All right, let's get this blog rolling!
Some of the most common questions I always get (or hear) about cooking are about the basics of cooking, but instead about handing out an enormous list of "things" basic to cooking, I'll rather give you tips and recommendations that everybody should ever know. I'll hand out pointers and then detail them on this and future posts:
- Don't be afraid of the kitchen: sure, it sounds cliché but the reality is that most people that never cook is because of a number of things related to being afraid, things like: intimidated by the kitchen, terrified by the idea of failure, lack of practice, not knowing your ingredients or just laziness to follow a recipe.
So don't be afraid, get to know your kitchen and look for quick and easy recipes and soldier on, nobody becomes a good/great cook just by cooking once a month. If you don't know what a term is, grab a dictionary or look online. There are millions of places to look for info or you can ask me and I'll try to give you a hand.
- Learn to use your equipment correctly: i.e. one of the most underused kitchen appliances/equipment is the oven, but at the same time is one of the best, you can do great dishes with it.
My favorite kitchen appliances are:
- Blender
- Food processor
- Mixer
- Oven/mini-oven
- Pressure cooker
- Slow cooker
- Rice cooker (for my japanese recipes of course)
- Vacuum saver, a very underrated piece of equipment, will save you lots of money and help keep/enhance flavors.
Utensils:
- Good set of knives
- Good set of pans/pots, preferably made of steel but it's always good to have at least one non-stick, 1-2 baking pans too
- Pair of tongs (not thongs!! haha)
- Cutting board
- Measuring equipment: cups, spoons, scale
- Scissors
- Colander
- Grater
- Thermometer
- Learn to use your seasonings: sometimes using an additional ingredient (spice, herb, chile, fruit, vegetable) will make a recipe a thousand times better than the original one, but always remaining careful of not over-seasoning because that can ruin any dish.
Herbs and spices are the most versatile, the difference between a herb and a spice is mostly where it comes from on a plant. Herbs are used fresh or dried and come from the leafy part of a plant (i.e. oregano, bay leaves, basil); spices come from seeds, fruits, barks, roots, etc (i.e. cumin, pepper, ginger) and most of the times they come in dried form.
Also you have to consider your mineral/chemical seasonings like: salt, stock cubes, MSG, etc. Don't be afraid to use some chemicals once in a while, they can enhance flavors and as long as you don't use them excessively, they can't be hazardous to your health.
My favorite seasonings are:
- Salt, rock salt is the best, I only use the finely ground for baking
- Pepper
- Paprika
- Chile: chipotle, habanero, serrano, jalapeño are the most common
- Cinammon
- Vanilla
- Ginger
- Mustard seeds
- Garlic
- Onion
- Learn cooking techniques: there are a lot of cooking techniques out there and, as technology advances new ones come along. As an Iron Chef once said (Michael Symon): "If you learn 1 recipe you can cook a great dish, but if you learn a good technique you can do hundreds of great dishes".
I won't get into too much detail here because it's really hard to master them all, but over time I will be explaining some of them so that you can perfect your cooking skills.
To name a few:
- Braising
- Boiling
- Frying
- Sautéeing
- Roasting
On later posts I will talk about how to use all of these, along with food handling and sanitation, but I think that at least we covered a good portion of the basics. So, if you're interested in going into more detail on any of these, just give me a shout (comment), or if you have an additional question let me know!
As always, please click on my sponsors ads (google ads), this will help me a lot... Thanks and always a pleasure!!!
