Food & Drink
HardCooking Crossword: Kitchen Methods
Category: Food & DrinkDifficulty: Easy15 × 10
Thursday, September 24
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Enter one letter per square. Answers run Across or Down. Omit spaces and accents; any special spelling convention is stated in the clue. This is a freeform themed grid, so some letters are not crossed.
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About This Theme
Recipes become easier to follow when their verbs make sense. This crossword is a tour of those instructions, from preparing an ingredient to controlling the heat around it. Most answers are actions rather than foods. Pay close attention to details such as the size of a cut, the amount of liquid, or whether the heat comes from above. If two methods seem similar, those details are often what separates them.
Clues
Across
- 4US term for cooking under direct overhead heat (5)
- 5Cut food into small cubes (4)
- 6Briefly plunge food into boiling water, often before cooling it rapidly (6)
- 7Cook liquid gently just below a full boil (6)
- 10Beat with a wire-loop kitchen tool (5)
- 11Work dough by pressing and folding it (5)
Down
- 1Gently combine a light mixture with a heavier one (4)
- 2Cook an ingredient gently in liquid without vigorous boiling (5)
- 3Cook food using the vapor from heated water (5)
- 4Brown food, then cook it slowly with some liquid in a covered pot (6)
- 8Chop food into very fine pieces (5)
- 9Cook food with dry heat in an oven (5)
Answers and Explanations
After Your Solve
The clues sort cooking techniques by what you actually do. DICE and MINCE both involve a knife, but the desired result differs. POACH and BOIL both use liquid, yet the intensity of the cooking environment matters. BRAISE combines stages rather than naming one simple heat source. For the American term BROIL, the clue explicitly identifies the regional usage. A good recipe and a good crossword have that much in common: they should tell you enough to choose the intended action without guesswork.
- 4 acrossBROIL
Broiling exposes food to strong radiant heat from above.
- 5 acrossDICE
Dicing aims for cube-shaped pieces.
- 6 acrossBLANCH
Blanching is a short initial cooking treatment.
- 7 acrossSIMMER
Simmering is gentler than vigorous boiling.
- 10 acrossWHISK
Whisking can combine ingredients or incorporate air.
- 11 acrossKNEAD
Kneading develops structure in many bread doughs.
- 1 downFOLD
Folding aims to limit the loss of incorporated air.
- 2 downPOACH
Poaching is a moist-heat technique.
- 3 downSTEAM
Steaming does not require immersing food in the water.
- 4 downBRAISE
Braising combines browning with moist cooking.
- 8 downMINCE
Mincing produces finer pieces than a rough chop.
- 9 downROAST
Roasting uses the oven’s dry heat.
Further Reading
- Theme referencebbcgoodfood.com
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