The Ultimate Cooking Techniques Quiz

When you cook pasta "al dente," you boil it until it still has a slight resistance to the bite, or tooth. It's considered ideal for pasta, though some people prefer the completely soft noodle that British and American cooking favored for a long time.

In barbecue, you'll often have a "moppin'" sauce and a "soppin'" sauce. The first is applied to the meat while it's still over the fire. The second is applied after the meat is removed from the grill, or even put on the plate for dipping.

Grilling and barbecue are closely related -- both mean cooking food over an open flame. Usually, the food in question is meat. But where "grilling" crosses the line to "barbecue" is not something that's easily defined.

Basting means to spoon liquids over meat during the cooking process. Sometimes the liquid is the pan juice from directly underneath; other times, it's a sauce made on the side. Basting can be done with a special applicator with a squeeze bulb at the end to draw pan drippings into it. Fancy!

The most common liquid to get this treatment is heavy cream. When you add powdered sugar to cream and whip it vigorously, it becomes whipped cream. No, really -- it didn't always come out of a spray can!

You can whip liquids with a fork. But the bulbous shape and thin threads of a wire whisk get a maximum amount of air into the cream, which is what gives it its lift and fluffiness.

A ricer is a press that's used to puree or nearly liquefy foods that have been boiled until they are very soft. Potatoes are a common choice.

Batter is a liquid (or at least, a fluid) but with enough flour in it that it will eventually become a solid. Other pastries start as a solid raw material, called dough.

You're probably familiar with the kitchen tool called an "eggbeater." When an electric eggbeater is on its highest speeds, it's no longer beating, but whipping.

When people "blanch," it means their faces go a bit pale with shock or disgust. When vegetables (it's almost always vegetables) are blanched, they can lose a bit of color, hence the name.

In broiling, you put meat under, not over, a high heat source. In this case, the heat source is in the oven, though. Like grilling, broiling will cook the food through, given enough time, but can burn the surface if you're not careful.

This is a common myth about the cooking of meat. Searing might make a pleasantly crisp exterior, but it won't keep all the juices in. If you look closely, you can see that some moisture is still escaping.

The sugar doesn't have to be refined or added sugar. For example, onions caramelize beautifully. The natural sugars inside turn gradually brown and sweet with low-heat cooking.

To "bone" something is actually to "de-bone" it. With salmon, the tiny pinbones can easily be removed with the same kind of tweezers you'd use to pluck your eyebrows. Just be sure they're dedicated for kitchen use, not doing double duty.

Clarifying is the process of heating a semi-fluid until its solids separate from the liquids. The solids are then skimmed off and the liquid allowed to cool. In butter, this leaves a clear, pure product Indians call "ghee."

Cured meats are the kind that can be sold and stored at room temperature, like salami. However, some of the preservatives now used in curing don't get high marks from health advocates, who say they should be eaten sparingly.

Fun fact: It was Julia Child who was credited with popularizing exact measurements in recipes. Before the 20th century, many recipes called for "a pinch" or "a dash" of something, and even terms like "a cup" weren't agreed on in terms of volume. That's changed now, but the "pinch" survives, being a relatively agreed-on amount.

To dice properly, use a large chop knife and rest the flat of your hand on the upper, blunt side. Then use brisk back-and-forth motions, followed by sideways motions, to get the desired effect.

Fun fact: Fiction writers have had some fun using this term metaphorically. In "Red Dragon," Thomas Harris describes Francis Dolarhyde's old-fashioned grandmother as "dredged in face powder," an indelible visual.

"Trussing" or "lacing" is a technique done when meats are stuffed. This most commonly happens to poultry -- think of a Thanksgiving turkey -- but can be done with other meats, on occasion.

Most often, meats are stewed, meaning that they're simmered for a long time, to make them tender. Nowadays, you'll see vegetarian stews in cookbooks, but this has more to do with the heartiness of the end product. They don't usually require lengthy simmering.

Curries are common to the Eastern equatorial countries like India and North Africa. But there's a tradition of "jungle curry," which has the seasonings of a curry, but in a thinner broth.

Meats turn brown via the Maillard reaction, which changes the amino acids inside, as caramelization does with sugars. The 212-degree heat of boiling water isn't adequate to cause this, which is why boiled or steamed foods stay pale.

There are several reasons a cook might do this. It can allow marinade to enter a meat, release juices, or simply add to a dish's attractiveness.

A lattice crust is one in which strips of crust go across the pie, at right angles to each other. It's pretty, and also allows for plenty of ventilation.

Sauteing (or "sauteeing") is a French word for frying with minimal oil. It tends to be healthier, for that reason. Nowadays, many people will only call the foods they fry "sauteed," no matter how much oil or butter they used. It sounds better!

Many fats are a solid at room temperature, The application of heat makes them slowly liquefy, and then they can be either drained off or used in a sauce.

This is more commonly called "brine." It can have other flavoring ingredients, but the important one is salt, which has a preservative quality.

To pare something is to remove its outer layer -- peeling, essentially. Paring knives can be used for other small cutting jobs, but that's what the name means, at least.

A rub is a mixture of salt and seasoning that is rubbed (hence the name) over the surface of meat. The flavor then sinks in, just as it does with a liquid marinade.

The most common vegetable to be julienned is the potato. Of course, we don't call this "julienned fried potatoes." We just call them "French fries."

To flambe something is to drench it in alcohol and set it alight. It's very impressive done at tableside, as if often the case with desserts like Bananas Foster.

Both cooking methods refer to cooking meat slowly in a closed contained in an oven. "Braise" is more common nowadays, but the latter term survives in the name "Chicken Fricassee."

Steeping is immersing a substance in hot water, to draw out its flavor and (sometimes) psychoactive subtances. It's done with coffee and tea, but not food. The similar process in food is called "infusing."

When you're learning to roast large cuts of meat, you have to learn to account for this. A pork loin cooked entirely through in the oven might be overcooked by the time it's sliced, because of carryover.