My kitchen ABC
Have you come across any words in my recipes that you don't know? Chefs use special terms for many things. I will explain the most important ones for you here. Then you can learn not only to cook but also the "language of the kitchen"!
Bain-marie is a French term meaning water bath. There are many foods which enjoy taking a bath, however this doesn't mean that they have a wash. A bain-marie is used when heating a cream or something similar which should not be heated too much. Therefore, you should place the pot with the food in it into a larger pan which is filled with water. This is all heated together on the hob. The water in the large pan boils and heats the cream. Don't forget: stir, stir, stir,…
This is a type of greaseproof paper which can be placed on a baking tray. Then, whatever you are putting in the oven will not stick to the tray.
You should always be careful when you are cooking and even more so when you are handling anything hot or sharp. Take particular care when handling sharp knives or graters and when you are preparing something on the hob or in the oven.
You can do this if you want to make a sauce or soup; add an egg yoke or an egg/cream mixture to the liquid in the pot to make the whole thing nice and creamy.
This does NOT mean that you should play blind man's buff while cooking! It is when you place shortcrust pastry in a cake tin and fill it with dried peas, lentils or beans so that no bubbles appear during baking. Where does this funny-sounding name come from? ... I have no idea either!
Water boils at 100 °C; you can tell that it is boiling when it splutters and bubbles. When milk boils, it becomes frothy and rises in the pan – take care as this can often happen very quickly and there is a danger that the pan may overflow! And that doesn't smell very nice, I can tell you!
If you want to make a cream or mixture and butter is required, then you should remove the butter from the fridge about 1 hour before you want to start cooking as otherwise it will be too hard to stir. Exception: If you are making shortcrust pastry, then the butter should still be cold!
