Today I’m going to show you 15 useful phrases for cooking in English. Cooking is one of my
favourite things to do, although I don’t really always have time to cook a full meal from scratch
with two kids and a business to run! So, sometimes I batch cook so I can have healthy
family favourite meals on the table in minutes. Come with me while I make a traditional British
shepherd's pie. But don’t worry, this pie doesn’t actually contain any shepherds!
Actually, the version I’m going to be making today is completely vegan!
Hello everyone I’m Anna English. And you are in the right place to learn English in a fun and
engaging way. Now here is my easy recipe for a nutritious
meal that is sure to please the whole family!
For this recipe, you will need two finely diced onions,
two crushed cloves of garlic, two large diced carrots, one stick of celery, also diced,
two and a half cups or five hundred grams of dried lentils, a teaspoon of Marmite and some dried
oregano. This is going to sub for the meat mixture in our vegan version but traditionally,
shepherd’s pie is made with lamb mince. Which is why we call it shepherd’s pie… Shepherds look
after lambs! Maybe we should change the name, like lentil pie…hand’s off those lambs pie?
For the topping, you’ll need nine hundred grams of potato,
peeled and diced, a knob of butter, and a splash of milk.
You may have noticed I’ve already used some phrases related to cooking. So, let’s take a
moment to inspect the language. I said “I don’t really always have time to cook a full meal from
scratch”. Cooking from scratch means to use fresh ingredients to cook a dish or meal. For example,
‘My sister never cooks from scratch. She’s far too busy. She usually uses pasta sauce from a jar”.
I also said “I batch cook so I can have healthy family favourite meals on the table in minutes.”
Batch cooking is when you make a large quantity of the same food that you then portion up and either
refrigerate or freeze to eat later. For example, ‘Since starting to use the fitness app,
my friend spends his Sunday afternoons batch cooking lunches for the week ahead.’
We also had some useful phrases in our ingredients list. They were ‘finely diced’, ‘to sub’,
‘a knob of butter’ and ‘a splash of milk’. Finely diced means cut into very small,
evenly-sized pieces. You know, like you see the chefs on TV doing.
I like to practice my knife skills by seeing how finely I can dice onions and carrots.
‘To sub’ is short for ‘substitute’. And now here comes number 8, lentils, subbing for the captain,
‘lamb mince’. When we sub one ingredient for another, we use this instead of the
more usual ingredient. You can sub lentils for meat or cashew cheese for cream cheese to make
recipes vegan. So, sub is when we use one thing in place of another. It’s also used as a noun.
You might use breadcrumbs as a sub for panko if you can’t find that.
Now we’re going to talk about quantities of things. A knob of butter is
some butter. Basically, it’s shorthand for however much butter you want in your dish. A knob is a
very specific word used for butter. Ok! Make sure never to use this word to describe anything else;
especially never call a person a knob! They will definitely get annoyed. Back to the recipe! Some
people like to just add a little bit of butter but I like to add a lot.
This might be considered a large knob of butter! Oops!
A splash of milk is similar. It’s an indeterminate
quantity of a liquid. We can use ‘a splash’ for any other liquid’. Some people add a splash of
Worcestershire sauce to this recipe. I like a splash of milk in my tea.
Now, without further adieu, let’s get cooking!
The first thing we need to do is cook the potatoes. Make sure to
rinse the diced potatoes first then put them in a saucepan,
cover with water, add a pinch of salt and bring to a gentle boil. Let the potatoes cook for about
twenty minutes or until the inside of each cube is soft, drain and set aside.
Bring to a gentle boil means to heat a liquid until it is hot enough to form small bubbles,
but not many. You might see instructions on a soup that say ‘bring to a gentle boil
and serve’, which means to heat the soup up before you eat it.
Set aside means to reserve for later use.
I made a salad to go with the shepherd’s pie and set it aside for later.
You can also use this expression for time. —- I set aside some time in my schedule to
brain dump all my ideas for videos.----- In this recipe, we need to cook the potatoes
and keep them for later, so we set the cooked potatoes aside.
Now we need to get the lentil mixture ready. Cook your lentils as per packet instructions.
Add the onion, garlic, carrot, and celery to a frying pan and sauté on a low heat until almost
cooked through (about fifteen minutes). Sauté is an interesting word. It’s one of the only words
in English that has an accent. That’s because it’s actually borrowed from French. Its use
in English is only for cooking. It means to fry food in a small amount of cooking oil and usually
means on a low heat, which is the expression for when you turn the burner or hob on just a bit.
Once the veggies are softened, add your cooked lentils, Marmite, and oregano, and season to
taste. This means putting as much salt and pepper in as you like. It’s about adding enough
to suit your taste. In this recipe, we also add oregano to taste.
Some people prefer a bit more or less. For other recipes, you might add sugar or garlic
to taste. How much you put in is really up to you and your preference.
At this point, you want to add some water to your lentil mixture to make it
just a bit wetter than you’d like to serve
it. We’re going to put it in the oven so it’ll end up absorbing a bit more moisture.
Ok, now here’s where we put it all together. Preheat your oven to a hundred and eighty degrees
celsius. Take the potatoes you’ve set aside, add a knob of butter, a splash of milk and mash.
Pour the lentil mixture into an ovenproof dish. We’re nearly there! I hope it turns out well!
Let’s pause for a moment and take a look at those useful phrases.
Preheat your oven means turn the oven on in advance so when you’re ready to put the food in,
it’ll be at the correct temperature. An ovenproof dish means a container that won’t break when it
gets hot. You can also say ‘microwave proof’ and ‘dishwasher proof’ to mean the item is safe
for the microwave and dishwasher. And finally, we had turn out well,
which means to make something and the finished product be what you wanted or expected. So, I
really hope the finished dish is really tasty and I don’t burn it or undercook it. Fingers crossed!
Next, layer the mashed potato on top of the lentil mixture. If you want, you can use a
fork to make a design on top of the mash so when it cooks that part gets nicely browned and crispy.
Bake for about half an hour. Be careful. When it comes out, it’s going to be piping
hot! So you might burn your mouth if you eat it straight away. Piping hot is extremely hot.
We can use it to refer to food, a radiator or anything else that has a very high temperature.
Oh, so how have I done? I think it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself! I’m serving
this family fave with a crisp side salad and I’ve got enough leftovers, which means
we can eat it again later in the week, for another family meal. Yes! Batch cooking for the win!
Don't follow me for cooking tips I'm not a good cooking teacher but I am
a great English teacher. I do hope you’ve enjoyed cooking with me today
and I’ve encouraged you to try it out for yourself at home!
So today we saw these fifteen useful phrases for cooking: cook from scratch, batch cook,
finely diced, to sub or a sub, a knob of butter, a splash of milk, bring to a gentle boil, set aside,
sauté on a low heat, season to taste, preheat your oven, an ovenproof dish, turn out well,
piping hot and leftovers. Can you remember what they meant?
Be sure to watch the video again in a few days to review. Practice
makes perfect! And talking about practice why not practice your English speaking right now
in a conversation with me, choose one of my 'Speak with Me' English videos, I hope to see you there.