French culinary terms

French cuisine ranks high and is considered one of the best in the world.

French food is known for its finesse and flavour and is famous for amazing cooking techniques.  Even if it’s simple food, the table is laid with care before they start eating.
This reverence for food has made French cuisine so valued across the world.

But there are a few CULINARY TERMS that I initially struggled with,
take a look, quite interesting must say  :  

Bain Marie 

Basically this is a double pan – one solid pan which sits over a second pan of
boiling / simmering water. Perfect for making porridge, puddings etc.

Brunoise 

This one has had left me clueless
Not on the exact meaning, but WHY would the recipe need the pieces to be cut that fine (almost 2mm to 3mm in size)  ?  Because anything finer than brunoise would be considered a mince.  But that’s how PRECISE AND IMPORTANT ‘cutting’ is considered in French cuisine.

In Brunoise style of cutting, the dices need to be identical in order to cook the dish evenly.
c’est génial (that’s genius) !!!

Noisette 

This I had guessed completely wrong.  NO it has nothing to do with noise or maybe yes – the noise, rather sound of the butter getting browned in the pan – just guessing.
But this term literally means brown or hazelnut brown in French and Beurre Noisette is nothing but browned butter which is quite famously used in their pastries and certain sauces for meats etc. 

Fancy isn’t it ? !!!

Browning of butter