Essential Cooking Techniques
Ready to take your cooking skills from amateur to amazing? Then, I have 14 essential cooking techniques that will take your cooking skills from beginner to pro! Whether you’re learning how to sauté like a seasoned chef or perfecting the art of roasting, these tips will have you whipping up restaurant-worthy dishes in no time. Imagine impressing your friends with your new knife skills or wowing your family with perfectly cooked pasta. These techniques are the secret sauce to culinary success.
Using a sharp knife is fundamental to staying safe in the kitchen. Sharper knives are actually safer as they will slice through your food with less effort. From dicing to mincing, there are plenty of techniques a good chef should learn that will help you in the kitchen. Work on your knife skills, and your meals will start to look and taste better. Try honing your skills on potatoes, which are cheap and easy to cut into all different shapes.
Knowing how to store food safely is fundamental to preventing cross-contamination. According to the US Food & Drug Administration, appliances should be kept at the right temperatures, food that should stay in the freezer should never be left outside for more than two hours, and storage directions should always be checked on labels. When putting your food into your fridge, always put prepared foods and fresh fruits and veggies on the top shelf. Raw meats go on the bottom shelf to prevent any juice from the meat from potentially dripping onto your ready-to-eat foods.
This dry-heat cooking method can elevate most of your dishes. It consists of pouring a small amount of butter or oil into a hot pan and then adding your favorite ingredients. You can use this technique to cook fish, meat, and veggies. Sauteeing will brown veggies and meats beautifully, adding a subtle caramel flavor to your dishes. Plus, sauteeing is pretty quick, so you can have a meal on the table quickly!
Learning how to use heat properly is fundamental when cooking. Simmering, for instance, is the act of boiling a liquid at extremely low heat to enhance flavors. Simmering is less aggressive than boiling and will allow the flavor of the food to grow and develop slowly. You can use this technique to create several dishes like soups, stews, and sauces. If your soups are often dull, it is probably because you’re cooking them too fast instead of letting them slowly simmer.
Deep frying can be dangerous if you don’t know how to do it properly. According to the US Department of Agriculture, different oils have different smoking points. Ideally, you want to use types of oils with a high smoking point when deep frying. Some of these include vegetable oil, peanut oil, and sunflower oil. Use an oil thermometer to monitor the temperature of the hot oil.
Baking soda is a great ally to turn every old pan into a brand-new kitchen tool. This ingredient works like a charm on a variety of materials, such as stainless steel, cast iron, and ceramic. Baking soda is gentle enough that it won’t scratch your pans but it is strong enough to cut through grease. Combine baking soda with vinegar in a dirty pan and watch as the stuck-on food just melts away!
Wooden spoons need to be oiled to last through time. Apply a small amount of oil, like olive oil, to a cloth and rub it on your wooden utensils. You can leave it for the night and rinse the excess oil the following day. Do this every few months to keep your wooden utensils looking like new. This will prevent the wood from cracking and make your tools last years and years!
Nothing is better than scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast. However, cooking eggs this way required a bit of practice. The key? Lots of patience! Add butter to a pan and let it get very hot. I like to wait until the butter begins to brown before I add my whisked eggs. Stir your eggs gently and constantly, making sure to keep the flame extremely low, no matter how long it takes. The slower they cook, the better they taste!
Why buy stock when you can easily make your healthy version from home? Throughout the week, instead of throwing away your food scraps, such as broccoli stems and onion peels, keep them in a bag in the freezer. During the weekend, you can bring everything to a boil in abundant water and let it simmer for a few hours. When the water starts to look more like a broth, remove the pot from the heat, strain and discard the veggie scraps, and save the stock! You can use it to make soups and sauces.
While this technique is not very popular in the West, steaming has been used in Asian cuisine for centuries. This cooking method makes food easier to digest and is super healthy compared to others that require ingredients such as butter. It is a lower-fat method of cooking that can make some delicious foods! Try steaming rice or chicken to start. These are two very easy-to-make foods that steam really well.
Regardless of where you live, you’ll surely have access to plenty of spices to elevate your dishes. These should be added at the beginning of your recipe so that the food can absorb all its flavor over time. Remember that the spice and flavor of peppers will grow as your food cooks. A little bit will go a long way! You don’t want to end up with a dish that is too hot to eat. Start with a little spice at the beginning of the cooking process and taste your food as it cooks, adding more spice as needed.
Here is another popular Asian technique to elevate your dishes. Stir-frying consists of cooking your ingredients in a wok with a small amount of very hot oil while stirring continuously. The difference between this cooking method and sautéing is that the former usually involves higher heat, needs more oil, and requires constant tossing of the ingredients being cooked. Stir fry tends to be faster, making the veggies more crisp and crunchy.
It may sound crazy but cleaning is one of the most important steps of cooking. Clean up as you cook, and try to prevent your kitchen counter from getting too cluttered. A messy kitchen will turn into a disastrous meal. Keep your kitchen clean, and your brain will also be clear and focused on making a great meal. All professional chefs know to clean as you go, pausing in the cooking process when you can to clean up the kitchen.
Cooking pasta is one of the easiest things a home chef can make. All that it entails is boiling water! Always add a sprinkle of salt to your pasta water to give your noodles a little bit of bonus flavor that will really enhance the dish. Make sure you check the cooking time on the box as every shape of pasta cooks differently.
