How to Cook in English: Cooking Vocabulary

- Let me show you how to cook in English

with "50 Essential Words and Idioms."

(gentle rock music)

In today's video then,

we're going to learn how to cook in English.

In a moment, we're going to my kitchen

and I'm gonna show you how to make any kind of soup, right?

Super quick, really easy, and extremely tasty.

On top of that, I'll give you 50 or more essential words

and some idioms you can use related to cooking.

You can get all of the language

in a free PDF by clicking on the link below.

Right now, let's get cooking in the kitchen.

(upbeat music)

Right, guys, welcome to the kitchen.

We're going to make a delicious, tasty soup today.

It's gonna be vegetarian.

It'll take about 20 to 30 minutes.

I'm gonna show you how to make the base

and then you can change it to make any kind of soup.

But actually today,

it's gonna be a carrot soup served with bread,

but you may like to serve it with naan, chapati, baguette,

whatever kind of bread you have in your country.

(upbeat music)

So let's begin, first of all, with some prep.

Prep is the preparation.

We're gonna need, first of all, one of these.

This is an apron.

It's my cooking apron.

It even matches my jumper.

Look at that.

Right, we're good.

We're ready to go.

We're gonna need, of course, the electric hob for cooking.

We've got some pots and a frying pan over here.

(gentle music)

We also have over here the chopping board, chopping knife.

This is my wife's chopping knife.

This is a cleaver, or a Chinese chopping knife.

Don't disagree with me.

I actually prefer this classic chopping knife.

We've also got a paring knife.

The paring knife is like maybe for ginger or garlic,

things like that.

We're gonna be using the peeler in a moment.

But let's begin with ingredients actually.

So for any basic soup, for my basic soup,

we've got an onion, a couple of small potatoes,

and then the vegetables.

In this case we've got carrots and a bit of leek, okay?

Very simple.

Of course, every good dish,

apparently in cooking you need four things, right?

You need heat, fat, acid, and salt.

So we've got heat on the hob,

we've got salt, very basic Himalayan pink salt.

Now, for acid, well,

you could use a bit of balsamic vinegar,

bit of cider vinegar, or anchovies.

Or also, no, anchovies are salty, or what else?

Or a bit of wine would also work.

And for fat,

we've got olive oil, being based in Spain, and butter.

In Britain, we use a lot of butter.

Butter, water for cooking.

I know maybe in India you use ghee.

You've got other kinds of fat options.

Okay, so that's done.

Let's get cooking.

I've got a plate just to gather the skin or the peel.

Is that carrot peel?

Yeah, think so.

Great, watch out for your fingers with this one.

It is a vegetarian recipe.

You don't want extra, extra meat

in the dish by chopping off your finger.

(upbeat music)

Now, as you may have noticed,

I don't have a recipe book here.

I am gonna play it by ear.

To play it by ear means to improvise or to wing it.

I'm gonna wing it, but it will come out well

because I've done this before.

I know.

Right, so let's begin.

I've peeled the carrots and the potatoes.

So let's start there.

We're gonna chop.

To chop.

Do you remember the French Revolution

where they chopped off the head?

We're gonna chop the carrots.

Let's just get rid

of the the heads 'cause we don't need those.

Get rid of the tails 'cause we don't need those.

Put those over here.

So, we can chop.

Basically, chopping

is just like that, right?

Very, very simple.

Again, don't chop your fingers off.

Remember, always bend your knuckles,

put the knife against the joint there

so that you cannot chop off your fingers.

As well as chopping, you can dice.

So a dice would be when you basically split

and then you chop like that

and you get more small square shapes, right?

You can even throw them on the floor.

It's great.

So dicing is good for soups, right?

Because they're small and they cook really quickly.

Carrots are done.

Potatoes we'll do later, and I'll explain why in a moment.

The onion,

there are different ways, again, to slice.

Can be, right?

You can slice the onion like that, which is fine.

Or again, you can dice.

Cut it in layers and then cut it down the side

and then again, just chop it out.

And you get these nice, small, with that little joint

bent over, nice, small pieces of onion,

which are easy to fry.

That's the onion.

The leek I'll just chop roughly. (laughs)

Great.

You can let out all your aggression when you're cooking.

Next.

