Five tips for anybody learning to cook
Cooking is a skill that is easy to learn on your own with a little guidance. Most of the time you just need a recipe and some food. Starting out a simple recipe can look like a chore if you don’t know how to cook and that is ok. There were plenty of times in history when somebody made a mistake, and it ended up with something fantastic. There were also a few times when it ended in a disaster of some sort. So here are some tips that may keep you from disaster.
Tip #1
Taste the food that you are cooking before you add extra spices or seasonings to it. A little goes a long way on all spices and seasonings. Salt is one of the things that is often overused. You could very easily end up having to toss a whole meal out merely because it tastes like a salt block. It can be a costly mistake and an easily avoided one. It happens to the best of us just because of a misread recipe.
Tip #2
Read everything; Before you start to cook read the entire recipe out at least two times. Make sure you understand what the recipe is trying to tell you. Often, this can be as simple as cooking a cake and accidentally add the ingredients for the frosting into the cake batter because it was listed somewhere. Mistakes are ok to make, but they can be costly and easily avoided by reading the recipe in its entirety before starting.
Tip #3
After reading your recipe through a few times the next step is going to be getting all of your ingredients together and measured out before you even start to cook.
By doing this, you are making sure that you have the correct measurements, the exact ingredient (baking powder and baking soda are very different), and it gets you organized. Once everything is measured out and accounted for you one step closer to having a perfect dish.
If, after reading your recipe and gathering the ingredients you realize that you’re missing an ingredient (or two!), you can easily substitute ingredientsusing similar ingredients. If you’re not sure what to use as a substitute, visit the equivalents and substitutions forum here on Budget101.com for assistance.
Tip #4
Look up terms you may be unfamiliar with, such as barding. YouTube is an excellent resource for people learning to cook. Not sure how to fold an omelet without breaking it, not sure how to separate an egg yolk from the egg white, not quite sure what it means to mince something, you can locate each of these on Youtube.
For somebody learning to cook, it is incredibly helpful to learn these terms. It could be the difference between having a well-cooked meal and ending up with chunks of uncooked veggies.
Tip #5
Take your time. Cooking can be something that you love or something that you do because you need to eat. Regardless of why you are cooking, you will want your food to taste amazing. The best way to do that is to take your time and learn from your mistakes. Everybody is going to make some mistakes. Even after cooking for 20 years you will still make them. It happens from time to time.
Cooking just like any other skill is one that only gets better with practice. If you’d like to try a from-scratch recipe, one very forgiving, delicious dish to try is homemade pasta. One favorite of our family is Pizza Pasta, which has the herbs mixed right in, giving the pasta a wonderful Italian flavor. The ingredients are very inexpensive, so if you make a mistake, you aren’t out much money either!
