What's a sophisticated synonym for “cooking”?

Question

I'm looking for a word that essentially means "to cook" but sounds fancy and sophisticated. What synonyms are there?

Edit:

As for context, I'm thinking of a restaurant setting.

Tangent: The Online Etymology Dictionary has some interesting things to say about the word "cook". Turns out it's not quite as Germanic as I thought, but quite an old word nonetheless. etymonline.com/index.php?term=cook
Reading the title, the word cuisine immediately came to mind. But that's cooking as a noun, not as a verb.
@Rahul: yeah as well as Haute cuisine (French: literally "high cooking")
in a general setting, or when referring to a particular type of food being cooked?
"be slaving away over a hot stove" - not fancy but can get you brownie points from macmillandictionary.com/thesaurus-category/american/…

ghoppe · Accepted Answer · 2010-12-31 18:18:13Z

You could use a more general verb like:

And then sprinkle various more flowery adverbs, nouns and adjectives to make it sound more sophisticated. Try not to overdo it.

At Restaurant X, your meal is skillfully prepared from locally-sourced, fresh, organic ingredients.

If you're writing about a specific dish, you may want to use a verb that specifies the method of cooking, like:

etc.

At Restaurant X, our aged prime rib is slow-roasted to perfection.

Suvrit · Answer 2 · 2010-12-31 11:20:55Z

Just kidding: "Endow with a pleasant thermo-chemical alteration."

Nouns seems to be aplenty, but somehow not verbs. Perhaps you could concoct a verb out of the following nouns:

Other leads might follow by chasing words strongly associated with:

Perhaps, if you could provide more context to your question, someone might be able to offer a more precise and useful answer.

Chris Dwyer · Answer 3 · 2010-12-31 05:50:56Z

up vote 3 down vote

Engaging in the Culinary Arts.

answered Dec 31 '10 at 5:50

Chris Dwyer
4,51352349

I'm looking for a word. – Moshe Dec 31 '10 at 7:27

b.roth · Answer 4 · 2010-12-31 10:22:25Z

Concoct (verb)

mix ingredients to make something new: to create something by mixing or combining various ingredients in a new way, especially in cooking

Examples:

but concoct often has negative connotations, and certainly does not sound "sophisticated"....
you think concoct, you think magic potion - at least for me
@JoseK -- I'd say that about conjure; shout-out to fellow mages out there.

RegDwighт · Answer 5 · 2012-08-18 22:29:40Z

up vote 0 down vote

Baking and boiling are both decent synonyms.

(Depending on the context, of course.)

edited Aug 18 '12 at 22:29

RegDwighт♦
45.4k12148240

answered Jul 6 '12 at 15:33

Adam Mosheh
2051210

5 Answers