Recipes often use fancy words like “dice”, “julienne”, or “mince” to describe how to prepare ingredients, without explaining the differences. Knowing proper food preparation techniques can greatly improve your cooking, and this informative guide from the NIH can help.
The NIH's Food Preparation Glossary defines common food prep terms, illustrating them with helpful photos. The Cutting section includes techniques that produce smaller, more irregular pieces, like mincing and chopping, as well as longer, thinner pieces, like julienning and slicing.
The Cooking section of the glossary describes cooking terms that use the stovetop or oven to prepare foods like meats or vegetables. For example, did you know that stir frying, pan frying, and sautéing a recipe essentially means exactly the same thing? This section also describes the differences between terms like “boil”, “simmer”, “brown”, and “grill” to help you follow recipes more precisely.
Food Preparation Glossary [National Heart, Lungs and Blood Institute]
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