Now when it comes to cooking,

there are different verbs and styles of cooking.

You can fry.

So you need a frying pan.

You can shallow fry with a bit

of oil, or deep fry with a lot of oil.

Shallow fry is often also called saute,

to saute the vegetables.

So we are gonna saute the onions and the leek to begin with.

Always saute onions on a low light so that they don't burn

and cook them for like two or three minutes.

So let's turn on the hob.

I'm gonna put it up high for the moment.

Now, I should have done that when I was chopping

the onions to be more productive, but never mind.

Also I would turn on the air vent,

but it makes so much noise, it'll ruin the recording,

so we won't do that.

Instead, we'll ruin the kitchen.

Now, let's get going.

Let's put some oil in.

As I mentioned, I'm partial to olive oil,

so I'm gonna use a bit of that to the onions.

Normally when the onions are frying, I add a bit

of salt as well.

So when we put things in the pan, we can say to add,

to add the onions or to toss in, to toss in the onions,

or to throw, to throw in the carrots.

As we're waiting for that to heat up,

you know for me, when it comes to cooking,

it's not about perfection.

It's not about perfect recipes.

It's whatever you've got in the cupboard.

Make use of that.

Switch things around.

Experiment.

You know, so you've got some chopped carrots

and some diced carrots.

It doesn't matter.

All mixed around, rough and ready.

That's the way I like to cook.

Right, it's heating up

and I'm gonna put the onions and leek in.

The leek is basically an onion family, right?

Kind of the same thing.

(vegetables sizzling)

If you hear that, it's the nice noise you should be getting.

So, I'm gonna add a pinch of salt.

My wife likes to use a spoon.

I just like to sprinkle, (chuckles) but whichever works.

A pinch of salt.

Always remember to toss and turn.

I'm gonna turn that down now to a lower flame,

although there is no flame.

Take things with a pinch of salt.

Interesting idiom, right?

A pinch of salt means don't take things too seriously.

You should take life with a pinch of salt. (chuckles)

Okay, so we're gonna need one of these, right?

This is a...

Well, we call it a spatula.

I think in America they call it a turner

for turning things, or a spatula.

I'm gonna use this in here just to move these around.

They're coming along nicely and...

Oh yes, you've got that waft of onions.

Now, what you should do also is add some garlic.

Chop up some garlic and put it in.

But me, I ran out of garlic.

So run out of means you have none left.

I ran out of garlic,

so we're doing without, but not to worry.

Listen, let's throw in, to throw in the carrots.

Lovely.

Stir them around, to stir or to turn with your turner.

Now, what I'm gonna do in a moment,

also I'm gonna add some beans.

You can add beans.

You may want to add chickpeas, lentils,

anything with a bit of fiber, 'cause it gives it a bit

of substance and it's very, very healthy.

First of all though, I'm going to steam the vegetables.

Now this is easy.

We take a pan, take the lid off,

and just put all of those down in here.

If you're in a rush

you can just start in the pan directly.

I mean, why not?

There we go.

Turn that up.

Now it needs to go higher,

and we're gonna add a dash of water,

a dash or a little bit of water,

and that is gonna help them steam.

Turn it up quite high and let that steam away,

and in the meantime, we can get the beans ready.

Right, great.

Now you can see that is really steaming.

Now what's a good idea

with a tea towel is just to move it around.

Keep it moving, because otherwise it may stick.

But we're just gonna steam it like four

or five minutes is enough.

Oh, it's just about starting to stick.

Great.

I think about half pint of water should be enough.

Again, turn up the heat.

What I've done is I've taken a sieve, right?

And in the sieve we've got the beans

and we're gonna add all of these beans into that water

once it's boiled.

Water heated is boiled, and you can boil the beans.

Boil the soup.

Great.

Nice vocabulary.

Let's toss the beans into the pan.

Yes, it is getting quite hot now.

So I'm gonna take the beans and toss those in.

Excellent.

And now I'm gonna add the potatoes.

The secret with the potatoes,

and I learned this several years ago,

is be careful how you cut them, but it's to cut and tear.

Let me show you it over here,

and it'll give a nice substance to your soup.

The starch will just help it not be too watery.

It'll give it a nice substance.

So you can do that.

