Get back to basics. Learn these simple cooking skills and gain confidence inside the kitchen.
Before we become a professional at anything in the world, you will need to have the basic skills nailed down perfectly first.
These skills may seem very easy at a first glance but do not be fooled, they take a lot of time to establish and could make or break your meal.
Even the brilliant Gordon Ramsay wasn’t born with 22 Michelin Stars, he began with the simple basics and built upon them.
So here’s the simple skills every cook Should Know in order to boss the kitchen and begin their journey to mastery.
Knife Skills
We begin our list with making sure you are safe and handy with your kitchen knives, there are many aspects when it comes to cutting skills whether that would be knowing the right grip to hold on the knife or to the correct cutting positions.
There are so many techniques to be learnt when it comes to handling your knife.
Some tricks you may not know that could come in handy for you when in kitchen are:
- When gripping the knife handle make sure you aren’t holding it in the ‘Death Grip’ try to relax your wrists and hands and let the blade do the work.
- To get an even cut with your knife, you don’t want to be using the slicing motion and aggressively chopping down. Use a rocking motion, like you are going back and forth with the knife.
- To mince garlic, place the garlic underneath your knife and smash it down. This will make it easier to peel the skin off.
Learn To Master Your Eggs
Eggs can be used in so many different ways and each dish they are in, they are normally delicious but they can go horribly wrong if you aren’t sure of the perfect methods behind serving your eggs.
You aren’t just ‘cooking’ an egg, you could be poaching it, scrambling it or even boiling it.
It’s best to learn each way and keep practicing in order to be able to start adding them to your meals.
Using Meat, Poultry and Fish
A very important skill to be learnt in the kitchen is how to deal with your meat, poultry and fish.
There are many steps you need to know in order to avoid any food contamination so your cooking experience is as safe as possible.
From storing, handling to cooking we need to be well aware. Some would say this is the most important thing when it comes to the kitchen.
Here are some things you need to do:
- Keep raw meat away from each other to avoid juices mixing which will give you food poisoning.
- Don’t wash raw chicken.
- Wash your hands after dealing with raw meat.
- Wash your countertops and boards after raw meat has been on it.
- Cook food at the right temperature.
Learn Making Stocks
A well done stock is the key to such dishes as stew and your heart-warming soups, the correct one takes your meal to the next level with deep rich flavours. Stocks are normally the bases of anything we cook.
We often create stocks on a regular basis and don’t even realise it. So if you learn more upon the subject you might find the skills are already there and need to be built upon.
Dealing With Your Dough
This is more for people who are a pastry chef but even if you deal more on the cookery side, more than likely you will end up dealing with kneading the dough inside your kitchen.
The consistency of your dough needs to remain perfect at all times or it could end up making your bread completely non-consumable.
Make sure to find the perfect temperatures and time when it comes to cooking bread as these are all key components to making the loaf.
Kitchen Safety
A kitchen sometimes is normally a faced past environment with things often flying everywhere especially if you are living in a busy household with people who will enter in and out.
Make sure your knives and other potential harmful entities are out of hands reach from children in your household.
If there are any spills from liquid, don’t try to ignore it to carry on with your cooking, make sure everything is clean and tidy to ensure the best meals are cooked.