The Cooking Techniques Quiz

Common ingredients used to macerate fruit include juices, sugar, liquor and syrups. It changes the texture and taste of the food. Herbs can also be macerated.

Boiling is cooking food in boiling water or a water-based liquid such as milk or stock. You often cook potatoes this way if you'd like to mash them. You also boil pasta to cook it.

Roux (pronounced "roo") is a thickener for sauces and soups that combines equal parts flour and fat, usually butter. It's the most common way of thickening gravies and stews. In fact, it's often the base of lots of dishes.

You can definitely poach fish in white wine, although you'd want to poach eggs in water and most poultry in some type of stock. Poaching means to cook in liquid, but not fat, so it's generally a healthier way to prepare food.

This technique is called shocking. It immediately stops the cooking process. It is most often used after blanching something, which means the item is cooked very quickly in boiling water, and then shocked in an ice bath. This technique is used to remove the skins of tomatoes before canning them.

Sweating is to cook a food over gentle heat, covered or partly covered, until it releases liquid into the pan. This technique is often used when making a mirepoix. Steaming is to cook in steam by suspending foods in a covered pot over boiling water.

Parboiling is partially boiling food then finishing the cooking later. For instance, you might parboil potatoes before roasting them. In blanching, the food is cooked briefly in boiling water, then removed and plunged into ice water to stop the cooking process.

Confit, a specialty of Gascony, France, is derived from an ancient method of preserving meat (usually goose, duck or pork) in which the meat is salted and slowly cooked in its own rendered fat. However, it originally meant foods that were cooked and preserved in sugar and sugar syrup.

When sauteing, you need a small amount of oil or other fat in a skillet or saute pan. You then cook the food over high heat. This is a relatively quick method of cooking, and is normally used for things that have been cut into small or thin pieces.

Food is cooked directly below the primary heat source when it broiled. This is a quick method of cooking or finishing a dish. It can be used to brown and melt cheese on tuna melt sandwiches, for instance.

The temperature at which water boils is 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius.) This measurement only holds true at sea level. If you're boiling water at roughly 6500 feet in altitude, it actually boils at 200 degrees Fahrenheit, instead. This means that recipes made at sea level need to be adjusted for higher altitude cooking.

Combination cooking uses both dry and moist cooking techniques. Braising is an example of this combination method.

This is false. Searing does, however, give meat dishes added depth and flavor by caramelizing the surface of the meat. Surprisingly, meat loses more juice when it's seared first.

To bard a roast means to tie fat, such as bacon or fatback, around it to prevent it from drying out while it cooks. It is often used on lean meats.

Mirepoix is a combination of chopped carrots, celery and onions used to flavor stocks, sauces, soups and other foods. It's considered an 'aromatic.'

Braising is ideal for tough cuts of meat because the long, slow cooking develops flavor and tenderizes the food by gently breaking down its fibers.

These are essentially identical dry heat cooking methods. However, roasting generally refers to things that have a fixed structure (like vegetables or a chicken,) whereas baking typically refers to breads, pastries and other dishes where the structure of the initial product (dough, batter or custard) changes with heat.

The acid from the citrus juice penetrates the flesh, breaking down the proteins and giving the finished ceviche a texture similar to seafood cooked using heat. It is technically cured, not cooked.

A julienne, also known as a matchstick cut, is 1/8 inch by 1/8 inch by 2 inches. The technique is often used with carrots, celery and potatoes.

A sharp chef's knife is the best knife to dice carrots (and many other vegetables.) It's important to keep your knife sharp to minimize risk of injury; the more dull it is, the more force you use when cutting, the more likely you are to slip and cut yourself (with force.)

The depressions on a Granton blade help keep food, like raw potatoes, from sticking to the blade as you are slicing. It also makes cleaner cuts because of how it moves through food.

A steel is a long, thin, round rod made of high-carbon steel used to keep a fine edge on sharp knives. Cutting can bend the edge of knife, so the honing steel undoes some of the damage caused by regular use.

Brining is an age-old process that has recently regained popularity. The trick is the right balance of salt in the brine; too little and it won't do any good, too much and the food will taste salty.

To coat food with bread, crackers or other crumbs, the food is first dipped in flour, then in a liquid (beaten eggs, milk, beer, etc.,) and finally in the crumbs, which may be seasoned with salt, pepper and various herbs.

Because the milk solids that make butter burn are removed in clarified butter, it has a higher smoke point than regular butter. This means it can be used to cook foods at higher temperatures (with no risk of setting off your smoke alarm.)

French for "flamed" or "flaming," this dramatic food presentation is achieved when liquor is added to a food that is warmed and ignited just before serving.

The liquids remove the browned food bits from the bottom of the pan, which can be used to make a flavorful pan sauce or gravy. If you serve it without seasoning it more, it's called a "jus."

Meat can be cured in one of three ways: packing in salt, coating in sugar or smoking. All of these methods preserve perishable proteins like meat and impart different flavors. There are other ways of preserving meat, but they aren't considered "curing."

Al dente is Italian phrase meaning "to the tooth." It's used to describe pasta that is cooked only until it offers a slight resistance when bitten into, or is firm when you bite it.