Cooking may not be an easy thing if you don’t have a passion for it, despite having a recipe to follow. If you’re very eager to learn how to cook so in order to serve your family great dishes or cook palatable meals and treats for yourself, then here are essential tips to remember. Take note of these common mistakes made by amateur cooks.
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1) Sift, Sift, Sift
You won’t get an accurate measurement unless you sift your flour. When baking, the measurements for flour in recipes are assuming that you have sifted it. Buy a sifter if you don’t have one and sift before measuring.
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2) Stop Spiral Stirring
Most people tend to stir their food in a circle. But the best way to make sure it is stirred and cooked evenly is to go for a figure eight or to make a flower pattern with the spoon continuously.
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3) Careful With The Salt
Some people add too much and some don’t add enough. The secret is to take it slow. You can always add more but you can’t take it back after you add too much. So go slow and see how much you actually need.
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4) Mise En Place
This is one of the most important phrases that a chef will learn. It means, “everything in its place,” and it is the golden rule. Keeping a tidy kitchen where you always know where everything is at prevents a lot of accidents.
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5) Get The Order Right
When following a recipe, most amateurs tend to throw all the ingredients together and mix. But that is the last thing you want to do. Make sure you read ahead to find out which ingredients are added when.
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6) Don’t Overmix Your Eggs
Overmixing ingredients, especially creamy ones, can make your food tough. This is no fun! Look up a guide on the perfect texture for whatever you’re making to make sure that you’re not overmixing.
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7) Let Your Eggs Warm Up
Using cold eggs can mess with the texture of your food. When baking especially, it’s important to let them warm to room temperature. You can also add them to warm water, not hot water, to speed up the process.
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8) Cool Your Dough
When you make cookies, make sure you let the dough chill before baking. You can do this before or after you form them. This will stop the butter from melting and the cookies from becoming too crisp.
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9) Sharpen Your Knives
Most chefs will tell you that the most dangerous utensil is a dull knife. More accidents happen with dull knives than sharp ones. You apply too much pressure! Get a sharpening tool and keep your knives in tip-top shape.
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10) Heat Your Pan
It’s tempting to go ahead and throw the food in the pan before the pan is done heating, but that is not the way. Whether it be an iron skillet or an egg pan, let the oil heat before adding the rest of the ingredients.
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11) Don’t Open The Oven
It’s so easy to peek in on your food every thirty seconds. But if you can keep from it, then wait until the food is done or needs to be flipped over to open it. This will keep your food cooked evenly and on time.
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12) Use Fresh Veggies
This is especially true for mushrooms. Some cooks will use canned veggies but you’ll never see a chef do it. It is frowned upon in the kitchen and with good reason. The reason the food tastes so good is because they use quality ingredients.
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13) Don’t Overwater Your Ramen
This is a tip from every bachelor and bachelorette in the world. And let me let you in on a little secret. When they’re at home, chefs do not eat the fine food that is served at their restaurant. They eat junk food and ramen.
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14) Calm Down Your Chopping
Just because you’ve seen some famous chef chopping onions like they are breaking a record, doesn’t mean that you have to too. Be safe and take it at your own pace, even if you eat later because of it.
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15) Don’t Cool Your Tomatoes
Trust the chefs on this one. Tomatoes are way juicier and better-flavored if you leave them setting out rather than in the fridge. Cooling them seems to zap the flavor right out of them. The same goes for other veggies and fruits like it.
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16) Don’t Underestimate The Microwave
Every chef has a microwave at home and it is put to good use. People will talk bad about them but under the right circumstances, they can be lifesavers. Reheating food, defrosting, and steaming a few of them.
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17) Use A Thermometer
Please use a meat thermometer! When you go by the time it says on the recipe, you can never know if it’s accurate. Recipes by chefs will always have a temperature that your meat should reach and stay at.
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18) Slowly Personalize
Whenever you get used to a recipe, it’s a good time to start personalizing. However, ther are certain things you can do even the first time that won’t affect the quality. For starters, if you don’t like garlic, omit it!
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19) Taste The Food
Tasting the food as you go is one reason that chefs are stereotyped as overweight. It’s a necessary evil if you want the best-tasting food possible. You need a taste every step of the way to know where to go.
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20) Start With Salt And Pepper
Before going all out with the seasoning,s start with salt and pepper. Sometimes, it’s all you need to make a dish perfectly flavored. Othertimes, it calls for something else. But you won’t know until you start with the basics.
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21) Let The Oven Preheat
For goodness’ sake, let that oven preheat. It’s so easy to stick a pizza in and turn the oven on. But there’s a reason the directions tell you to let it preheat. When you don’t, you’ll get all kind of strange textures.
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22) Frost It Cold
Some people think frosting your cake the second it comes out of the oven is the way to go. This is simply wrong. If you don’t let the cake cool to at least room temperature, the frosting will melt and it will not be pretty.
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23) Don’t Press That Burger
Chefs everywhere are begging you to stop squeezing the natural juices out of your burgers. Just stop. Instead, let them cook evenly and shape them beforehand, getting them as thin as you wish.
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24) Follow The Recipe The First Time
If it’s your first time making something, do it exactly like the recipe says. You can experiment later, but first you need to make sure you do it right. If you don’t, you won’t know what you did wrong!
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25) Weigh Your Ingredients
Weighing your ingredients instead of measuring them is the best way to get an accurate recipe. Many other countries do it without thinking, but some countries, like the USA, stick to measuring cups.
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26) Add Acidity For Flavor
If you’ve added enough seasoning and it still needs something, try adding something acidic like a citrus juice or even zest. It might be just what you need and you didn’t even know it! This works great in Mexican food and soups.
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27) Taste With Your Nose
We “taste” with our nose before anything else. In fact, when you hold your nose, your tastebuds won’t work as good. They’re only as strong as your other senses. Eyes and mouth are important, but the nose comes first.
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28) Don’t Overcrowd The Pan
When cooking in the oven or on the stovetop, make sure that you kee your pan light. Overcrowding will cause the food to cook unevenly and take much longer. Spread the food out evenly and take your time.
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29) Add A Dash Of Sugar
Sugar isn’t just for sweets. When making something salty or savory, adding a dash of sugar could be just what you need. You won’t notice it in the dish but it will even out the flavor and make it savory.
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