Jargon

[fraggie]

Now i aint no chef, (believe me ) but i can see that a lot of u are using language like "use moderate heat"

moderate? moderate cud mean owt from the heat a radiator gives out to sommat u burn ureself on (as i frequently do)

can someone please help me (and possible other cooking novices ) by giving us some info on what it all means

ie: low temp : gas mark blah or blah deg c
medium temp : gas mark etc etc etc

also this fry - sautè - par-boil - simmer, malaky is just a bit over my head lol

Please Help!

[5lab]

yeah, also - wtf does 'piping hot' mean??

[Allen]

Hehehe, I used to be a chef (well, a ping chef) and we never cared about stuff like that. All we used to go by was if it was hot, it was done.

Or, obviously, if the microwave pinged it was done!

[Nick]

Ok... definitions...

Moderate = Medium to high, depending on how large your burner is.

Gas Marks are fairly obsolete now with most people having Celcius on their dials, but any half decent cookbook will have a conversion chart for this. As a general rule of thumb, roasts will be around Gas Mark 7-8, roasting small cuts of meat, eg. duck breats, will be 8-9 and 9 is for when you want full heat if you were making a Bombe (the ice cream type, that is).

Fry = cook in hot oil. Shallow fry is a small amount, 1cm depth in the pan, deep fry is so whatever you're cooking can be completely immersed in the oil.

Saute = French term for shallow frying. Usually done in a saute pan, which is like a frying pan but has straight sides to prevent splashing oil out of the pan.

Par-boil = To bring something to the boil in salted water, but remove and drain before it is cooked. Usually done with potatoes before roasting, but also prevalent in professional kitchen where the vegetable would be par-boiled and then held in a half cooked state to be finished off when needed for an order.

Simmer = To very gently heat the water until bubbles *just* break the surface. Used if cooking something very delicate, like poaching eggs or salmon. If you boiled it, the water moving around rapidly would break up the egg or piece of fish, so simmering is a gentler way of cooking.

Piping hot = Believe it or not, this harks back to the days when you could buy a ceramic 'whistle' to put in the top of a pie you were baking. It had a two-fold purpose of letting steam out of the pie as it cooked, thus preventing your pastry top from going soggy. Its other function was that when the pie was thoroughly hot, due to the opening in the whistle , the steam would come out at such a speed as to make it whistle, just like a kettle. That way, you knew your pie was cooked and hot all the way through. SO it means that something is very hot all the way through.

The easy way to test this last one is to get a knife and push it into whatever you are cooking at its thickest point. Leave the knife for a couple of seconds then pull it out and touch the flat of the blade to your bottom lip. It should feel very very hot. If not, whatever you are cooking is not ready yet and need longer.

[fraggie]

thanking you, if i hear any more bits n bobs of jargon ill put it to ya cheers

[Zak33]

Zest.....the finely grated rind of a lemon or orange. Only the coloured bit with as little of the white underneath as possible.

Poached....to cook in boiling "liquid" including fish poached in milk

Steak and Kidney PIE is roasted (hot oven) in shortcrust or flaky pastry.....

but..

Steak and Kidney PUDDING is in a suet pastry(thicker and moist) and boiled in a pastic pot in water......(i think its called suet, its all moist and lovely)

Causes more confusion than ANYTHING I have ever seen people order and then look disappointed about.

[directhex]

when zesting citrus fruit, make sure you buy UNWAXED fruit - otherwise you just get wax shavings in your zest!

[Nick]

Also, stop zesting when the pith starts to show, or your zest will be bitter.

[fraggie]

pith? ure takin it with all this jargon

[Nick]

bududu....ching!

[fraggie]

that was kinda a question aswell lol, whats the pith?

[Tumble]

the pith is the white bit underneath the yellow/orange/green skin of a citrus fruit...

[fraggie]

aha, maybe we shud have a stickied glossary of terms that can be added to as appropriate?

[Nick]

Hmm... I'll have looky into that one... nice idea.