Cuisson [kwee-SOHN] is French for cooking. It is a word that certain pretentious chefs, who don’t speak a word of French, use to sound impressive when talking about things being perfectly cooked. It’s usually applied to things like steak and fish. The cuisson, the cuisson. It’s all about the cuisson! When not being applied by vainglorious chefs, however, the term “cuisson” has more specific uses.
A phrase like “Cuisson de la viande” in French means simply “cooking (the) meat.” A head chef in a kitchen may say something like “Be careful with the cuisson on those scallops.” This means the same as “Be careful with the cook on those scallops.” A chef would understand cook to mean ‘degree of cooking’ and also the technique. One could also say “watch the scallops.” In French, the entire phrase would be “Surveiller la cuisson.”
Cuisson signifies the cooking process or the degree of cooking. For example, if you ordered a steak in a French restaurant and they asked how you would like the “cuisson” they are asking whether you want rare, medium, or well-done.
Cuisson often refers to a poaching liquid. This usually means a fish that is shallow-poached. The “cuisson” or poaching liquid may be reduced to become a sauce for the poached fish or other food. After being reduced, a sauce could be made by adding herbs, butter, and thickener, making an “à la minute” sauce. 1Gisslen, Wayne. Professional Cooking: 9th EMEA Edition. United Kingdom, John Wiley & Sons, Limited.,2Ruhlman, Michael. The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft for Every Kitchen. United Kingdom, Scribner, 2007.
How To Properly Pronounce 20 French Cooking Terms
Some other specific French cooking terms using the word cuisson are:
- Cuisson à la ficelle: Cooked on a string. This means tying a whole bird, roast, etc. string and hanging it to roast near a fire.
- Cuisson à la vapeur: To cook by steaming.
- “Une bonne cuisson”: A good level of cooking.
- “Surveiller la cuisson”: Monitor the cooking process; watch it; be careful.
- “Cuisson à point”: Referring to something being perfectly cooked.
Except when referring to a poaching liquid meant to become a sauce, when cuisson is a useful word in English, every other situation where cuisson would be used in a French kitchen can be easily rendered in English. Some chefs may employ such words having picked up the habit in Culinary School or in restaurants where they started their career.
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