MOST COMMON ITALIAN COOKING WORDS

In this page you will have a full list of the most used italian words related to italian cooking:



ANTIPASTO

This is the entry-time, when you start your lunch or dinner in a restaurant or at home. Literally means "before the meal", and could be composed by different appetizers.

CONTORNO

Basically could be considered as a "side dish". This  is served bundled with the SECONDO PIATTO, and could be included or excluded (ordered separately). Here you can find vegetables as well as french or baked fries.

COTTURA AL DENTE

This word could be used about pasta: it's a kind of cooking for real pasta lovers, it consist in leaving the pasta consistency slightly hard. Is the opposite of "over cooked".

COTTURA AL SANGUE

This slang is used when you eat beef: it means "rare", could be also mean "blue" in the sense that you will see the blood ("sangue", in italian) down in the dish.

COTTURA MEDIA

This slang is used when you eat beef: it means "mid-cook", a medium rare cooking for meat.

PRIMO PIATTO

Differently by the rest of the cultures, where you have an appetizer and the main course dish, the italians split the lunch/dinner time in several moments. One of these is called PRIMO PIATTO (or easily PRIMO) and, in general, include all kind of pasta and risotti, but also other dishes (like soups, for example)

SECONDO PIATTO

The "second dish" follows the PRIMO PIATTO experience, and here we include both meat and fish (differently coocked).