Have you ever heard the saying that great chefs have their secrets? Well, it is true: take two people, give them the same ingredients, and make them cook the same recipe, and you’ll see that they obtain different results. Sometimes, a few degrees more in the oven, or 5 more minutes of cooking may lead to a completely different taste of the food.
What you need to know to make good food:
1. Don’t overcook vegetables: try them with the fork or with a skewer, and take them off the fire in the moment you can penetrate them, but you still feel some resistance. If you cook them too much, their texture will become soft and very unpleasant.
2. Don’t overcook meat: this is more tricky, as in the beginning, the best way to see if it is done is to cut it in the middle. If the knife goes in easily, and you don’t see any reddish color from the blood, then you know it’s done. If you continue cooking after that moment, the meat will resemble more and more to the shoe leather, it will become dry and very hard to chew.
3. Cook separately veggies and meat. If you cook a recipe which includes veggies and meat, first you have to cook the meat until it is done (try it with the fork), then take another pan and cook the veggies, but make sure they remain hard, then mix everything together and cook for some more 10 minutes. In this way, meat will preserve its flavor, and so will the veggies.
4. Tomatoes should be the last addition to a meal. It has been proven that tomatoes added to a meal in the beginning of the cooking process result in hardening all other ingredients, so you’ll never be able to have a properly cooked food. Save tomatoes for the last 10 minutes of cooking, when all other ingredients are already almost done.
5. Add the salt from the beginning. Cooking without salt and adding it only before the moment of eating, will result in uneven distribution of the salt, and in a strange taste. If you have guests who have medical interdiction to eat salt, then you can cook with no salt, put away a part of the food for those guests, then add salt and cook for 10 more minutes the rest of the food.
6. Don’t overcook pasta: there is nothing more unpleasant than overcooked pasta. An otherwise very nice meal will turn into a sticky mass with flour taste. Hint: add a little bit of oil in the cooking water, and don’t let the pasta boil more than 6-7 minutes.
7. Mayonnaise is tricky: if you want to prepare the mayonnaise at home, use boiled eggs yellow, as this will prevent the mayonnaise from “cutting” (separating the oil molecules from the water). Stir always in the same sense, and use a lot of lemon juice. For a special savor, you can add a teaspoonfull of mustard.
8. Steam cooking is healthier. Over the past few years, steam cookers became widely available. They have the advantage of preserving food’s vitamins, and not mixing the aromas. You could consider investing in your health and get yourself a steam cooker.
9. Use spices. The spices offer in groceries is huge. I bet you don’t know how many types of spices exist and what you can use them for. Why not trying them? Buy a small quantity of each, and try them in various combinations. You may discover new tastes and a revolutionary way of cooking and playing with flavors.
10. Match the wine with the food. Get yourself a wine catalogue and try to transform your meals in a perfect assortment for your senses. Your guests will be amazed by your cooking talents.
Via
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As a young cook in training to be a chef most of what this page tells you is completely wrong.
point 1. Cook your vegetables correctly by Tasting them, it should be soft yet when you bit into the vegetable, it requires pressure to take a bit.
point 2. Cooking your meat until the blood stops coming out of it means it is Overcooked. The point where you get the most amount of flavor from say a steak would be medium rare and from a roast medium.
Also no matter what when you cut your roast there will be blood, but to reduce the blood loss and to keep those delicious juices inside the meat and not on your plate.
Rest your meat, what this means is when you take your roast out of an oven set it on your counter and cover it with tinfoil or a lid. For every 1 pound of meat let it rest 5 minutes, it will allow the meat to suck up any juices in the pan and it will allow the meat to relax and become even more tender.
point 3. Do not use more then 1 pan if you are creating a mixed dish like a stirfry. What you should do is cook off your meat, remove it from the pan, cook your vegetables in the pan then re-add the meat and finish the dish by seasoning or adding a little nob of butter.
point 4. Tomato's are acidic. Acidity helps break down collagen in meat making the meat more tender. That is why in stews and braised dishes tougher cuts of mean are used and tomato's are added to help tenderize the mean.
I will agree that tomato's in some dishes should be added last (like when you are sauteing because of their high water content but not all dishes.
point 5. Salt is not the evil that is normally portrayed, most of the salt in our diets comes from preprocessed ready to eat food so adding some into your soups, sauces, etc will not hurt you.
To properly use salt season a little in the beginning and once you are nearly done, season to your liking.
Always seasons the outsides of your steaks and roasts with salt it will improve the flavor.
point 6. Don't over cook pasta. ok yea that's right but for the home cook that tells them nothing especially is they don't know how to cook.
What you do is this, start off with a pot of boiling SALTED water, toss your pasta in and Stir it so it doesn't stick to the bottom.
Taste your pasta after about 7-8 minutes the texture your looking for is soft yet slightly chewy and the flavor should not be chalky or taste of flour.
To make sure it doesn't stick together once you take it out of the pot, don't put oil in the pot but toss your pasta in a bit of olive or other oil.
point 7. Making mayo at home is not hard once you understand how to do it properly. what you do is this
Get 2-3 egg yolks no whites, from eggs that are not cracked or damaged in any way otherwise you could give yourself food poisoning
take those yolks and mix it with a tablespoon of mustard, a teaspoon of cayenne, salt, black pepper and about 20ml of white vinegar.
now what you have there is the base of your emulsion, yes i know big fancy word but what an emulsion is, is a mixing a different ingredients that don't split or break and become 2 separate layers.
Now the trick is with an emulsion is that the oil you are slowly pouring in cannot ever be larger then your emulsion itself otherwise it will break.
So whip the base emulsion and drop by drop add the oil, then once the emulsion is big enough trickle a thin stream of oil in always making sure that your emulsion is larger then that amount of oil you are pouring in. if you do it correctly the resulting mayo should be thick and fluffy.
If it is grainy that means you broke the emulsion and you must make another base emulsion and again drop by drop add the broken liquid to the emulsion.
Don't worry if you break it your first couple times everyone does when they are first learning.
One last point if you want a thinner mayo say for a salad dressing add more vinegar
point 8. completely correct nothing to change there\
point 9. Spices & seasonings are one of the most important things in a kitchen they help bring alive the most basic of dishes.
Every basic kitchen should have these spices & seasonings
Salt
Black Pepper
Garlic Powder
Cayenne
Chili Powder
Dried Bay Leaf
Basil – fresh if you can
Rosemary – fresh if you can
Thyme – fresh if you can
Cinnamon
Clove
Dill – fresh if you can
Fennel Seed
Ginger – fresh if you can
Mint – fresh if you can
Nutmeg
Paprika Smokey
Paprika Hot
Parsley – fresh if you can
Tarragon – fresh if you can
Turmeric
And if you are willing to spend the money saffron
point 10. The advice they give about wine is correct, but never be afraid to try other alcohol with your meal or in it.
Always read the back of the bottles if it says good served with say seafood odds are it will be a good wine to cook with seafood.
Beer is one of the most versatile and underused alcohols when it comes to cooking because of its bitterness but if you can skillfully balance the flavor of the beer then you can come out with a great dish.
Final words. Never ever be afraid to experiment even if it doesn't work don't get discouraged try again change a couple ingredients.
Some of the best recipes took many years of constant tweeking to become as good as they now a days.
Chefs themselves take years to build the knowledge they require to design dishes in a moments notice.
Always write down what you have done to a recipe extra ingredient, change in cooking method because once the dish is done and you say, hey this is good, it is pretty hard to remember what you have done to it.
And Always Always Season With Salt PLEASE
Ryan Norton
Cook 3rd Deerhurst Resort, Canada