50 Important Words for Cooking in English

Hello everyone! It’s Anna here  from englishlikeanative.co.uk 

Now, whether you’re in the can’t cook,  

won’t cook or loves to cook category,  this video has something for you!

In this video you’re going to learn  fifty important words for cooking  

in English. Make sure to watch carefully  because I’m going to quiz you at the end! 

Now, to help you to remember all the vocabulary  we are going to cover today I have made you a  

FREE pdf that you can download by joining my  ESL mailing list, just click on the link below.

So, pop on an apron and join me in the  kitchen. I really like my apron. It stops  

my clothes from getting dirty when I’m cooking  and it’s got an ‘A’ on it for my name, Anna. 

Now, let me introduce you to  some of the things in my kitchen. 

This is the oven. I know not everyone around the  world has an oven in their home but in Britain,  

ovens are really important because  that’s how we make the most important  

meal of the week - the Sunday roast. If you’re not sure what a Sunday roast is,  

don’t worry, I’ll explain later. Then, on top here, we have the hob.  

There are a variety of hobs in the UK, including  a gas hob, an electric hob, and an induction hob. 

This is an induction hob. Let me place  the pot on the hob and turn it on.

Now I'm going to put the  lid on the pot to cover it. 

One more time. This is my apron. This is the  oven. This is the hob. The pot and the lid.

If I want to cook something like an  egg or some meat, I use this - a pan. 

After I cook, I can use my trusty spatula  to put my food on a plate or I can use a  

ladle to put food into a bowl if I'm eating  soup or maybe pasta and after I cook pasta. 

And after I cook pasta, I use this - a colander  - to save the pasta and get rid of the water.

To prepare my food, I can use my knife and my  chopping board to cut the food before I cook it. 

Oh, and I use a sieve to make sure the flour  is free from lumps and unwanted debris.

“Oh what's that?”

I use my wooden spoon to stir the mixture.  

But for some strange reason I have more  wooden spoons than I could ever possibly use. 

So, my wooden spoons tend  to be used as drumsticks. 

But guess what, I can use these other tools too  - a peeler to take the skin off my potatoes,  

a garlic press to crush the garlic. 

A grater is great for grating my cheese  or carrots into really small pieces, and  

a blender turns solid food into a liquid,  perfect for making soups and smoothies.

After I make my smoothie, I put it in the fridge  freezer either to make it cold in the fridge part  

or to freeze and store it in the freezer part.

Now, let’s take a closer look at some  of the actions we use in the kitchen.

With my knife and my chopping board,  I cut my food in to smaller pieces.  

To cut means to separate using a slicing  motion. I can also use the verb chop. 

To chop the potatoes. Chop means to cut  something using a vertical motion. And  

if I am cutting my vegetables into small  cubes, then I say ‘dice’. It looks like this.

When I make pancakes, I crack eggs into a  bowl, add in the flour, mix them together  

and stir in some chocolate chips. Chocolate chips.

Mix means to combine all the ingredients together  

and stir is the action my hand is doing now  - when you move a spoon in a circular motion,  

like when you stir sugar into your cup of tea. 

Then I add the pancake mixture to the  pan. When it’s ready on one side, I flip  

the pancake - that just means to turn it  over quickly. And it’s not always easy! Oops!

Now, let’s take a look at some of our utensils  or kitchen tools. Do you remember what this  

is? It’s a blender. The action is to blend.  I blend the fruit to make a smoothie.

This is a colander. I use it to strain the water  after I cook pasta by pouring the contents of the  

pot into the colander. Strain means to keep  the food you want and throw out the water. 

Pour means to put liquid or  small food into a different  

container. We also ‘pour  

milk into our tea’. Ok I have mentioned tea a few  times now, but tea is so important to us Brits!

Moving on. I can use the colander to put food in to  

rinse it, that means pour water on it  to clean it, before I eat it or cook it.

Ah! Ok sugar, sugar. Oh, that looks  like it's burning. Ah, sugar, sugar.  

