To actually cook things enough. I wasn’t cooking them to unsafe levels before, and please don’t cook my steak above medium rare, but some foods just taste better cooked more. Almost no one cooks ground meats enough, who the hell wants grey beef, get some color on that bitch. Also if you cook sausage meat enough it gains color and the flat renders out a little it tastes better. Get some colour on those roast veggies and no one likes a pale insipid fry. A change in color is flavor, use it to your advantage. And yes sometimes you want your veggies firm and for the love of god don’t overcook your garlic.
I agree with you on getting color in your food. I think the best way to do that is to cook it at the right temperature (don’t be afraid of heat!) and don’t crowd the pan. And don’t be too stir-happy.
Ground beef, for example. You don’t have to cook it long it you start with a hot pan that’s big enough. Get a pan with a heavy bottom and heat it up empty for a minute or two on medium or medium- high heat. Plop the meat in. It should sizzle. Break it up enough for it to cover the pan, and then don’t stir for a couple minutes. You can stir it when you see some brown forming on the bottom layer.
That was the hardest thing for me to learn to do, to just let the food be and not stir it all the time. Stirring feels like you’re doing “something” lol.
Biggest hack? Realizing that humans have been cooking for millennia, and that it’s in the best interest of big business to convince you that it’s difficult/expensive/extremely complicated.
You don’t NEED the fancy equipment every company out there is trying to sell you.
Not everything needs to be gorgeous on the plate, or a whole production to make.
The poorest people in the world cook delicious food every day.
For instance, you don’t need NEED a +$150 Japanese chef knife to cook at home. What you need is something that can hold an edge through general maintenance, a whet stone, a kitchen towel to dry off your blade immediately after you hand wash it, and a little bit of patience.
IKEA sells some surprisingly great single construction (steel blade, steel handle) knives, and their single body chef knife is like $25. Just get an honing rod for use before you start slicing, and a whet stone for periodic sharpening (there’s TONS of YouTube videos of all the different ways of sharpening your knife), and remember to wash and hand-dry after you’re finished. My chef knife cost me barely anything, and I’ve used it for years and years, and it still slices through a tomato without a problem. Also, I only cook for myself, so I can absolutely 100% guarantee my whet stone will “outlive” me.
This one is a little bit of a hot take, but bottled lemon or lime juice is good for consistency. While fresh will most certainly be better, you may inadvertently juice a bad lemon/lime and potentially ruin a dish. Bottled juices can last a bit longer in the fridge.
Speaking of canned tomatoes, there can be a huge difference between brands. If canned tomatoes make up the bulk of the recipe I prefer to spend a little extra.
I cannot stress this one enough. This turns simple white rice in practically a risotto. And if you REALLY want to make a risotto, you’re just three steps away from this.
Bake bacon on cookie sheets at 375 for about 20 minutes. You can make a ton of bacon very quickly, with almost no mess, and all the bacon is perfectly flat. We have a double oven and we can make about 4 pounds of bacon in about 30 minutes this way. :)
And then save the bacon grease in a jar to add to gravys! I add a tablespoon or so to my sausage gravy for biscuits and gravy and it is freaking delicious. Can also use it to grease a cast iron pan before making a pizzookie for a little extra flavor.
When slow cooking a roast lay it on a bed of potatoes or whatever other sides you want, fill the water to the top of the veggies (or taters) then soak the roast in your sauce of choice. Gravity and heat will help the sauce work into the veggies giving them a nice flavor. The roast pretty much always comes out perfectly moist and you get amazing veggies out of the deal.
You can make a delicious, calorie dense chicken noodle soup on an extreme budget with canned chicken, chicken broth, and ramen noodle packages. That meal kept me from going hungry on multiple occasions during college.
Boil spaghetti in a small amount of water in a frying pan. You won’t need to push the pasta down and you’ll have lovely starchy water to finish off your sauce — perfect for something like a carbonara!
Anti-MSG propaganda actually comes from Asian racism, and was born out of the idea that Chinese food with its MSG was causing headaches and other health effects that were entirely made up. MSG is perfectly fine for you, and it makes a ton of things even tastier. I use it all the time in home cooking.
Don’t worry too much about making sure all cuts are uniform and everything is cooked to the exact same level. Yes, restaurants pride themselves on that and so do many of the youtube chefs (who got their start or even still work in restaurants)
You aren’t making hundreds of plates a night where two people on a date might think it is “unprofessional” that their green onion bits aren’t uniform.
And the advantage to doing a more rough chop is that you tend to get a much greater variety of texture. Obviously you don’t want that for everything, but getting that sudden burst of scallion flavor in one bite can really keep a meal “interesting” and so forth.
And it also makes life a LOT easier and means you can focus less on mise en place and more on not making a weeknight meal take 3 hours.
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