbs and spices and some vegetables.
Aspic	A transparent meat flavored jelly/jello that is firm when cold. Used to flavor and add moisture to pate, charcutière and cold food preparations.
Au Jus	This is the natural pan drippings or juice that comes from a roasting pan after deglazing.
Bacteria	Microscopic organisms, some of which can cause sickness including food-borne infections. Others can be perfectly safe and help tenderize or even add flavor. The blue veining in cheese is an example of the "good" type.
Bake	To cook in the oven as baking a cake, but also may be used in meat cookery such as baked leg of lamb.
Baste	To brush or spoon liquid fat or juices over meat, fish poultry or vegetables during cooking to help keep moisture on the surface area.
Batter	A mixture of flour and liquid that is beaten or stirred in preparation of baking, i.e. cake batter.
Beat	Briskly whipping or stirring it with a spoon, fork, wire whisk, beater or mixer.
Beurre Noir	Heating salted butter until dark brown and foamy but not smoking. A type of butter sauce called black butter sauce.
Bias-slice	Slicing a food crosswise at a 45-degree angle.
Bind	To thickening a sauce or hot liquid by stirring in ingredients such as roux, flour, butter, cornstarch, egg yolks, vegetable puree or cream.
Bisque	A rich thick shellfish soup with cream.
Blackened	Cajun-style cooking method in which highly seasoned foods are dipped in liquid butter then cooked over high heat in a super-heated heavy skillet until charred.
Blanch	To partially cook vegetables by parboiling them in highly salted water then cooling quickly in ice water.
Blend	Mixing two or more ingredients together to obtain an equally distributed mixture.
Boil	To heat water or other liquids to 212 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 degrees Celsius and to keep it bubbling and shimmering in the pot.
Bouillabaisse	A Mediterranean fish soup made from several varieties of fish, tomatoes, saffron, fennel and wine.
Bouillon	Clear soup made from slow simmering lean meat, bones and seasonings and vegetables. Strained and served with the shredded cooked meat it was made from.
Bouquet Garni	A bundle of seasonings; bay leaf, thyme and parsley stems tied with leeks, carrot and celery stalk. It's used to season braised foods and stocks.
Braise	Meat browned in fat with vegetables, seasonings and then cooked slowly in liquid so it is partially submerged then cooked in an oven, this combines moist and dry heat cooking. Making a pot roast is an example.
Bread	To coat the food with bread crumbs. Standard method is to first dip in salted flour, then beaten egg and then bread crumbs. Items prepared like this are usually pan fried in oil or clarified butter until golden and crispy.
Broil	To cook food directly under a very hot 500 degree F. heat source.
Broth or stock	A liquid made by gently simmering meats, fish, or vegetables and/or their by-products, such as bones and trimming with herbs, in liquid, usually water. Broths usually have a higher proportion of meat to bones than stock.
Brown	A quick sautéing/searing done either at the beginning or end of meal preparation, often to enhance flavor, texture, or eye appeal.
Brush	To coat food with melted butter, glaze, or other liquid using a pastry brush.
Bundt pan	The name for a tube baking pan having fluted sides.
Buttercream	A frosting made from sugar, sweet butter, milk, egg yolks and flavoring. Confectioner's or powdered sugar is often used buy not required.
Butterfly	To cut food down the center without cutting all the way through to open and then spread it apart. Shrimp cut this way is popular. Meat may be butterflied when cooking it well done so it isn't burned during the process as if it remained thick.
Cake pan	Round baking pan with straight sides. It comes in 8", 9" and other sizes.
Calamari	Plural for squid in Italian.
Caramel	Brunt sugar used for sauces, coloring, flavoring and candy.
Caramelization	Natural sugars turn brown when exposed to direct heat over a flame, with or without the addition of some oil to aid the process. Onions when fried in butter over high heat causes them to turn brown and have a sweet toasted flavor. Carrots in a roasting pan turn golden with a roast chicken. This process and color change from raw to cooked is carmelization.
Caramelize	The process of cooking sugar until it begins to color. Also, while slowly cooking some vegetables e.g. onions, root vegetables, the natural sugars are released and the vegetables will caramelize in their own sugars, usually oil is used in the pan to help the process.
Chicory	A lettuce used for salad and sometimes called curly endive. Also added to coffee in the deep South.
Chiffon	Usually a pureed filling made light and fluffy with beaten egg whites, gelatin and or whipped cream. Lemon chiffon pie is one example.
