Cooking is not an inborn skill. You learn how to cook through observation or training. The cooking process can be complicated, especially for someone who never had their parents teach them while they were young. Now that you’re an adult, you might feel embarrassed about your culinary skills, or worse, lack thereof. But no matter your skill level, there are ways to perfect your cooking. In this post, I share some simple techniques to help you master the basics of the culinary arts.
Plan Ahead
As the adage goes, “failure to plan is planning to fail.” This also applies in the kitchen. Experimenting with a new recipe can be exciting, but the success of the process depends on how well prepared you are.
Don’t start blindly unless you want to disappoint yourself. Ensure you have all the necessary ingredients and read thoroughly through the whole recipe. You wouldn’t want to run to a grocery store in the middle of cooking.
If you’re experienced with a recipe before, you may want to deviate. However, a new recipe requires you to stick to every suggestion and detail, especially when you’re a beginner.
Perfect Your Culinary Skills with a Knife
Good food starts with a good knife. But you need to perfect your skills. Dicing a pepper or slicing onions in under 30 seconds is impressive, but it cannot make you a good cook.
What you need is to learn how to cut fruits, vegetables, and meat into the same shape and size. Uniformly chopped vegetables cook well and look presentable. If you chop the ingredients into different sizes, some pieces will get overcooked or undercooked, while others will come out burned.
Ensure you buy quality kitchen knives and learn how to sharpen them for an easy cooking process.
Have the Right Ingredients and Tools
A good meal is a product of the right ingredients cooked in the right appliances. Ensure your fridge and pantry are always stocked with various frozen or fresh vegetables, milk, spice options, and fruits.
Ensure you have the right appliances and tools like blenders, pans, and bowls. It’s also good to invest in equipment like a top wok for induction, classic serving spoons, and the right cooking pots.
Use Standard Recipes to Perfect Your Culinary Skills
The goal to is ensure you have delicious meals. After all, you’re not aiming to be an internal chef. So, follow the standard recipes in a cookbook. Learn and practice basic skills like cooking pasta, roasting a chicken, and sautéing vegetables.
This helps you build a strong cooking foundation. Once you’ve mastered these basic culinary skills, you may hone your craft with more advanced recipes and techniques.
Balance Your Flavors
Have you ever eaten a meal that’s too salty or too sweet? You may have the right ingredients and tools but end up with an unbalanced meal. Balancing flavors is an essential culinary skill you should learn.
Different dishes demand different amounts of salt. But if your meal calls for more salt, add to your own taste. You can toss in a splash of wine, lemon juice, or white vinegar for a tastier meal, as well.
The Bottom Line
These steps give you a foundation to boost your cooking skills. And as they say, practice makes perfect. Ensure you cook regularly to hone your culinary skills.
