Understanding Your Cookbook: Bread, Butter, Egg, Milk, Fruit and Vegetable Terms

Bread

Knead - to work a bread or cookie dough by hand or in the case of a mixer to distribute ingredients and develop gluten.
Proof - to test yeast for its potency or allow a yeast mixture to rise in a dry, warm place.
Work - in terms of cooking, work means to knead or mix gently with the fingers.

Butter

Clarify - to clarify your butter melt it to a liquid and then refrigerate it, it will stay fresh for a least two months.

Types of Butter - recipes may call for a particular butter.

Clarified Butter - butter that has been melted and then chilled.
Spreadable Butters - butter that has ingredients to make it more soft and spreadable.
Cultured Butter - traditional butter.
Sweet Cream Butter - butter with a creamier taste.
Savory Butter - butter that has been whipped with a variety of flavorings.
Salted Butter - butter that has either fine or granular salt in it.
Unsalted Butter - does not contain salt.

Eggs

Soft Peaks - this term describes egg whites that have been beaten to form peaks, but still soft enough so the peaks fold or curl over.
Stiff Peaks - this term describes egg whites that have been beaten to form peaks that can stand upright when the beater is lifted from the bowl.
Fold - when a recipe ask you to fold in eggs they want you to use two motions. By cutting vertically through the mixture with a spoon or rubber spatula and gently turning the ingredients and eggs over on top of each other, rotating the bowl 1/4 turn with each stroke you can fold in eggs.

Milk

Skim - to remove anything floating on top of heated milk.
Caramelize - a recipe may call for you to caramelize sweetened condensed milk, by leaving the milk in the can and placing it in boiling water for several hours.

Types of Milk - a recipe may call for a particular milk.

Whole Milk - 3.25% Fat
Reduced Fat, 2 Percent, or Low Fat, 1 Percent, - 1.5-1.8% Fat
Skimmed Milk - 0.1% Fat

Fruit

Supreming - a cutting method in which you use a paring knife to remove the skin, pith, and outer membrane from citrus fruit and then cut each segment away from white membranes.
Core - to remove the central seeded area of a fruit, often in the center.

Vegetable

Sweat - to cook vegetables in simmering butter.
Refresh - to immerse cooked, and still hot, vegetables in ice water to set the color and flavor. The vegetables are then drained and reheated in butter or sauce.
Skim - to remove anything floating on top of a liquid when cooking vegetables.

Both Fruits and Veggies

Pare - to cut off the outside covering of a fruit or vegetable.
Acid Rinse - peeled fruits and vegetable may turn brown when exposed to air, by squirting them with lemon juice or bathing them in it, referred to as an acid rinse, you can prevent discoloration.
Peel - to remove the outside covering, such as the skin or rind, of a vegetable or fruit with a vegetable peeler or knife.
Blanch - to subject food briefly into boiling water, then to plunge the food into cold water. It heightens and sets the color and flavor of the food and loosens skin in some fruits and vegetables intended for peeling.

Every once in a while you come across a cooking term that you are unsure of the meaning.