Albumen: The protein of egg whites...just in case you want to impress your friends.
Alfredo: A pasta sauce made with unsalted butter, a taste of fresh minced garlic, heavy cream and the best damn parmesan cheese you can afford, and thicken it with raw egg yolks. This is the classic method. Old world style can’t be beat when making Alfredo sauce.
Amandine: This is French for anything cooked with almonds in it or on it. Yeah, you can spell it Almondine!
Andouille: Sausage made from the stomach and intestines of pork ... porker ... ahh hell, a pig! Sounds gross, don’t it! But a necessity in Cajun and Creole cusine. Three centuries of making it the same way, it must taste pretty damn good!
Antipasto: Leave it to the Italians to create a “little snack” of a meal to “peak your appetite” before you sit down to dine on the main meal. This is a big deal on one side of my family ... Man! They can lay a spread—Italian hams, pork, beef, fowl, sausages, salami’s, assorted cheeses, marinated vegetables, fruits, pastries, and on, and on, and on ... you get the drift!
Aspic: A gelatin “jelly” made from poultry or meat stock, wine or fruit juices to create meat, vegetable and fruit dishes. If you’ve ever eaten Hoghead Cheese, you know what I’m talking about!
Aubergine: Eggplant in Italian. I know what you’re thinking ... I did not know that! Now you do.
Bain-Marie: I always laugh when I say this cooking term ... a pronunciation faux pois—it’s a little inside joke! It’s a hot water bath contained in a stainless steel steamtable insert pan, then place a pan of cooked food on top of it to keep said product warm in chafing dish or buffet line unit. Also, use in Dutch Oven when cooking individual cups of custards, flan’s and mousse’s, keeping them from breaking consistency, curdling and burning.
Baklava: My all-time favorite Greek pastry. Stack between thirty to forty sheets of puff pastry, each individual sheet coated with a mixture of a bunch of sugar and ground almonds, walnuts, or various other types of nuts, then baked till puffy and dark golden brown. Then, coat it heavily with an Orange or Lemon flavored Honey syrup. Cut in generous squares ... it’s to die for!
