Famous Restaurant Recipes Cooking Terms Dictionary

f you are inexperienced at cooking, but have desired to make these famous restaurant recipes that are so popular, you will need to have at least a few basic skills. One issue you will run into are the various cooking terms that you will see in any recipe.
If you are not familiar with what I am talking about when I say famous restaurant recipes, these are a collection of recipes for your favorite dishes from your favorite restaurants. These recipes have been reversed engineered by chefs and documented in a set of cookbooks and at various online websites.

After the proper ingredients and cooking processes are discovered, they are then tested by various methods and teams of people to ensure they really do taste like the originals. By producing these dishes yourself, you can save money and put on some pretty impressive dinner parties.
As with any recipes, famous restaurant recipes will have terms and procedures required that you may or may not be familiar with. Here is a short list of some of the most important cooking terms with their definitions. While these definitions will not show you how to perform the tasks, they may give you enough insight to practice them until you get the process down.
Cooking Terms Dictionary:
Al Dente: Usually this refers to pasta with the result of just cooking it long enough to make it firm but not soft. The idea is to avoid overcooking it. It also refers to not overcooking vegetables to the point of losing their crispness.
Blanching: This is the process of boiling water and then adding food to it and cooking completely submerged. You only do this for a couple of seconds and then immediately removing the food from the pan and rinsing it in cold water to stop it from cooking.
Braising: Cooking food in a small amount of liquid with the intent of drawing the flavor into the liquid.
Deglazing: Used to make gravy. The dripping from cooking foods stick to the bottom of the pan and are dissolved in a liquid.
Folding: The process of blending egg-whites into a batter without stirring vigorously keeping it's light foam properties.
Simmering: The action of heating water to just below boiling level.
Poaching: Cooking an egg in simmering water.
There are many more cooking terms that you may need to know. In my blog I have more with the plan of also providing links from these terms to documents showing the processes to actually perform these tasks.
To learn to cook great recipes, learning the basics is important, and hopefully the cooking terms dictionary will help you in your task to create your favorite famous restaurant recipes.