Are you ready to take your cooking to the next level? It is actually rather easy for you to do this. Food preparation isn’t just about talent. It also involves a great deal of preparation, attention to detail, the right tools, and some other secret ingredients.
The good news is, though, that you don’t have to register with a fancy cooking course to uncover these techniques. Instead, simply check out the top cooking rules here. As long as you follow these in your kitchen, your food will taste amazing each and every time.
The 7 Top Cooking Rules You Need To Live By
The Right Tools
You don’t need expensive chef knives or fancy cookware to be a great cook. However, you do need to invest in basic tools that will allow you to cook with great accuracy and efficiency. Now, the exact tools will depend on your most common type of cooking.
Some of the basics, though, include:
- A sharp chef’s knife
- Accurate measuring spoons, bowls, and jugs
- Weighing scale
- Meat thermometer
- Prep bowls
- Box grater
- Microplane
The proper tools take a great deal of guesswork of your activities. Instead, you are able to measure, cut, prepare, and check your food with the utmost certainty. This increases the chance of your food turning out just the way that you intended.
Use In Season Fruits and Vegetables
Thanks to frozen fruits and vegetables, you can always have your preferred produce regardless of the time of the year. Now, frozen produce may be as nutritious as the fresh stuff. However, when it comes to taste, color, and texture, frozen fruits and veggies simply don’t hold a candle.
This is why you should get into the habit of cooking with fruits and vegetables that are season. There are now more recipes for you to choose from than ever before. As such, it should be a total breeze to find dishes that can use whatever produce that you find.
Go ahead and try this technique – you can guarantee that you won’t regret it.
Quality of Meat Matters
Want to know why your meat doesn’t taste as good as it does in restaurants? Well, this isn’t just because of the skill of the cooks. It is also because these eateries will source the best possible meat. They skip the local butcher and head for more artisanal options.
Well, the good news for you is that you can do this too. This is because such butchers exist at a local level as well. Just take Whitefeather Meats near Amish Country, for instance. They source their animals carefully and make sure that only experienced butchers handle and store the meat. This results in a higher quality of meat that simply tastes better.
Read the Recipe Carefully – Then Go Through It Again
This would seem like a rather obvious rule. However, most people tend to skim through the ingredient list and recipe before deciding to prepare a particular dish. Doing this greatly increases the chance that you either skip a step or make a mistake.
So, take your time and go through the ingredient list and make a careful note of what you will need. Then, slowly go through each step of the recipe. If there is something unusual or particularly complex, make a note of this. Once you have reached the end of the recipe, go through it again.
In doing this, you will familiarize yourself with the recipe. Thus, when you are cooking, the steps will feel more intuitive and you won’t make as many errors.
Make Mise en Place a Habit
What on earth is “Mise en Place”? Well, it is French, but it is certainly not fancy. It simply refers to the process of preparation that professional chefs undergo. They will measure, cut, make, and set up everything that will go into a recipe. This is something that you should do as well.
See, once you start cooking food, things tend to speed up a bit. This is especially true when you are dealing with foods that can burn if you don’t react quickly enough. When everything is already prepared, though, it is just a matter of adding the ingredients as needed – all the prep work has already been taken care of.
Taste Your Dishes as You Go
Most people make the mistake of tasting their food once it is cooked. At this point, it is too late and there is very little that you can do alter the flavor. This is why it is important to taste the dish continuously. In fact, you should do this every time that you add in a new batch of ingredients.
Give the dish a stir and taste. Then, you can decide if there is too little or too much of something and act accordingly. Keep in mind that following a recipe doesn’t automatically mean that a dish will come out according to your tastes. So, when you test the flavour at several different points, you will be able to alter the flavour profile to suit your preferences.
Take Notes During and After Cooking
If you taste the food as it is being cooked, you will probably make some alterations. Make a note of these in a book that you keep with you. This way, you will be able to prepare for these changes before you begin to cook.
Once you are done cooking, you will have a clearer idea of what went right and what went wrong. You should jot these ideas down as well. It will be far easier for you to modify the recipe so that it is perfectly suited to your needs.
These are the top cooking rules that you need to follow in your kitchen each and every time that you cook. Some of these are intuitive tips while others require a bit more adjustment. Nevertheless, they are sure to improve your cooking quite a bit.
It may take you a while to use these tips continuously. After a while, though, they will become habitual and will become ingrained in your cooking style. This is when you will know that your cooking capabilities will have truly evolved.
