Kitchen Cheat Sheet

I speak kitchen. Fluently. And as a part of my recipes. So I plan to use this page to help with that. Welcome to my kitchen dictionary. It is a work in progress.

Saute – hot pan, hot oil. So simple, yet the biggest mistake I see with cooks.

Sear – hot pan, hot oil, seasoned food item, even caramelization on all sides, usually done over med-high heat.

Braise – cooked at low/moderate heat with liquid. Most often these are cooking project style dishes, but braising can be done in under an hour depending on what’s braising.

Roast – dry heat cooking, temperature & time depend on what’s in the oven

Boil – big, rough bubbles at a high heat.

Simmer – low bubbles that hardly break the surface, gentle, medium heat or lower

Reduce – cook something at a simmer, uncovered, to concentrate and thicken a liquid

Julienne – long thin strips. Usually about 3″-4″ long an 1/4″ wide or less if you want to get technical, but perfection isn’t really the point here.

Small Dice – you want things to be as uniform as possible so they all cook the same, small dice is about 1/4″ square.

Medium Dice – 1/2″ square,

Large Dice – 1″-ish. Consistently the same size is more important that the actual size

Mince – chopped up very fine

Beef/Pork Cooking Temperatures

Rare 120-125 degrees
Medium Rare 130-135 degrees
Medium 140-145 degrees
Medium Well 150-155 degrees
Well 160 + degrees

Poultry Cooking Temperature always to minimum of 165 degrees

Weights & Measures – scaled weights are more precise than the volume measures below. If a recipe calls for scaled measures (I use hardly any that do) use a scale, and vice versa, if a recipe is written for volume measures you cannot easily convert to scaled. For example – 1 cup of flour weighs about 5oz, not 8oz.