Cooking Terms, Part VII Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cut out each section, removing the skin, membranes and seeds.

Supreme is pronounced with a short "e" as in "soo-PREHM." It can be used as a verb or a noun. Any citrus fruit may be supremed. A thin-bladed very-sharp knife is necessary to the task. The resulting pie-shaped wedges are called supremes.

Answer: To remove a substance from a liquid's surface in order to discard it

While fat may be skimmed from the surface of a liquid with a spoon, a far easier way to remove it (if there is time) is to chill the liquid and lift off the congealed fat in one piece.

Answer: cream of tartar

Cream of tartar is potassium hydrogen tartrate, obtained from the sediment left over in making grape wines. It is used to stabilize beaten egg whites, to activate baking powder, to inhibit crystal formation in candymaking and, in a pinch, to clean brass and copper cookware. All of the other ingredients on this shelf are starches used as thickeners.

Answer: A mezzaluna

Mezzaluna is Italian for 'half moon" with reference to its shape. They sometimes come with two blades, rocking-horse style, instead of one. They are also called herb choppers, hachoir, ulu (an Inuit word) and crescent knives. A tourné knife (sometimes called a bird's beak knife) has a second tip pointed upward or downward and is used for peeling and garnishing.

A deba bocho is a Japanese knife used to butcher and fabricate primarily fish but also chicken and other meat. A puukko is a Finnish utility knife used to skin and gut game and to clean fish.

Answer: 40 degrees F - 140 degrees F (4.5 degrees C - 60 degrees C)

The US Food and Drug Administration changed its definition in 2003 to 41 degrees F - 135 degrees F, but the US Department of Agriculture is still teaching the older, wider range. There is an equally great concern with leaving hot food out to cool at room temperature.

It is wiser to quickly cool hot foods for storage (e.g. by chilling their containers in ice water and/or placing them in several small containers rather than one large one which retains heat longer).

Answer: pickled vegetables

Kimchi (pronounced KIM-chee) is the universal side dish in Korea. It is made of fermented Napa cabbage to which other vegetables are added depending upon locale and season, e.g. chive, cucumber, green onion and radishes. Hot peppers, ginger and garlic may be added as seasoning agents.

Answer: To mix, work, and shape a pliable mass by folding, pressing and/or stretching with the hands or an electric mixer

It has been said that bakers will reveal their secrets only on a "knead to knough" basis.

Answer: In the spice rack; it is a spice compound.

Ras al hanout is an Arabic spice mix used throughout Northern Africa. There is no single definitive recipe. It normally contains cardamom, chili pepper, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, nutmeg, and turmeric. It may also include more exotic ingredients such as grains of paradise, ash berries and dried rosebud.

Answer: They are all dumplings with a pasta-like exterior enveloping a stuffing

Most cuisines include some sort of dumpling, sweet or savoury, which may be poached, fried, deep-fried, served dry or sauced or in soup. Other examples are the Chinese wonton, the Polish pierogi, and the Korean yaki-mandu.

Answer: Burning the sugar atop crème brulée with a torch

From the perspective of food science, caramelization is what happens to sugar when its molecules begin to break down in the presence of heat. The other examples involve the Maillard Reaction. The Maillard Reaction is much more complex than caramelization and includes literally hundreds of reactions, one of them sometimes being caramelization.

In sloppy colloquial usage, the term "caramelized" is often chosen to mean nothing more than "browned" thereby revealing the speaker's lack of knowledge.