# Chefs Limited Vocabulary



## castorjack (Jan 21, 2014)

HI, I know this will offend some but I want to know how you describe your food. This question stems from a home cook watching tv cooking shows for over 10years.

Can you use words or phrases other than saying:

I use ...a little of this...

I added ...some of that...
I used ...some nice this...

I add ...a bit of that...

I'll add more later but,wow..it seems every chef on tv only uses these lines...


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

castorjack said:


> Can you use words or phrases other than saying:
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Probably, but..


castorjack said:


> I'll add more later ...


You first.../img/vbsmilies/smilies/peace.gif


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## kaiquekuisine (Apr 11, 2013)

Sure i can use big words, but whats the point....

Not like it will change the result....

But feel free to give us some examples /img/vbsmilies/smilies/rolleyes.gif


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## chefbuba (Feb 17, 2010)

I'm not smart enough to use big words or get a Mensa card, that's why I became a chef.

My advise, stop watching reality cooking shows and get over it.


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## padkeejoe (Jun 5, 2013)

The late Justin Wilson, an extraordinary Cajun chef, used to add a little dis and a little dat with his hands, but would generally give you the measurements.

And from time to time, as if he knew you didn't believe him, he'd pour the contents of his hand into a measuring spoon- and sure enough, dis was a teaspoon and dat was a tablespoon!


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## castorjack (Jan 21, 2014)

Thank you for the few honest replies. I just wondered why all use same rhetoric.

* to add.. a pinch of,,,this :


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## cheflayne (Aug 21, 2004)

What are examples of others ways that you would phrase things?


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## meezenplaz (Jan 31, 2012)

"A bit of paprika"

"A smidge of curry"

"A touch of sugar"

" A modified tablespoon of flour"

" A handful of raisins"

" Add some cream to thicken but NOT TOO MUCH"

"Plop in a few pepper corns"

"Dump in your lemon juice"

"Few chunks of butter"

"One or maybeeee.... two ....fingersnaps of ground cinnamon"

"Toss in a glop or two of sourcream"

"Stir til it seems about right"

"Knead til it's not so easy"

" Roll it out to the thickness that works best"

Trust me, using measurements like that makes for FAR superior dishes than using

boring exacts like 1/4 cup, 3 Tablespoons. When I measure, or TELL people to measure

it's NEVER as good. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/chef.gif


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## soesje (Dec 6, 2012)

lol meez, that is priceless!! 

but……well in our kitchen at work, we do indeed cook by our senses…..for most basic things we have no recipes.

just ingredients and then the instructions, "figure it out yourself".

trust me, its the best way to learn to cook and understand what you are doing.

for the major things we DO have recipes though.

but even then, it depends who of our team is making it….

recipes are just basic rules.

so, a bit of this, a whiff of that, do whatever you like, as long as you like the results!

all the rest, doesn't matter.


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## meezenplaz (Jan 31, 2012)

Well I recall we had a similar discussion about this somewhere in here before, and I believe we

all pretty much agreed that when it comes to actual baking exact measurements become much

more critical. Hmm, maybe that's what I don't bake nearly as much as I cook--Im more the

_senzateev arteestic_ type. And cooking's more an art, while baking's more a science.


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## kaiquekuisine (Apr 11, 2013)

I am still baffled by sometimes how my grandmother bakes a cake no recipe no measurements and it come out perfect.

When i do it... well... uhm.. doesnt come out too good /img/vbsmilies/smilies/rolleyes.gif


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## chefross (May 5, 2010)

KaiqueKuisine said:


> I am still baffled by someetimes how my grandmother bakes a cake no recipe no measurements and it come out perfect.
> 
> When i do it... well... uhm.. doesnt come out too good /img/vbsmilies/smilies/rolleyes.gif


It's a knack...

I can do it on a limited basis with bread and muffins

.....sometimes a cake but more often then not....

it is just a "sense" of how flour egg and sugar and butter can make a cake in your mind's eye.


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## padkeejoe (Jun 5, 2013)

Chefross said:


> It's a knack...
> 
> I can do it on a limited basis with bread and muffins
> 
> ...


My guess is that sort of thing is more experience (as in lots of it, frequently) than it is Michelangelo seeing the sculpture in the marble.

Like KaiqueKuisin, I've seen it done- with impressive results by mums and nans, but I'm thinking their grasp of the measures and steps in the process have been honed to precision- whereas.. ahem... my own have not, sometimes despite what I think are meticulous efforts to abide by the recipe.

What is comes down to is that baking is chemistry, whereas something like say, making sauces from what's at hand, involves a bit more alchemy... or maybe, Michelangelo.


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## mikelm (Dec 23, 2000)

PodKeeJoe mentioned...

*"The late Justin Wilson, an extraordinary Cajun chef..."*

Been years since I thought of him. He was amusing, though the Cajun Cornpone grew a little thin. Browsing through a book on Cajun Humour by a professor of English at LSU, the book with an entire chapter devoted to him, I discovered that...

'ol Justin was roundly *despised* by the entire Cajun community!

First, his repuation as a humourist was built almost entirely on telling what used to be called Polish Jokes on the Cajuns - a Polish Joke illustrated the utter stupidity of the Poles (Now prohibited on pain of economic execution under the rules of Political Correctness) but in his telling, the Cajuns the butt of each story.

Secondly, Justin was only HALF Cajun - one parent was, one wasn't at all.

He had been raised in Louisiana but was, notwithstanding the heavily accented and amusingly fractured English, quite well educated. He held graduate degrees in Industrial Engineering and had served during WW II in several manufacturing plants up Nawth as a Safety Engineer. (Do you recall his frequent mentions of wearing both a belt and suspenders?)

He _was _fun_, _though- at least in small doses. Kind of miss him.

Mike /img/vbsmilies/smilies/drinkbeer.gif


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## chefross (May 5, 2010)

PadKeeJoe said:


> My guess is that sort of thing is more experience (as in lots of it, frequently) than it is Michelangelo seeing the sculpture in the marble.
> 
> Like KaiqueKuisin, I've seen it done- with impressive results by mums and nans, but I'm thinking their grasp of the measures and steps in the process have been honed to precision- whereas.. ahem... my own have not, sometimes despite what I think are meticulous efforts to abide by the recipe.
> 
> What is comes down to is that baking is chemistry, whereas something like say, making sauces from what's at hand, involves a bit more alchemy... or maybe, Michelangelo.


Absolutely..................


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## mikelm (Dec 23, 2000)

"...*when it comes to actual baking exact measurements become much more critical*."

Yeah, as the Froogle Gourmet said over and over -

"Cooking is an art, but baking is a science."

Mike


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## laurenlulu (Sep 9, 2012)

I agree that baking is definitely science but exact measurements are not necessary.

I rarely use recipes, only intuition, and it works! Maybe it's because my aptitude leans more toward science than math (how a natural baker can suck at math is a mystery even to me), when I'm throwing ingredients into a bowl I automatically take into account outside variables like liquid contained in fruit, etc.

As long as ratios stay fairly intact for each type of product made, the possibilities are endless.


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