Here is another list of fancy food terms explained so you can impress your foodie friends…
A LA CARTE – The fancy version of this is a menu broken down into separate parts so you can order whatever you want for your meal, as opposed to all together…for us normal folks, just think of it as a ‘dollar menu’ for expensive stuff.
MINCED – Just cut any food item to heck and back…basically minced. One step above pulverized with a laser.
CANAPEAS – Think of a Ritz cracker with a piece of cheese on it. Now change the cracker to a slice of artisan bread, and change the toppings to a red onion marmalade, torched Bree, and crispy lardons. Can-of-peas.
CARAMELIZED – A fancy way to say, ‘I almost done burnt it.’
NAPPE – Confirming your sauce is thick enough by its ability to coat the back of a spoon. You don’t want paste, and you don’t want water. Nappe is that sauce sweet spot.
APERITIF – Pre-gaming to get the mouth party started.
UMAMI – If you taste meat-like-flavor in something without having the confirmation of actual meat being present, verbally state you get a strong ‘umami’ profile from the dish.
AU JUS – The natural juice of whatever food item you just cooked. If you cook a shoe and juice comes out, you can serve it with shoe au jus. Don’t cook a shoe. Gesundheit.
CONFIT – Cooking a food items in its own fat. If you cook a shoe its own fat, you can serve shoe confit. F.Y.I. shoes don’t have fat unless your foot is in it, but that wouldn’t be shoe fat…it would be you fat.
I work as a chef and its what we do to make things sound posher than they are 😛
Heres a few more;
To Quenelle somthing: To shape a mousse or pate into a rugby shaped ball
Jus: Posh Gravy
Braised: Left in an oven for a few hours
Love it! Thanks for following our blog, Love yours…I love trying my hand at cooking and trying new thing, look forward to reading more helpful hints! Just bought a new professional type mixer and am excited to play with it…my motto, if you aren’t fantastic at it, practice makes perfect and you may as well look good while doing it!
The definition for “carmelized” is my favorite. 😀
I have had to use that from time to time…