Just take these very carefully with your paring knife,

paring knife, and into nice, small shapes,

and then just throw those in.

So half a pint was nowhere near enough.

We've got another half a pint.

Make it a pint of water.

All of that goes in.

Take your spatula or turner and mix it all in.

Put the lid on.

Now then, what's missing, of course, is a bit of spice.

So I'm gonna put in a bit more salt.

I'm gonna add pepper, give it a bit of a kick.

And what I could have done earlier,

but I didn't, is add a bit of picante pimenton.

That'll give it a little bit of a kick as well.

Now let me just show you how this is shaping up.

Look at that.

It's looking good, it's looking thick, (sniffs)

and it's not smelling bad at all either. (laughs)

Now that is boiling,

so what we're gonna do is turn the heat down

so that it simmers.

To simmer is to boil gently, to simmer on a very low flame.

So let's do that.

So that now is simmering gently.

I'm gonna leave it for about five minutes.

Before we leave it, the secret

to good cooking is also to be tasting all the time.

Taste, taste, taste.

It's a bit like learning English.

Practice, practice, practice.

Let's taste and just see what modifications we need to make.

That was a big word, isn't it?

So, come and join me as we just taste

and see how it's going.

(upbeat music)

Now, a professional chef would just put that straight

in the mouth, but I'm not and it's too hot.

Oh my, that has got a kick.

It's definitely missing something.

It's missing a bit of acid,

and it's missing kind of the fat texture.

So in a moment we're gonna add a bit

of butter to give it extra texture

and maybe a little bit of acid.

Let's put in a bit of vinegar.

Just a splash of vinegar.

Stir it around,

and Bob's your uncle. (laughs)

I'm gonna add a bit of butter.

So let's just take this off.

A little, a knob of butter.

A slice of butter.

Let's throw that in and just mix it around a little bit.

Another idiom for you

or a phrase or verb, to butter somebody up.

If you butter somebody up, it means that you are, hmm,

you're praising them and saying good things

about them because you want them to help you.

Right?

If I want to get a good grade from my teacher,

maybe I can go and butter my teacher up,

say some nice things about him, right?

That's a lovely soup you're making. (laughs)

Okay, let's leave that just to simmer

for another minute or two and it'll be ready.

(upbeat music)

Brilliant.

I think it's ready now, so I'm gonna turn the hob off.

Take the top off.

Let's ladle out the soup.

To ladle out or to serve out.

To serve up.

Whichever is fine.

Just to give you a flavor, to give you an idea.

Change camera.

Here we go.

Let's see if you can see that.

Feast your eyes on that.

It looks delicious.

I'm not sure if it will taste delicious.

Let's see.

We have to blow on it 'cause it's so hot.

Mm mm.

That is fabulous.

It's got a kick.

It's spicy, it's smooth.

Really, really nice.

So listen, we've come to the end

of the cooking program and the English program.

I hope you've learned lots.

Just a warning, I am not responsible

for the quality of your food. (laughs)

I am not a professional cooker.

If your soup tastes terrible, I'm not responsible.

However, I will take responsibility for your English.

I hope you've enjoyed the lesson. (laughs)

See you soon.

So I hope you enjoyed the video

and found it useful for cooking and for learning English.

If you enjoyed it, please do leave me a like, do subscribe,

and turn on notifications to find out about upcoming videos.

Remember, the secret is in the practice,

both for learning English

and for cooking, well, tasting as well, right?

Practice and taste.

Remember, do collect your free PDF if you want all

of this language so you can practice at home.

Leave me a message below.

Let me know, I dunno,

the kind of things that you enjoy cooking.

In the meantime, I'll see you

in the next video just around the corner.

Thanks for watching.

All the best now.

Bye-bye.

(upbeat music)

And here are some interesting idioms for you, right?

Chop.

To give somebody the chop is to fire them,

so they've been working badly

and you send them out to the company.

Give somebody the chop.

Also, we talked about slicing.

If you want a slice, the best thing since sliced bread.

That means something is the best thing ever, right?

This knife is the best thing since sliced bread.

We also had, oh yes, to dice.

So dice.

To roll the dice, to roll the dice is to take a chance.

If you're not sure about something,

well, just roll the dice.

Take a chance.

(light rock music)