Advanced English Vocabulary – Cooking Flashcards
Word 1: Fussy eater (noun)
Meaning: Someone who chooses what they eat very carefully and doesn’t
like/won’t eat a lot of different food types.
Synonyms: Picky; Particular; Selective; Choosy; Fastidious (all adjectives)
Antonyms: Easy-to-please, indiscriminate (both adjectives)
Example Sentence: I’m not a fussy eater at all – I’ll eat anything!
Word 1: Fussy eater (noun)
Meaning: Someone who chooses what they eat very carefully and doesn’t
like/won’t eat a lot of different food types.
Synonyms: Picky; Particular; Selective; Choosy; Fastidious (all adjectives)
Antonyms: Easy-to-please, indiscriminate (both adjectives)
Example Sentence: I’m not a fussy eater at all – I’ll eat anything!
Word 2: Repertoire (noun)
Meaning: A selection of skills that someone has, for example in which dishes they can cook.
Synonyms: Wheelhouse; Range (both nouns)
Collocations: A wide/extensive repertoire; A narrow/limited repertoire;
Something is/isn’t in my repertoire; To add (something) to one’s repertoire.
Example Sentence: I like cooking but I have a pretty limited repertoire of dishes that I can cook.
Word 3: Ready meal (noun)
Meaning: A meal prepared by the manufacturer and sold with only
reheating needed before eating.
Synonyms: Microwave meal; TV dinner (both nouns)
Antonyms: To cook something from scratch (phrasal verb)
Collocations: Pop(put) a ready meal in the microwave
Example Sentence: Many people don’t have the energy to cook their dinner from scratch, and choose ready meals instead
From the scratch: From the begining
Word 4: Follow a recipe (Phrasal verb)
Meaning: To make a meal by reading a cooking recipe and following the
steps.
Antonyms: To get creative; To make it up as I go along; To improvise (all verbs)
Collocations: To vaguely follow a recipe; To follow a recipe to the letter (Every step exactly)
Example Sentence: I generally tend to get creative in the kitchen, because I
can’t stand following recipes.
Word 5: Fry (verb)
Meaning: Cook in oil/fat, usually at a high heat.
Word Family: Fried (adj)
Synonyms: Sautee (verb)
Collocations: To deep-fry; To shallow-fry; To pan-fry; To stir-fry
Example Sentence: The first step is always to shallow-fry some onions and garlic.
Word 6: Chop (verb)
Meaning: To cut something into pieces with a knife
Word Family: Chopped (passive verb, adjective)
Synonyms: Dice; Cut up (both verbs)
Collocations: To roughly chop; To finely chop; To chop something into pieces/cubes/chunks; To chop up something
Example Sentence: The next step is to roughly chop some carrots and other vegetables.
Word 7: Cuisine (noun)
Meaning: A type of food or cooking, usually specific to a place. e.g. Indian cuisine.
Synonyms: Cooking style (noun)
Collocations: The local cuisine; To be famous/renowned for one’s cuisine;
Nationality + cuisine (e.g. French cuisine; Chinese cuisine)
Example Sentence: The local cuisine in my area includes a lot of deep-fried food.
Word 8: Specialty (noun)
Meaning: A special dish or cuisine you can cook well, or the dish you cook best.
Synonyms: Forte; Strong suit (both nouns, but only used when talking about a cuisine or style of cooking, not a specific dish)
Antonyms: Weak point; Weakness (both nouns); Not my strong suit (adjective)
Collocations: Something is someone’s specialty; Someone’s specialty is…
Example Sentence: When it comes to cooking, my specialty is definitely Chinese food, specifically stir-fries
Word 9: Boil (verb)
Meaning: Cook something in water at a high heat, usually at the temperature that causes the water to bubble and turn into steam.
Antonyms: To simmer (verb):Cook somth on a light heat
آهسته جوشیدن، بجوش وخروش آمدن
، نیم جوش کردن ، بجوش آمدن ، جوش .
Collocations: Bring something to the boil; To begin to boil; Put something on to boil; To boil something gently; To leave something boiling
Example Sentence: The third step is to put the vegetables into a pot of water and bring it to the boil.
Word 10: Home-cooked meals (noun)
Meaning: A meal cooked at home (this phrase has very positive connotations in English)
Synonyms: Home cooking; Home-cooked food; My mum’s/dad’s cooking (all
nouns)
#ready meal
Antonyms: Restaurant meals; Fast food; Take-out; Takeaway (all nouns); To eat out (verb)
Collocations: There’s nothing like home-cooked meals/food
Example Sentence: I like to eat out occasionally, but for me, there’s nothing like home-cooked meals, particularly if my grandma is cooking
Listen
I’m not a great at cooking, to be perfectly honest, but I do enjot it. I have atiny little repertoire of about 3 dishes, and all ot them invlove frying in some way or other. I almost never boil anything - it never tastes good afterwards. And following a recipe is not something I enjoy 0- I prefer to just chop up some ingredients, chuck them in the pan and see what happens!
Are you good at cooking?
I’m not bad, actually. I’m quite a fussy eater, so I had to learn to cook, and now my repertoire is pretty broad. I can’t bake though-that’s not in my wheelhouse at all.
What are some of the necessary skills that a good cook needs?
Well, obviously being able to do things like chopping, slicing,boiling and frying - that goes withiut saying But another thing that I think is overlooked is the ability to improvise. Once you’ve mastered a few recipes, you should try to design your own, and learn to be creative with your cooking.
