Cooking is one of the basic skills that helped humankind to survive over the centuries. Some ingredients must be cooked, so they can become edible. For example, in the past, our ancestors ate raw meat, roots, and plants. But, when they discovered they can put the food in a fire, they saw how it became easily chewable and digestible. Those were the first and most basic cooking skills, such as baking, boiling, and cooking.
Today, we have a lot of ingredients that we can eat both raw and cooked. We follow recipes, mix the ingredients, make combinations, and get a good meal in the end. It’s normal to know how to cook, but cooking is more than boiling pasta and grilling meat. It’s important to eat a wide variety of food, depending on your taste. But, most important is to have pots and equipment, and of course, cooking knowledge, talents, and skills, so you can prepare delicious and nutritious meals. When you start cooking, you will see that you can improve your skills and make even more delicious food in your kitchen.
Here are a few ways how to do that:
1. Know the basics
Every good and professional chef started with simple meal preparation, like boiling eggs, making basic soup, potatoes, sandwiches, simple stews, and some pastry. But, they always find a way to improve this knowledge, by adding more ingredients and spices, so they can reach a better taste of the food they prepare. But first, you must pass the basic exam. Start with simple meals that include three or four ingredients and don’t require staying in the kitchen for too long. Take a few recipes from a cookbook and practice until you master them. Then move to the next one. Now you can choose more complicated recipes and use the knowledge you gained previously.
2. There is nothing wrong to ask for help
We all have exceptional cookers in our families or between friends. So, if you want to improve your cooking skills, you can ask for their help. Many cookers are glad to share their knowledge with less experienced people who are interested to learn how to cook better. And who knows, maybe you will discover your aunt’s or grandmother’s secret ingredient for the cake whole family loves. Or, you will find a secret ingredient that will also make you special, and everyone will ask for a recipe. But, don’t forget that it is normal to need help at the beginning.
3. You need to invest in a high-quality kitchen supplies and equipment
Every cooker should have a well-equipped kitchen. That includes the basics like a stove, microwave oven, induction range, a few types of pots, fryer, toaster, and so on. Also, you will need a good blender, mixer, or/and food processor, mincing machine for meat, and of course, eating and cooking utensils.
Induction ranges are excellent because they only cook what’s inside the pot, helping you avoid burns when you touch them. If you consider becoming a good cooker, or even a professional chef, you must know to work with this type of range. Here are some we found online, so you can find what you need and choose the model and brand that will fit your cooking needs.
Cooking utensils will help you prepare the ingredients, like dicing them, cutting in chunks, or filleting the fish or meat. Every excellent cooker needs to know how to work with knives, and also to protect themselves from getting hurt. Blender and food processors are useful when you need to prepare creamy soups, sauces, and stews. Some recipes are better when there are no vegetable chunks in the meal, so the food processor will do that job for you.
The high-quality pots will ease the whole job, especially if they are keeping the warmth inside and protect the food from sticking and burning. If you choose to use the induction range, you need to know that you can’t use the standard cooking pots and you should buy appropriate ones.
4. Learn how to combine ingredients and spices
In general, you can hold on to your personal taste for this, but there are a few tricks on how to properly use the spices and herbs for cooking. For example, when you cook beef, you can use lemon zest, black pepper, thyme, cloves, or even dried orange peel, together with garlic and balsamic vinegar. For poultry, you can successfully pair ginger, sage, thyme, lemon juice, basil, and garlic.
If you want to prepare a fish meal, you can use dill, mustard, celery, black pepper, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Green vegetables work great with dill, chives, garlic, and nutmeg. For cheese and eggs, you can use dill, oregano, garlic, and parsley. Add parsley, oregano, garlic, saffron, or lemon zest to your bean or rice stew for better taste.
Create your own salad dressings using different types of oils and vinegar, together with spices and herbs like oregano, coriander leaf, rosemary, garlic, dill, and mint, with salt or honey. The combinations are endless, and you need to find your favorite. Spices and herbs are the points between an average tasting and an exceptional dish. Don’t avoid them, because often they are the secret ingredient you are looking for.
5. Don’t forget about the cakes and pastries
You can choose two or three dessert recipes from your mom’s or grandmother’s cookbook and practice them until you become a master. Every good cooker has a few pastry recipes in their hand. That can be some simple cake, cookies, sponge cakes, creamy desserts, whatever you think it’s enough. Not a meal in this world is complete without a delicious piece of cake, so you need to find the recipe you like and make it even better, using your improved cooking skills.
If you can’t do it alone, you can always sign up for some cooking course. No one expects that you need to become a master chef, but it’s always good to know how to mix the ingredients and cook great dishes that everyone will ask for a recipe.
