Cooking Actions

Let’s focus on the actions that we do to prepare food or to cook food.

One interesting thing to keep in mind when we’re preparing food is that whatever action or verb that we do to a particular food then changes the name of that thing.

So all we do then is use the verb to say what we did to the food or the ingredient.

That’s the particular thing that’s going to be in it like carrots or whatever.

And then we add E.D.

to that and it becomes an adjective becomes an adjective for that thing.

And that’s the new name.

OK.

So let’s start with cutting how we cut things.

Well you can just cut things that’s a very general word but there are four common words that are used to describe cutting different things there’s chop slice dice and cube.

What are the differences between these these words.

OK.

So chop is generally when we don’t really care about the size of whatever it is that we’re cutting but it’s not usually long and thin it’s usually irregular and we’re usually just doing this action on maybe a cutting board.

OK.

So for example if you’re making soup and you need a carrot that’s cut into many pieces.

We often call that chopped carrot chopped carrot chopped carrot.

So PPE E.D.

that’s the action.

We’re doing this cutting into many pieces.

Now we have chopped carrot chopped lettuce for example.

You could have chopped vegetables of any kind could chop meat whatever it is.

Usually we’re not too focused on the exact size and we are not too careful when we’re doing it.

OK.

Slice is for long thin things.

Generally speaking you have for example sliced tomato.

So if you have a sliced tomato you take a tomato and you cut it into long thin pieces.

That is a sliced tomato.

So as I mentioned when you do an action then it changes the name.

So put sliced tomatoes at the top or on top of the salad.

OK.

So that becomes E.D.

sliced.

Notice the pronunciation is not done.

This one is chopped because it’s unvoiced.

This one is sliced because this is unvoiced.

You don’t use your voice.

So we say we could say sliced cucumbers we could say sliced bread.

We could say sliced ham whatever we need to say but generally we’re focusing on longer thinner things rather than cutting things up in an irregular shape which would be chopping.

OK dice.

Well dicing is very similar to chopping something except the pieces will be smaller.

We one very small pieces.

So if we do that to an onion then instead of having a chopped onion maybe the sizes are this big.

Now we’re going to have diced onion so a chopped onion like that a sliced onion circular pieces generally.

All right thin.

And then a diced onion.

Tiny little pieces of onion that we’re going to put into a dish for example.

OK.

Diced onion again.

Psst psst chopped sliced diced the pronunciation of D for all three of these is.

But this one will be different.

OK.

Now when you cube something this is a verb cube to cube cube is also a noun.

You cut it into the shape of a cube.

So for example cubed beef or cubed potato.

Notice I’m saying cube.

Why am I saying Cube did not cubed like the others.

I said for the others let’s because this book uses the voice but if we have a voiced sound then it’s going to be pronounced as.

So cubed potato and cube beef whatever it is for example for a soup that we’re making is the shape generally doesn’t have to be exactly of a cube which is a 3D 3D square.

So we’re maybe a little bit more focused on what the shape is and we care maybe more than if we’re chopping something.

OK.

So I hope that’s pretty simple.

Chopped sliced diced cubed all cutting actions.

And every time you finish doing it then it is that thing E.D.

and then the original ingredient that you used cubed beef chopped onion sliced tomato diced cucumber OK.

That’s pretty simple.

Now here are some other actions that follow the same rule.

We have mixed peeled and washed six unvoiced.

So we set mixed peel or voiced so we say peeled and wash.

Sheesh unvoiced so we say washed.

OK.

So for example we could say mixed greens.

That means the vegetables that we’re using are all green maybe lettuce maybe spinach for example lettuce spinach.

OK.

We have those together.

That would be mixed greens.

OK.

And we have peel which means we cut the skin off of something OK.

We wouldn’t use that for example for a banana although the thing on the outside of a banana is a banana peel.

We usually don’t say peeled bananas.

I guess you can but it’s not so common.

Usually it’s when we cut off with a knife the outside or the skin of something for example peeled apples or we might say peeled potatoes peeled potatoes.

OK.

If you have peeled potatoes then you don’t have to say peel the potatoes.

You could say add peeled potatoes to whatever thing you’re making then you don’t need to say you need to peel the potatoes because in order to get peeled potatoes you first have to peel them.

Otherwise they’re not peeled.

Right.

So that can be actually a useful little tool for making a description of what you’re cooking easier and simpler.

You don’t have to say things twice.

Obviously washed whatever it is you might wash.

Hopefully you wash most things like fruit and vegetables before you before you actually eat them.

For example you could say washed lettuce or whatever it is whatever it is.

OK.

So I hope that’s pretty straight forward.

Now let’s get into the ways that we cook things and these are the common ones and it follows the same rule.

If you do these actions then that thing then becomes that with E.D.

after it as the adjective.

So baked potatoes baked potatoes fried potatoes stir fried potatoes.

Yeah.

Maybe if we’re making Chinese food boiled potatoes.

Yeah sure steamed potatoes maybe.

I don’t know any steamed potatoes but I guess it’s possible grilled potatoes.

Why don’t we just do a very quick example for each of these.

So I will bake a potato.

Now I have baked potatoes and I’ve done that in an oven.

I will fry mushrooms.

Why not.

Now I have fried mushrooms and then I will fry them in a pan.

OK.

Now stir fry is usually where you have constant motion but it’s kind of the same thing.

Deep frying is when you put it deep in oil stir frying is often connected with Chinese cuisine.

So I could have for example I could have stir fried stir fried tomato and eggs and I might do that in a walk to special sort of pan which is bigger it’s more bowl shaped like boil.

They boiled and we’ve boiled while these boiled cabbage boring.

And we’ll do that in a pot.

Steam has steamed it could have steamed dumplings.

That’s Chinese cuisine and we’ll steamed that in a steamer but you could also steam it in a pan I suppose and then grill say grilled chicken and we would grill it on a hot grill.

OK.

So I hope that’s pretty easy.

Hope that simple.

Let’s now go on and talk about some common cooking phrases that we can use which are related to what we were just describing.