cooking @ home

There’s a lot of unusual or “foreign” terms or items we keep hearing all the time, in cookbooks, on cooking shows, on restaurant menus …

Now before everyone and their half-brother writes me. Depending upon a lot of things — your ethnic family upbringing, how often you eat out, where you’ve traveled, your cooking experience and a hundred other items — you may have heard of many of these or none of these, you might be very familiar with these or not at all. In short, your particular mileage may vary.

So, if you get to the end of this article and you’ve learned something, excellent! That was the idea all along. If you actually knew the exact meaning of all of these listed, bravisimo! You’re either a world-class foodie, spent some serious time in either the CIA (no, not that one) or the FCI, and/or your name ends in “Puck” or “Batali”.

Anyway, feedback wanted on this one for sure. If you found it helpful, I’ll do more of these “down the road”.

So here’s ten terms or food items that you keep reading and hearing about and have always wanted to know just what they are.

crostini – It even sounds like the word “crust” doesn’t it? It’s close to what it sounds like in this case: toasted bread. Small thin toasted bread, usually in the oven, often brushed with olive oil. … And this should not be confused with ….

bruschetta – In which bread is toasted, raw garlic is rubbed into it, then olive oil is drizzled on top. Now for some folks that is the complete definition, and it stops there. For myself and others it is not complete until the above is topped with a chopped tomato, garlic, basil and olive oil salsa. Mmm. (Toss a slice of very fresh mozzarella on top for the ultimate.) Until it’s got the topping, to me it’s not a true bruschetta. This is one of the best appetizer’s in the world as far as I’m concerned.

aioli – Basically a strong garlic mayo; so if you read on a menu something like “crabcake sandwich with a mango aioli” then think: Ah, that’s a mango garlic mayo sauce

granita – A frozen (or semi-frozen) desert made by freezing a fruit mixture (could be all fruit juice, or could have simple syrup added, might have alcohol added, might be primarily alochol or none) Often one goes into freezer repeatedly during the hardening process and scrapes with fork to pull out the ice. Essentially, this is a homemade water ice. So if you were to hear “watermelon granita cocktail”, then that would tell you it’s a watermelon ice, and cocktail would suggest it probably has liquor in it. So it sounds to me as that would be an after-dinner desert-like cocktail.

risotto – Not your father’s rice dish. This is definitely not Rice-a-roni; this isn’t even Carolina’s. One of three special rice varieties are used, the most frequent being Aborio. The others are Carnaroli and Vialone Nano. The rice is known for it’s location of origin in Northern Italy, specifically associated with Milan. This is a special rice in which water and other liquids and solids must be added to in stages. There is an actual “system” to this consisting of four of five distinct stages, and includes stirring for 20-something minutes. For these reasons this dish is usually something served at top restaurants and rarely made at home.

carpaccio – Basically it means very thin cuts. It is usually, but not exclusively, associated with beef, veal and tuna, and usually the protein is raw or seared, but it doesn’t have to be. That said, it can apply to anything else. A carpaccio of pineapple simply means very thin slices of fresh pineapple, for instance.

tapenade – The word almost sounds like “topping”, doesn’t it? It is a thick paste made from capers, anchovies, ripe olives, olive oil, lemon juice, seasonings. From the Provence region of France. Often used as a condiment, sometimes as a sauce added a top fish or meat. I’ve also seen it used as a dipping sauce for pita triangles.

And finally, the “Three Italian P’s” we all keep hearing over and over and over again:

polenta – Made from cornmeal, it’s a Northern Italian favorite that can be used as a side, mix other ingredients in, even cut into squares and fried. Sometimes it’s used almost like a rice or pasta in that it’s put on the plate and then the main meal poured over it. Sometimes it appears a biscuit or muffin. Sometimes it’s a component in a stew.

pancetta – In it’s simplest form, Italian bacon, it’s cured with salt and spices but is not smoked. American bacon (known in Britain as “streaky bacon”) has more fat and is almost always smoked and cured and comes from the pork underside. Canadian bacon (known in Britian as simply bacon) is very much more ham-like than American bacon as it comes from the pork loin. Irish bacon is somewhere between the two, much leaner than American, but more like American bacon than ham as it comes from the back.

prosciutto – In it’s simplest form, Italian ham; it’s cured with salt and spices and is air-dried,but is not smoked; the term parma ham refers to that which is the most “true” or arguably the best of the prosciutto. More terms: “prosciutto cotto”, is cooked whereas “prosciutto crudo” is raw (but as it’s cured it’s able to be eaten without having it cooked first.) The latter often has the name of the city or region from where it was made, as in “prosciutto di Parma” comes from that city.

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