Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

Hi, guys! Welcome to Cantonese Weekly Words. Today, we’re in Olivia’s Kitchen because we’re going to talk about cooking, 煮飯 (zyu2 faan6) “cooking”. Let’s start with the first cooking word.
1. 煮 (zyu2) “to cook / to make a meal”
煮飯 (zyu2 faan6) literally “to cook rice”, it actually also means “to prepare a meal”.
So in a sentence...嘩！五點鐘喇，我要返屋企煮飯呀。 (waa1! ng5 dim2 zung1 laa3, ngo5 jiu3 faan1 nguk1 kei2 zyu2 faan6 aa3.) “Oh! It's already 5 o'clock, I have to go home and make dinner.” or prepare a meal. Notice that in the character 煮 (zyu2), the four little dots means fire so you can use it for food that need to be heated up like, say with fire. We can say, we cook vegetable, we cook rice. 煮飯 (zyu2 faan6), 煮麵 (zyu2 min6) “to cook noodles”, but we don’t say we cook sandwich or salad right?
2. 切 (cit3) “to cut”
用刀切菜 (jung6 dou1 cit3 coi3) “cut vegetables with a knife”.
我切親隻手指 (ngo5 cit3 can1 zek3 sau2 zi2) “I cut my finger” yesterday.
Next word is…
3. 煎 (zin1) “pan-fry; sautée”
煎蛋 (zin1 daan2) “sunny-side up”. So for scrambled egg, you use 炒蛋 (caau2 daan2) because you keep stirring, and for 煎蛋 (zin1 daan2) “sunny-side up”, you kind of leave it in the pan for a while before you flip it or do anything with it.
煎魚 (zin1 jyu2) “fried fish”, you also leave it on the pan for a while before you flip it or do anything with it right?
煎魚要開抽氣扇呀。 (zin1 jyu2 jiu3 hoi1 cau1 hei3 sin3 aa3.) “Turn on the range hood when you are pan-frying fish.”
It smells or else, the whole room will smell.
Next word is…
4. 炸 (zaa3) “deep-fry”
炸嘢食嘅時候千祈唔好有水份。 (zaa3 je5 sik6 ge3 si4 hau6 cin1 kei4 m4 hou2 jau5 seoi2 fan6.) “When you're deep-frying food, don’t let it have any water on it.” Or else, it will splash everywhere.
5. 蒸 (zing1) “to steam”
Cantonese cuisine has a lot of steam dishes starting from appetizer, the entree, the dessert, we steam everything.
蒸魚 (zing1 jyu2) “steamed fish”, 蒸肉餅 (zing1 juk6 beng2) “steamed meat patty”, 蒸年糕 (zing1 nin4 gou1) “steamed rice cake”.
In a sentence...我好掛住公公整嘅蒸魚。 (ngo5 hou2 gwaa3 zyu6 gung1 gung1 zing2 ge3 zing1 jyu2.) “I miss the steamed fish that my grandpa used to make.”
蒸魚 (zing1 jyu2) “steamed fish”
So that’s it for today. Today, we talked about “cooking” 煮飯 (zyu2 faan6). Do you cook? What kind of cooking method do you usually use? Let us know in the comment section. Please subscribe and check out the worklist on CantoneseClass101.com. I’m Olivia and I’ll see you in other Cantonese videos. Bye-bye! 下次見! (haa6 ci3 gin3!)

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