Cook book glossary defined in the form of The Devil's dictionary

Example :
Risoto >> Means rice in Italian. An important term for the chef to know as he is most often judged by how many foreign names he drops than what he cooks. And important for the amateur cook too as he can conveniently rename his botched up fried rice as Risoto and no one will be the wiser. Also see Sushi, Basmati

Sushi >> If you have added too much water to your rice dish and have made it all clumpy and sticky, here's a easy way to save it. Just call it sushi. Japs for some weird reason like their rice sticky ( and expensive) .

Pulao >> If you have added too little water and the rice is not yet fully cooked, just call it plain pulao. A pulao ( Indian rice dish) is supposed to have separate grains.

This trick of renaming botched up reciped to exotic foreign names is one of the easiest tricks you need to master.