Knowing how to cook is an invaluable skill in this day and age of ready-made meals. Not only is cooking your own food much healthier than dining out, but it’s relaxing and therapeutic. Improve your skills in the kitchen with these tips.
1. Sharpen Your Knife
Contrary to popular belief, a dull knife is more dangerous in the kitchen than a sharp one. This is because it causes the user to increase the force behind the knife. Because a dull knife tends to slide over food instead of cutting it, slips are much more likely to happen when using a knife that isn’t properly sharpened. Use a sharpener when your knife becomes dull. If you want to get really fancy, learn how to use a sharpening stone as opposed to a manual sharpener.
2. Use the Correct Knife for the Job
Knives come in a variety of shapes and sizes because they are designed for specific purposes. For example, you wouldn’t try to dice up a chicken with a small paring knife. Similarly, using a butcher knife or a chef’s knife wouldn’t be appropriate for taking the stem off of a strawberry. Educate yourself on the different types of knives and which job each one is meant for.
3. Learn and Practice Your Cuts
When a recipe tells you to julienne a pepper, it’s not the same thing as dicing it. Learning the difference between different types of cuts will help improve the texture of your final product. While slicing may be easy enough to interpret, there’s a difference between chopping, dicing, and mincing. If you are following a recipe and you find yourself unsure of how to make a cut, look it up online or take a cooking class to make sure that you are doing it properly. Thanks to websites like Golden Apron, there are many cooking classes out there to help with this.
4. Roast Your Vegetables
Possibly the tastiest way to prepare vegetables is by roasting them. Not only that, but it takes very little effort. Toss your vegetables with a little oil, salt, and other spices before popping them in the oven at around 425 degrees, and you can leave them alone for 20-30 minutes. The complexity of flavor that comes from roasting your vegetables can be pure magic and will taste completely different than sauteed or steamed veggies.
5. Learn To Thicken Sauces
There is more than one way to thicken a sauce, and there are different applications for each method. A simple roux is generally made with equal parts butter and flour melted in a pan. Add your liquid (such as milk or broth) a little at a time, waiting for the mixture to thicken before adding more. Once the sauce reaches the desired consistency, you can remove it from the heat and add cheese for a cheese sauce. Don’t forget to salt and pepper!
Another common way to thicken sauces is with a cornstarch slurry. This is a popular way to make gravies with fat drippings. Mix equal parts cornstarch and cold water, making sure to combine well so there are no lumps. Add this mixture a little at a time to the fatty liquid until it thickens up into a gravy consistency. Season to taste.
6. Quick-Pickle Vegetables
Keeping a jar of pickled vegetables in your fridge can add some pizazz to any almost any dish. Simply put, a mixture of vinegar, salt, and sugar are needed for pickling vegetables. Don’t forget to add herbs and spices that will compliment the final taste. Red onions are a common pickled condiment, but you can also use radishes, ribboned carrots, jalapenos, and more.
7. Learn to Emulsify
Learning how to emulsify fats and oils together correctly will allow you to make an endless number of salad dressings, mayonnaise, and aioli. The beauty of making dressings at home is that you can customize the flavoring and there are no artificial ingredients in the final product. The key is to drizzle the oil in slowly while emulsifying eggs and oil. Pouring oil in too quickly will ruin the entire batch of mayonnaise or aioli. Oils and vinegar can be quickly blended together, however, without adversely affecting the texture of the dressing.
The benefits of cooking are well worth the effort of learning. These tips will help give you some foundation to build one. Once you’ve mastered these, try challenging yourself with recipes that take you out of your comfort zone.
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