Oh, why did I choose such a complicated  recipe? Right let's see where I'm up to. 

Chop the carrots done. Then use a sharp  knife to dice the onions. Okay, that's done.

Now add the onion to the pan and then mix in the  fresh herbs… not the dried herbs the Crushers  

okay. Then the chicken is marinating here. Oh, the potatoes are cooked … ok… So,  

where’s the colander… Where's the colander?  Oh no! Okay, I will have to use a sieve.  

Yeah, I can use a sieve. But then  that's gonna be really hard to clean.  

Oh no the potatoes are still cooking. They're gonna burn. 

What can I do? What can I do? 

Quick Anna, think! Think! 

Here, the lid! Yes, I'll use  that to strain them. Phew. Ok,  

and what’s next? Oh! Ah! Cooking! I need to check the oven…

Ok, so I am no wiz in the kitchen but I am  a wiz in the classroom, so let’s get back  

to those fifty important words, shall we?

Look at my chicken. It’s covered in  oil, salt and spices. It’s marinating. 

To marinate is to cover something, especially  meat or chicken with oil and garlic, spices  

and herbs and sometimes yoghurt before you cook  it. You put the meat and the marinade together  

and leave it for a few hours. This adds  a lot of flavour and stops it being dry.  

Have you ever marinated anything?  Let me know in the comments below.

Next up, we have a few different  ways to cook things in this… 

The oven. We can bake or roast. 

Baking is usually when we cook something  in the oven but don’t add oil to it.  

You can bake a cake or a potato. Roasting, on the other hand,  

is when we cook something in the oven and add  oil to it, like meat, potatoes, and vegetables. 

Roast! I said this word earlier in the video  and promised you more of an explanation. I’m  

excited to share this with you because it’s  such an important part of British culture. 

The Sunday roast! The Sunday roast is… Well… Roast food,  

roast meat, roast veg, roast potatoes,  and vegetables like carrots and parsnips.

You can make a roast with any vegetables  though. Even boiled vegetables if you  

prefer and the meat is usually chicken, lamb  or beef. And in some parts of the UK, a roast  

dinner will come with these - Yorkshire puddings. Which are just delicious. They’re made with flour,  

eggs, milk, and oil and are fluffy and  crispy and go so well with everything. 

Then to top it all off our Sunday roast,  we pour over a sauce called gravy,  

which is made from the juices of the meat  you’ve roasted. This dish is delicious and  

comforting and a very popular, especially for  Sunday lunch! I hope you’ll try it one day!

Cooking something in very hot  water is called boiling. I like  

boiled new potatoes. They’re scrummy! I  also sometimes boil eggs for breakfast. 

Speaking of eggs, one way to cook eggs  is to fry them. That means we put them  

in this… a pan or frying pan, add some  oil, crack the egg and let it cook. 

I like my fried eggs sunny side up. That means  I don’t flip them over but leave the yolk  

which is the yellow part, nice and round. But try not to burn them! Burn is cooking  

too much. Usually, food will go dark brown or  black when you burn it and you can’t eat it.  

Well, you can eat it but it doesn’t  taste very nice. It’s such a shame!

Some foods you have to soak before you can  cook. That means you leave it in water for  

anywhere between a few minutes to 12 hours.  This helps to rehydrate and put water back  

into the food. We soak things like dried  beans, dried mushrooms, or sometimes  

rice or oats. Now, if you have some food you’ve  already made and then stored or a ready meal,  

you heat it up in the oven or microwave before  eating it. That means to get it nice and hot.  

For some ready meals, you’ll need to pierce  the plastic before heating it up. To pierce  

the plastic, you take a fork and make tiny holes  in it to let the heat escape when it’s heating up. 

Now, do you know the opposite of heat up? Cool down! 

After you’ve cooked something and it’s too  hot to eat right away, you may want to let it  

cool down. If you’ve cooked for a child,  you let the food cool down before giving  

it to them so they don’t burn themselves. How are you doing with all these words  

so far? Are you just heating up or  do you need a minute to cool down? 

