The word "烹饪法" is formed by first combining the characters 烹 (pēng), meaning "to cook", and 饪 (rèn), meaning "to prepare food", into the compound "烹饪", which refers to the act or art of cooking. To this, the character 法 (fǎ), meaning "method", is added, specifying that the term denotes a technique or procedure, thus creating the complete word meaning "cooking method".