English for Chefs and Cooks: Kitchen and Culinary Vocabulary

The brigade de cuisine is the classical hierarchical kitchen organisation system, originally developed in France by chef Auguste Escoffier, in which each kitchen staff member has a specific job title and set of responsibilities. Although the system originated in French kitchens, the job titles — executive chef, sous chef, chef de partie, commis chef — are used as standard English vocabulary in professional kitchens worldwide, including in the UK, USA, Australia, and beyond. Understanding this vocabulary is essential for anyone starting culinary training or work in an English-speaking kitchen, because instructions, job postings, and daily communication all rely on these titles to indicate who is responsible for what.

These terms describe different knife cuts with specific sizes and shapes. A "julienne" cut produces thin, matchstick-shaped strips, typically about 2-3mm thick and several centimetres long. A "brunoise" is a very fine cube, usually made by first cutting a julienne and then dicing it crosswise into tiny cubes of the same 2-3mm dimension. "Dice," used more generally, refers to cutting food into cube shapes, and is qualified by size: "small dice" (around 6mm), "medium dice" (around 1cm), or "large dice" (around 2cm). Precision with these cuts matters practically, not just aesthetically, because pieces of the same size cook at the same rate, ensuring even cooking throughout a dish.

Mise en place is a French phrase, adopted directly into English kitchen vocabulary, meaning literally "everything in its place." It refers to the practice of fully preparing and organising all ingredients, tools, and equipment before cooking or service begins — chopping vegetables, measuring spices, preheating pans, and arranging everything within easy reach. English-speaking chefs use "mise en place" both as a noun ("check your mise en place before service") and informally as a concept describing overall preparedness and organisation, even outside the kitchen. A cook who has "good mise en place" is organised and ready; one who does not is likely to fall behind once a busy service begins.

Braising is a combination cooking method: food (usually a tougher cut of meat or firm vegetable) is first seared at high heat to develop colour and flavour, then cooked slowly, partially submerged in liquid, at low heat for an extended time, often in a covered pot or oven. This process breaks down tough connective tissue, resulting in tender, flavourful food. Poaching, by contrast, involves fully submerging delicate food (such as eggs, fish, or fruit) in liquid kept just below boiling point, with no prior searing step, cooking it gently without browning. English recipes distinguish these methods clearly because using the wrong one — for example, poaching a tough cut of beef — would not achieve the desired texture.

To "fire" a dish means to begin actively cooking it, timed so that it finishes at exactly the moment it needs to be served — usually coordinated with other dishes in the same order so that a full table is served together. An expediter or chef typically calls out "fire table 12" to instruct the relevant stations to start cooking a particular order. This vocabulary reflects the time-pressure and coordination central to a live restaurant service: dishes cannot simply be cooked whenever convenient, they must be "fired" at the precise moment needed so nothing sits waiting or arrives late.

"86" (said as "eighty-six," used as a verb, "to 86 something") is American restaurant slang meaning to remove an item from availability, most commonly because the kitchen has run out of an ingredient or dish. A server or chef might say "we're 86 on the salmon" to communicate to the rest of the team that salmon can no longer be ordered. The exact origin of the term is debated, but it is now standard English-language restaurant vocabulary across the industry, used constantly during service to keep the whole team informed about menu availability in real time.

These three terms all describe cooking with fat in a pan but differ in technique and purpose. "Sauté" (from the French for "to jump") involves cooking food quickly over relatively high heat in a small amount of fat, often tossing or stirring the pan frequently so pieces cook evenly without burning — typically used for smaller pieces of vegetables or protein. "Sear" specifically means briefly cooking the surface of food at very high heat to create a deep brown crust and rich flavour through the Maillard reaction, usually as the first step before finishing the food another way (in the oven, for example). "Pan-fry" is a more general term for cooking larger pieces of food in a moderate amount of fat over medium-high heat until cooked through, without necessarily the rapid tossing of sautéing.

A reduction is a sauce or liquid that has been simmered uncovered for an extended period to evaporate much of its water content, which concentrates its flavour and thickens its texture without adding starch or fat. Common examples include a "wine reduction" (wine simmered down to a syrupy consistency) or a "balsamic reduction" (balsamic vinegar reduced to a thick glaze). English recipes and menus use "reduce" as a verb ("reduce the sauce by half") and "reduction" as a noun describing the finished product. Chefs judge a reduction as ready by its consistency — often described as "coating the back of a spoon" — rather than by a fixed time, since evaporation rates vary with pan size and heat.

Al dente is an Italian phrase, adopted into English culinary vocabulary, literally meaning "to the tooth." It describes pasta, rice, or vegetables that are cooked until tender but still offer a slight, firm resistance when bitten — not soft, mushy, or fully yielding. English recipes commonly instruct cooks to boil pasta "until al dente," typically one to two minutes less than the package's stated cooking time, then test by tasting a piece. The term appears on English-language menus, in recipes, and in professional kitchen instructions as the standard benchmark for properly cooked pasta and similar foods.

English uses a standard scale to describe how thoroughly meat, especially steak, is cooked: "blue" or "very rare" (barely seared, cool red centre), "rare" (seared outside, cool red centre), "medium-rare" (warm red-pink centre, the most commonly recommended level for quality steak), "medium" (warm pink centre), "medium-well" (slightly pink centre), and "well-done" (little to no pink, fully cooked through). These terms are used constantly when ordering in restaurants and in cooking instructions, and chefs use an internal temperature (measured with a meat thermometer) to confirm doneness precisely rather than relying on colour alone, since colour can vary between cuts.