Remember to pay close attention because I  am going to test you in just a few minutes!

I talked about a microwave just now.  It’s the appliance we use to heat up  

our ready meals. But did you also know that  microwave is a verb, so instead of saying 

‘I’m going to heat up my meal in  the microwave, I can simply say 

‘I’m going to microwave my meal’.

Another popular thing to microwave is popcorn!  

Popcorn cooked on the hob just isn’t the same!  I’ve even seen some people microwave cake!  

Serious question. Have you ever  made cake in the microwave?

Another word we can use as a verb and a noun is  grill. The heated element at the top of the oven  

is the grill. And I grill my kids’ cheese  on toast. I also use the grill to heat up  

food sometimes when I don't want to microwave it. To wrap up. Let's take a look at some adjectives. 

We’ve already seen a word  that can be used as a verb,  

noun, and adjective. Can you remember  what it was? That’s right! It’s ‘roast’! 

You have a roast. You can roast your dinner.  And you can simply call it a roast dinner. 

Of course, there are other words that we've seen  that we can use in three different categories. 

Grill. We have a grill. We can grill food and  you can then say “this is grilled cheese”.

Burn is the other one. I have a burn on my hand.  

I am burning my hand in the oven right  now. Give me an oven glove. And “Oh no!  

Burnt toast for breakfast again!” And we can turn many other words into adjectives.  

Here are some more adjectives that are  strongly connected to food. First off,  

this word is the opposite of cooked.  Have you heard it before? It's raw. Raw. 

Sushi is often made with raw fish. Some  fish we eat, however, comes in tins,  

we can call this tinned fish. And other recipes  ask for canned tomatoes. You can also have tinned  

sweetcorn or canned soup. These both just mean  that they’re put into a tin or a can to preserve  

the food. Another way of preserving food  is to freeze it. These foods are called  

‘frozen’ foods. You can buy frozen  peas, frozen pizza, even frozen cake!  

But look here, these little plum tomatoes  are not canned or tinned. They’re fresh.  

I got them from my garden just now! I’m very  proud because they’re nice and plump. That  

means they’re big and round and juicy. You can use  the word ‘plump’ to describe a chicken thigh too.

Ok! Were you paying attention? Let’s find out.  

I’m going to ask you a question and give  you 3 options. You’ll have five seconds  

to answer the question and then I’ll  show you the answer. Ready? Good luck!

Number one: What’s this called?

Number two: What sharp utensil do  you use to cut or chop vegetables?

Number three: What appliance do  you use for baking or roasting?

Number four: What is the action you do to chop  vegetables in small pieces, usually cubes.

Number five: What is this?

Number six: What is the opposite of cooked?

Number seven: How do you make a smoothie?

Number eight: What’s this?

Number nine: What’s this? 

Number ten: What kind of meat is this?

Number eleven: When you are finished boiling  food and you want to remove the water,  

what do you do to it?

Number twelve: What’s this? 

What am I doing?

Number fourteen: What’s the  verb that means to open eggs?

Number fifteen: What’s the word for when you  

cook something too much and it  goes black and you can’t eat it?

Number sixteen: What am I  wearing to protect my clothes?

Number seventeen: How do you describe  something that’s big and round and juicy?

Number eighteen: What’s this? 

Number nineteen: What am I doing now?

Number twenty: How do you describe  something that’s recently made,  

grown or bought, is ready to  eat and hasn’t been processed?

Well, I hope you enjoyed this video  as much as I did! Remember to like,  

subscribe and ring that bell so  you don’t miss any new videos!  

And, please let me know the answers  to these questions in the comments: 

Number 1. Have you ever marinated anything? Number  2. Have you ever made cake in the microwave? 

Number 3. How many answers  did you get right in the quiz? 

I love to read your comments so  please do put them down below. 

Now for more cooking phrases, check out my video  ‘15 Useful Phrases for Cooking in English’. 

Oh, and don't forget to download  your notes. See you later.