Chiffonade	Lettuces, sorrel, basil leaves and other leafy vegetables cut into julienne strips.
Chinoise	A very fine conical wire mesh strainer.  Using a chinoise removes the small impurities from the liquid that is strained.  It is a must in any professional kitchen.
Chop	To cut into irregular pieces with no set size as a result. Chopping parsley is a good example.
Cilantro	Parsley like herb with a basil, mint and green onion flavor, popular in Chinese and Mexican/Latin cuisine
Clarify	A process of making a liquid clear by adding beaten egg whites, ground meat and tomato, then simmering slowly. The liquid is then strained and the result is consommé. Also---melting butter over medium heat so the milk solids settle to the bottom and impurities float to the top. The foamy top is discarded and pure golden liquid butter is ladled off into a clean container for other cooking uses.
Coat	Evenly covering food with flour, crumbs, herbs, oil or batter.
Coddle	To cook slowly and gently in a liquid just below the boiling point. Usually eggs are coddled when making traditional Caesar salad to help them absorb and emulsify evenly with the lemon juice and olive oil. Coddled eggs for breakfast a different than poached as they relatively soft but fully heated through.
Combine	The mixing of two or more ingredients into a single mixture.
Confit	Slowly cook pieces of meat in their own gently rendered fat until very soft and tender. With seasonings, brandy/wine and sometimes vegetables. Duck and pork are two popular meats to be used in confit. When cooked and cooled the meat is keep submerged in its cooking fat as a preservative and as a seal against oxygen.
Concasse	Applying to raw or cooked tomatoes: Peeled, seeded and diced/chopped fine, raw; or then sautéed with minced onions in olive oil, cooked.
Core	To remove the inedible center of fruits such apples and pears.
Cream	To beat vegetable shortening, butter, or margarine, with or without sugar, until light and fluffy.
Crimp	To create a decorative edge on a piecrust, also seal the edges together.
Crisp	To restore the crunch to vegetables such as celery and lettuce. This can be done with an ice water bath. Stale crackers can be crisped in a medium oven. Also a type of a pan baked dessert made of cooked fruit with a crunchy flour and sugar topping. Apple or peach crisp are examples.
Croquettes	Chopped seasoned food held together by cream sauce, eggs, flour/breadcrumbs, shaped and then breaded with bread crumbs and deep fried. Crab cakes that are deep fried, not sautéed are really crab croquettes.
Crush	To reduce a food to small particles, usually using a mortar and pestle, rolling pin or bottom of a pot. To crush crackers you may place them in a double bag and roll a rolling pin over them.
Crystallize	To form sugar or honey syrups into crystals buy cooking it to hard crack and letting it cool on an oiled surface. The term also describes a sugar coating surrounding a fruit dipped in a egg white and granulated sugar mixture.
Cube	To cut in even pieces. May be 1/4 inch/ 1/2 inch or 1 inch. Sides must be of even size to be conceded cubed. This is a description used in dicing as an exact dice.
Curd	Custard-like pie or tart filling made with whole eggs, sugar,juice and zest of citrus the fruit, usually lemon. May also be the solidified nuggets of milk after citric acid has been added and rennet introduced. The curding process is an important stage in the cheese making process.
Curdle	Separation of a milk/cream based sauce or the cooking of eggs when over cooked. Sauces look like egg drop soup when curdled.
Cure	Marinating to preserve an ingredient with salt and/or sugar and spices. Preparing gravlax, marinated salmon, is an example of curing.
Custard	A mixture of beaten egg, egg yolks, milk, and other ingredients. Which is cooked with gentle heat, often in a water bath. A custard differs from a pudding in that it isn't stirred during the cooking process.
Cut in	Working butter or vegetable shortening, margarine, into dry ingredients for equal distribution. This is done with the help of a pastry blender and is an important procedure in making flaky pie crusts.
Dash	A measure approximately equal to 1/16 teaspoon, a pinch or less.
Deep-fry	To partially or completely submerge and cook food in hot oil until golden brown.
Deglaze	Adding liquid to a pan in which foods have been sautéed, fried or roasted to dissolve the caramelized juices stuck to the bottom of the pan.
Devil	To add hot or spicy ingredients such as cayenne pepper, mustard or Tabasco sauce to a food. Sauce Diable is a classic French sauce made with demi-glace and Dijon mustard.
Dice	To cut food into cubes. The cubes can be small, medium or large. Dicing is slightly less exact as cubing is but still should have uniformity.
Direct heat	A grilling method that allows food to be cooked directly over the high heat of a flame source.
