Preparing, Cooking and Serving Food in English - Visual Vocabulary Lesson.mp4

Hi, I'm Rich. Welcome to Oxford Online English. In this visual vocabulary lesson, you can learn words and phrases to talk about food and cooking. A question for you. Do you want to watch this video with subtitles? You can. It's easy. Turn them on now by clicking the CC icon in the bottom right. Or, on mobile, tap the settings icon to turn on subtitles. Peel means to take the skin off some fruit or vegetables. Some foods are easy to peel, like bananas. With other ingredients, you might need to use a knife or a peeler. Cut the tomatoes into quarters. When talking about preparing food, the combination cut into is common. For example, you might hear, cut the chicken into six pieces. Or, cut the aubergine into small cubes. There's one exception to this pattern. You cut something in half, not into. For example, cut the lemon in half, not into half. Cut the radish into thin slices. Slice the radish thinly. Many words connected with cooking can be both verbs and nouns. Slice is a common example. You can cut something into slices, or just use slice as a verb. For example, slice the cucumber, slice the carrots, and so on. Halve and deseed the peppers. Halve is the verb from half. It's an efficient way to say, cut something into two pieces. You can also use quarter as a verb. For example, quarter the tomatoes, and cut the tomato into four pieces. Have the same meaning. Deseed means you remove the seeds. With peppers, you also need to remove the pith. The white flesh on the inside. Chop the onion as finely as possible. Usually, chop means to cut something into medium-sized pieces, perhaps not in a precise way. However, if you chop something finely, you cut it into the smallest pieces possible. Dice the pepper. Dice means to cut into small pieces. More specifically, dice means that you cut something in two directions. If you dice a pepper, you first cut it into strips, and then cut the strips into small pieces. Mix the ingredients together. Stir the ingredients to mix them. Here, mix and stir have the same meaning. In general, stir is more specific, because it means to use some kind of implement, like a spoon, to mix whatever you're mixing. You can mix something with your hands, or by putting it in a container and shaking it, or in other ways. Stir fry the veggies on a high heat. Turn the heat up to high, and fry the vegetables, stirring continuously. Often, you can say the same thing in fewer words, by using a more specific verb. Both of these sentences are fine, and both have the same meaning, but in the first sentence, you save words by using a more specific verb. Stir fry. Bring the water to boil, and then add the dumplings. In cookbooks and recipes, you'll often see the phrase, bring the water to boil. This means that you boil the water, and when it starts boiling, you'll add something or do something else. Turn the heat down to low, and simmer the soup for 20 minutes. If you need to simmer something, you turn the heat down until it's just boiling. There are a few bubbles, but it isn't boiling vigorously. Fry the meatballs until browned on both sides. Deep fry the potatoes, and leave to dry. If you use the verb, fry, in English, it generally means shallow frying, when you fry something in a little bit of oil or butter. Use the verb, deep fry, if you want to talk about cooking something in boiling oil, like fried potatoes. Brown is another useful verb. When cooking meat, you often fry the meat first to brown it. You cook it until it's brown on the outside, but probably not cooked in the middle. Preheat the oven to 180, then roast the chicken for around one hour. Here's a question for you. Roast and bake both mean to cook something in the oven, but what's the difference? There are different answers to this. Technically, roast means to cook something uncovered until it turns brown. However, in everyday language, roast is generally used for meat and vegetables, and bake is generally used for bread, cakes, and fish. We grilled the shrimp kebabs over a charcoal fire. We cooked the shrimp kebabs on the grill. With cooking, you can often use different verbs or verb phrases to say the same thing. For example, you can grill food or cook food on the grill. You can roast food or cook food in the oven. It doesn't matter which you use. The verb, grill, is often used when you cook something on a barbecue. But your cooker in your kitchen might have a grill, and you can also buy electric grills to use in your kitchen. Blend the soup until fairly smooth. I used a hand blender to puree the sauce. You can blend something with a hand blender, like you saw here, or with a regular blender. If you blend something for a longer time, it will come out smooth. The opposite of smooth here is chunky, meaning you blend it for a short time. There are still some solid pieces. Add a dollop of sour cream to the soup and mix it in. Add a spoonful of sour cream to the soup. A dollop means a small amount. It's not specific, but it generally is used to mean around one spoonful. You can use dollop for things which are between solid and liquid, like yogurt. Thick cream, sour cream, or other thick sauces. Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese before serving. You might sprinkle something on your food before you serve it, like cheese. Another example, you might sprinkle pepper, paprika, or oregano on top of a dish once it's ready. They serve the steak with green beans and corn on the side. You can use on the side for vegetables or other things which accompany the main dish. Garnish with a mint leaf and serve. A garnish is something you add mainly for decoration to make the food look good, more attractive. Some garnishes are chosen for their flavor, but you might garnish a dish with something that isn't intended to be eaten. You can also garnish a drink. Cocktails often have a garnish. Pour the chocolate icing generously over the top. The verb pour is mostly used with liquids. You can also use the verb drizzle to mean that you pour a small amount of something. For example, drizzle some olive oil over the salad. Generous is more often used to describe people, but you can also use it to talk about food. For example, you can have a generous portion or a generous serving. Here, generous has the meaning of large, but in a positive way, not too large. What about you? Tell us about the last thing you cooked. How did you do it? Can you use some of the language you learned in this lesson? Write your answer in the comments and share it with us and other learners. If you liked this lesson, don't forget to check out the other lessons in our visual vocabulary series. Thanks for watching.