A cooking technique where food, especially poultry or meat, is repeatedly brushed or basted with a glossy glaze or sauce during cooking to build up layers of flavor and create a shiny, lacquer-like finish. Common in Asian cuisines, particularly for duck and pork.
From the French 'lacquer,' originally referring to a glossy varnish, which comes from Portuguese 'lacre,' ultimately from Hindi 'lākh.' The culinary application emerged as chefs borrowed the term to describe the similar glossy finish achieved through repeated glazing of foods.
Lacquering creates that mirror-like shine you see on Peking duck or char siu pork—it's built up through multiple applications of glaze that caramelize and layer upon each other. Each coating adds not just visual appeal but also concentrated flavor, as the sugars in the glaze caramelize repeatedly, creating depth and complexity that a single application could never achieve.
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