Cheat sheet: Food
{
Date Posted:
August-4-2010 17:29
0
}
Think Masterchef has taught you everything you need to know? Think again.
Essential terminology
Julienne: Cutting your vegetables into thin strips (1-2mm thick, 20-50mm long). Perfect for soups and fresh pasta sauce.
Sauté: Cooking ingredients with little fat, all at once, on high heat for a short time.
Haute cuisine: A dining experience with numerous, sophisticated courses.
Ceviche: Pronounced "sevich-hey", this is a way to cook seafood without heat: the acidic citrus ingredients gradually cook your food.
Microplane: A 30cm wand that can grate citrus peel, nutmeg, chocolate, nuts, parmesan, ginger or garlic.
Jamón ibérico: Quite simply, the best cured pork in the world.
Sous vide: A style of cooking that involves cooking meat in a bag under water. Very fashionable right now.
When in doubt, just say...
"Entertain" guests at your next dinner party with these juicy factoids.
All the trimmings
"Turducken? Whatever. Bedouins do a roast camel at weddings. It’s a camel stuffed with a sheep’s carcass, which is stuffed with chickens, which are stuffed with fish, which are stuffed with eggs. The whole thing is roasted. I tried some when I was doing volunteer work in Jordan. True story."
Banging food
"Woah, be careful with that jar of peanut butter, dude! Did you know peanut oil can be processed to produce glycerol, which can then be used to make nitroglycerin, one of the constituents of dynamite? True story."
Half-baked theory
"Mmm, this sourdough bread is delicious. The yeast that makes sourdough can, in fact, live indefinitely. The best sourdough yeasts are passed between generations and still make bread today, giving it character and flavour. This yeast culture is probably older than you! True story."
Know the basics of the main types of cuisine...