Glossary Terms

Cooking comes with its own language: techniques, tools, and ingredients that can feel confusing until you’ve tried them yourself. This glossary is designed to make those terms easy to understand: each entry breaks down what it means, how it’s used, and why it matters in the kitchen. Whether you’re new to cooking or refining your skills, you’ll find clear explanations that connect everyday practice to the science behind good food.

Aerate

To add or incorporate air into something. Usually applies to frostings and batters, but can also apply to some ingredients.
Against the grain

To cut food perpendicular to the direction the fibers are running. Applicable for proteins like, meat, poultry, fish.
Air Fry

A cooking method that involves super high temperatures and a powerful fan, that will circulate super heated air around food , so that it will cook and crisp up foods with very little oil. A healthier and efficinet way of crisping up food than deep frying.
Al dente

A term used to decribe the preferable texture of cooked pasta – Cooked, but firm to the bite. In Italian, it means “to the tooth”.
All-Purpose Flour

All-purpose flour is a versatile wheat flour milled to a medium protein level, usually around 10-12%. This protein content makes it suitable for both structure and tenderness in baked goods. It strikes a balance between bread flour’s strength and cake flour’s softness. Because of its adaptability, it’s the most commonly used flour in home baking.
(more…)
All-purpose flour (AP flour)

A versatile wheat flour with typically 10-12% gluten content (depending on brand and region) that can be used for a wide range of baking and cooking applications.
Amuse-bouche

Small, complimentary, typically single-bite dish served before a meal.
Au gratin

Baked dish topped with breadcrumbs and/or cheese mixed with butter, and browned under heat.
Au jus

A French culinary term that means serving “with juice”, referring to the natural juices secreted when meat is cooked.
Autolyse

A technique in bread baking where flour and water are mixed together and left to rest before adding other ingredients and kneading.
Bain-marie

Melting and/or mixing ingredients together, slowly and gently in a bowl that is kept over a pot of simmering water. Also known as double boiler or hot water bath.
Bake

When food is cooked in an oven. Also known as roasting, when it involves proteins or vegetables. Also see, Conventional baking and convection baking
Baking Powder

Baking powder is a chemical leavening agent composed of baking soda, an acid (usually cream of tartar), and a moisture-absorbing starch. It releases carbon dioxide when hydrated and heated, causing baked goods to rise. It’s considered “double-acting” because gas is released twice-once during mixing and once in the oven.
(more…)
Basting

The act of brushing, or spreading a liquid over food that is being baked / roasted or barbequed.
Batter

Pourable mixture of flour, liquid, and other ingredients (for cakes, pancakes etc.)
Beat

To mix two or more ingredients together intensely or quickly, usually with a whisk or stand mixer.