Preparing Cooking and Serving Food in English Visual Vocabulary Lesson

Hi, I’m Rich. Welcome to Oxford Online 
English! In this visual vocabulary lesson,  

you can learn words and phrases 
to talk about food and cooking.

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Peel the courgettes. 

‘Peel’ means to take the skin off some fruit 
or vegetables. Some foods are easy to peel,  

like bananas. With other ingredients, you 
might need to use a knife or a peeler. 

Cut the tomatoes into quarters.

When talking about preparing food, the 
combination ‘cut…into…’ is common. For example,  

you might hear: ‘Cut the chicken into six 
pieces’, or ‘Cut the aubergine into small cubes.’

There’s one common exception to this pattern;  

you cut something in half, not ‘into’. For 
example: ‘Cut the lemon in half,’ not ‘into half’.

Cut the radish into thin slices
Slice the radish thinly. 

Many words connected with cooking can be both 
verbs and nouns. ‘Slice’ is a common example.  

You can cut something into slices, or just 
use slice as a verb: ‘Slice the cucumber’,  

‘slice the carrots’, and so on.
Halve and deseed the peppers. 

‘Halve’ is the verb from ‘half’. It’s an efficient 
way to say ‘cut something into two pieces’.  

You can also use ‘quarter’ as a verb. For example:  

‘Quarter the tomato’ and ‘Cut the tomato 
into four pieces’ have the same meaning. 

‘Deseed’ means you remove the seeds. 
With peppers, you also need to remove  

the pith – the white flesh on the inside.
Chop the onion as finely as possible. 

Usually, ‘chop’ means to cut something into 
medium-sized pieces, perhaps not in a precise  

way. However, if you chop something finely, 
you cut it into the smallest pieces possible. 

Dice the red pepper.
‘Dice’ means to cut into small pieces.  

More specifically, ‘dice’ means that you cut 
something in two directions. If you dice a pepper,  

you first cut it into strips, and 
then cut the strips into small pieces.

Mix the ingredients together.
Stir the ingredients to mix them. 

Here, ‘mix’ and ‘stir’ have the same meaning. 
In general, ‘stir’ is more specific, because  

it means to use some kind of implement – like a 
spoon – to mix whatever you’re mixing. You can  

mix something with your hands, or by putting it 
in a container and shaking it, or in other ways. 

Stir fry the veggies on a high heat. 

Turn the heat up to high and fry the 
vegetables, stirring continuously. 

Often, you can say the same thing in 
fewer words by using a more specific  

verb. Both these sentences are fine 
and both have the same meaning,  

but in the first sentence you save words 
by using a more specific verb: ‘stir fry’. 

Bring the water to the boil 
and then add the dumplings. 

In cookbooks and recipes, 
you’ll often see the phrase  

‘bring the water to the boil’. 
This means that you boil the water,  

and when it starts boiling, you’ll 
add something or do something else.

Turn the heat down to low and 
simmer the soup for twenty minutes. 

If you need to simmer something, 
you turn the heat down  

until it is just boiling. There are a few 
bubbles, but it isn’t boiling vigorously. 

Fry the meatballs until browned on both sides.
Deep fry the potatoes and leave to dry. 

If you use the verb ‘fry’ in English, 
it generally means shallow-frying:  

when you fry something in a little bit of 
oil or butter. Use the verb ‘deep fry’ if  

you want to talk about cooking something 
in boiling oil, like fried potatoes.

‘Brown’ is another useful verb. When cooking 
meat, you often fry the meat first to brown  

it – you cook it until it is brown on the 
outside, but probably not cooked in the middle. 

Pre-heat the oven to 180, then roast 
the chicken for around one hour. 

Here’s a question for you: ‘roast’ and ‘bake’  

both mean to cook something in the 
oven, but what’s the difference? 

There are different answers to this. Technically, 
‘roast’ means to cook something uncovered,  

until it turns brown. However, in everyday 
language, ‘roast’ is generally used for  

meat and vegetables, and ‘bake’ is 
generally used for bread, cakes, and fish.

We grilled the shrimp kebabs over a charcoal fire.
We cooked the shrimp kebabs on the grill. 

With cooking, you can often use different 
verbs or verb phrases to say the same thing.

For example, you can grill food, or cook 
food on the grill. You can roast food,  

or cook food in the oven. It 
doesn’t matter which you use.

The verb ‘grill’ is often used when you cook 
something on a barbecue, but your cooker  

in your kitchen might have a grill, and you can 
also buy electric grills to use in your kitchen. 

Blend the soup until fairly smooth.
I used a hand blender to puree the sauce. 

You can blend something with a hand blender, 
like you saw here, or with a regular blender. 

If you blend something for a longer time, it will 
come out smooth. The opposite of smooth here is  

‘chunky’ – meaning you blend it for a short 
time, and there are still some solid pieces.

Add a dollop of sour cream 
to the soup and mix it in. 

Add a spoonful of sour cream to the soup.
A ‘dollop’ means a small amount. It’s not  

specific, but it generally is used to mean around 
one spoonful. You can use ‘dollop’ for things  

which are between solid and liquid, like yoghurt, 
thick cream, sour cream, or other thick sauces. 

Sprinkle with grated parmesan 
cheese before serving. 

You can might sprinkle something on your food 
before you serve it, like cheese. Another example:  

you might sprinkle pepper, paprika or 
oregano on top of a dish once it’s ready. 

They served the steak with green 
beans and corn on the side. 

You can use ‘on the side’ for vegetables or 
other things which accompany the main dish. 

Garnish with a mint leaf and serve. 

A garnish is something you add mainly for 
decoration, to make the food look good; more attractive.  

Some garnishes are chosen for their flavour, 
but you might garnish a dish with something  

that isn’t intended to be eaten. You can also 
garnish a drink; cocktails often have a garnish.

Pour the chocolate icing generously over the top.
The verb ‘pour’ is mostly used with liquids.  

You can also use the verb ‘drizzle’ to mean that 
you pour a small amount of something. For example:  

‘Drizzle some olive oil over the salad.’
‘Generous’ is more often used to describe people,  

but you can also use it to talk about food. For 
example, you can have a generous portion or a  

generous serving. Here, ‘generous’ has the meaning 
of large, but in a positive way – not too large.

What about you? Tell us about 
the last thing you cooked;  

how did you do it? Can you use some of 
the language you learned in this lesson?  

Write your answer in the comments and 
share it with us and other learners!

If you liked this lesson, 
don’t forget to check out the  

other lessons in our Visual Vocabulary series.

Thanks for watching!