Dot	To place small bits of an ingredient such as butter on foods at random intervals for the purpose of adding flavor and to aid in browning during cooking.
Double a recipe	To increase recipe amounts by two.
Dough	A combination of ingredients usually including flour, water or milk, and, sometimes, a leavener, producing a pliable mixture for making baked goods.
Dredge	Completely coating in flour and shaking off the excess.
Drippings	Drippings are the liquids and bits of food left in the bottom of a roasting or frying pan after meat is cooked.
Drizzle	Pouring a liquid such as as melted butter, olive oil or other liquid in a slow trickle over food.
Dust	Sprinkling flour on a work surface to evenly coat it, or as with spices, sugar, or bread crumbs, light coating a food item.
Egg wash	A mixture of beaten eggs, yolks, whites, or both with milk or water. Used in the standard breading process of foods. May be used to coat baked goods to give them a shine when baked. Also may be used as a sealant of pieces of dough.
Emulsion	A mixture of oil and liquid in which tiny globules of one are suspended in the other. Stabilizers, such as egg or mustard may be used. Classic example is vinaigrette salad dressing.
Entrée	In the United States it refers to the main dish. In France it's a term that referrers to the first course of a meal, served after the soup and before the meat course.
Espresso	A strong dark coffee brewed under steam pressure. Popular in many European countries, it is the base for other coffee drinks such as Cappuccino
Filet	A boneless and skinless piece of meat cut away from the bone, usually fish.
Filet Mignon	A well trimmed center cut steak from the whole beef tenderloin.
Fillet	To remove the bones from fish or meat for cooking.
Filter	To remove impurities by passing through paper, cheesecloth or chinoise.
Firm-ball stage	The point where boiling syrup dropped in cold water forms a ball that is compact yet gives slightly to the touch. 243 degrees F.
Flambé	To ignite liquid that contains an alcoholic substance so that it flames.
Flan	Open tart filled with sweet or savory ingredients, i.e. a chocolate ganache flan. Second it is a Spanish dessert of baked custard covered with caramel.
Florentine	It is food garnished or cooked with spinach.
Flute	To create a decorative scalloped edge on a pie crust or pastry. Also mushrooms and vegetables are fluted to give them an attractive cut and rolled symmetric edging.
Fold	To gently combine and aerate two or more ingredients using a bottom-to-top or side-to-side motion with a spoon or spatula.
Fondue	A warm creamy dish made of cheese, eggs, wine, brandy and or other items. Served warm with toasted bread cubes, vegetables or stale bread cubes in which the bread is skewered and then dipped in the hot creamy mixture before eating it.
Fricassee	A stew in which usually poultry is cut up, fried in butter, and then simmered in a liquid with vegetables until done.
Frittata	A flat Italian style omelet that is baked and not folded.
Fritter	A deep fried sweet or savory food coated or mixed in a batter. Conch fritters are popular in South Florida as Corn Fritters are popular in the Southeastern United States.
Frizzle	To fry thin julienne of vegetables in hot oil until crisp and slightly curly.
Fry	To cook food in hot cooking oil, usually until a crisp brown crust forms.
Ganache	A chocolate filling or coating made with chocolate, egg yolks and heavy cream. Most often used as a filling for truffles and coating for cakes such as Boston Cream Pie.
Garnish	A decorative piece of an edible ingredient placed as a finishing touch to dishes or drinks. A simple rose made from a radish or sprig of parsley is a garnish.
Giblets	The gizzard or sand sack of poultry. It's popular to boil, skin, clean and dice these and then add them to turkey gravy for giblet gravy.
Glaze	A liquid that gives an item a shiny surface. To cover a food with a shiny liquid. Melted apricot jam is a popular glaze.
Gluten	Gluten is a wheat protein that gives yeast dough its characteristic elasticity and chewyness..
Grate	To shred food into fine pieces by rubbing it against a coarse surface. Grating cheese or lemon rind are 2 examples.
Gratin	Food mixed together then baked until cooked, set and golden brown. Cheese or egg yolks are often and important ingredient.
Gravy	A thick sauce made from pan drippings, other liquids and thickened with a starch such as a roux.
Grease	To coat a pan or skillet with a thin layer of oil.
Green Meat	Meat that has not had no aging to become tender and flavorful.
Grill	Cook directly over the heat source on metal racks or rods in the open air.
Grind	To mechanically cut a food into small pieces.
Halve a recipe	Reduce the amounts of a recipe by 50%.
Hard-ball stage