Cooking / Cocinar

Cooking is the process of preparing food with heat. Cooks select and combine ingredients using a wide range of tools and methods. In the process, the flavor, texture, appearance, and chemical properties of the ingredients can change. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Cooks themselves also vary widely in skill and training.

Preparing food with heat or fire is an activity unique to humans, and some scientists believe the advent of cooking played an important role in human evolution. Most anthropologists believe that cooking fires first developed around 250,000 years ago. The development of agriculture, commerce and transportation between civilizations in different regions offered cooks many new ingredients. New inventions and technologies, such as pottery for holding and boiling water, expanded cooking techniques. Some modern cooks apply advanced scientific techniques to food preparation.


VOCABULARY:

Roasting: cooking method that uses dry heat, whether an open flame, oven, or other heat source.

-Asado: Un método de cocinar que utiliza el calor seco, un horno de llama abierta, u otra fuente de calor.

Baking: technique of prolonged cooking of food by dry heat acting by convection, and not by radiation, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones.

-Hornear o cocción: Técnica de la cocción prolongada de los alimentos por calor seco que se producirá por convección, y no por la radiación, normalmente en un horno, pero también en cenizas calientes, o sobre piedras calientes.

 

Boiling: the method of cooking food in boiling water, or other water-based liquid such as stock or milk. Simmering is gentle boiling, while the cooking liquid moves but scarcely bubbles.

-Cocción: el método de cocinar los alimentos en agua hirviendo, o de otro tipo a base de agua líquida como caldo o leche. Cocer a fuego lento en una ebullición moderada, mientras se mueve el líquido de cocción, pero apenas sin burbujas.

Frying: It is the cooking of food in oil or fat, a technique that originated in ancient Egypt around 2500 BC.

-Frying: Freir, es la cocción de los alimentos en aceite o grasa, una técnica que se originó en el antiguo Egipto alrededor de 2500 aC.

Smoking: It is the process of flavoring, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to the smoke from burning or smoldering plant materials, most often wood.

Ahumado: Es el proceso de aromatización, la cocina o la conservación de alimentos mediante su exposición al humo de la quema de material vegetal o sin ella, en su mayoría de madera.


RECIPE 1 / RECETA 1 :

Lentil Spinach Soup, Mediterranean food.

Ingredients:

lentils, 1.5 cup, washed

water, 7 cups

garlic, 2 clove crushed

salt, 1.5 teaspoon

onions, 3/4 cup chopped

olive oil, 0.5 cup

spinach , 8 leaves plus a few stalks, finely chopped

lemon juice, 1/2 cup, fresh

celery, 1 stalk, finely chopped

cornstarch, 1 teaspoon, optional

INSTRUCTIONS:

Place lentils in a sauce pan with water, bring to boil, cover and simmer until tender. Brown onions in oil, add chopped spinach and garlic crushed with salt and mix well.

Sauté slowly until spinach becomes soft. Return lentils to a boil, Add celery and sautéed mixture. Turn to low and simmer 5 minutes.

For a thin soup, mix in the lemon juice and adjust salt to taste. For a thicker soup, mix cornstarch with lemon juice before adding to the cooked soup, then allow soup to simmer a few minutes longer.

 

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