Let’s face it, the kitchen can be an intimidating place if you are not exactly comfortable with cooking your own food just yet. But whether you are a beginner with home cooking or a masterchef in your own kitchen, making your own home cooked meal is the ultimate foodie experience. The more you spend time in the kitchen, the better you become, and the more you learn about ingredients and what goes on in your food.
I started cooking for as long as I could remember. Well, at least, experimenting with whatever is in the fridge. While I do not recommend this to any kids without adult supervision, I have always snuck my way to the kitchen and pretend that I am in a cooking show – making the not-so-edible food mixing peanut butter and coffee grounds together with rice flour. I don’t this anymore, I’m twenty-eight now for crying out loud. Well, okay, that’s a lie. I still pretend I’m cooking for my own Food Network television special. I just don’t mix coffee grounds and peanut butter together anymore.
With all these years spent in the kitchen with trial and errors in the comfort of my own home, I’ve slowly began to create my own process and work around what I know and call my foolproof cooking routine and practices. These are habits that you can build as you start coming up with recipes of your own or when you decide to try a few of my recipes.
And in this article, I will share a few kitchen tips that I go by on a regular day-to-day basis.
STAY ORGANIZED & PREPARE ALL YOUR INGREDIENTS FIRST
I know how tempting it is to hop onto a recipe immediately and dig through your refrigerator scavenger hunting for ingredients. But I’m here to tell you, DON’T. Always have a game plan (or an idea of what you want to make), prepare all ingredients in advance – wash, measure, precut, and ensure your prep station is organized by separating each ingredient and having a designated dumping station for all your compost or trash nearby to keep your station clean. Nothing is more agitating than a messy counter space and prepping all ingredients in an organized manner will save you time and frustrations of feeling like you don’t know what you are doing.
FLAVORS MATTER, SO USE A GENEROUS AMOUNT
How do restaurants make food taste so darn tasty? They use a heavy amount of salt and fat. Why did animal-based foods like steak or chicken taste so good? It’s all in the flavors you use – not the meats itself (try eating meat by itself with nothing on it – not exactly appetizing now, is it?). While I’m not telling you to pour an entire village of salt to your dish, it also should not scare you from using different flavors to something you are cooking. Use real flavors, too – kosher salt, freshly grind black pepper, herbs, spices, or from extracts of fruits and vegetables too. While there are so many debates about healthy foods going salt-oil-gluten-carbohydrates-sugar-grain-sodium-life-happiness-free, good health means a balance and it is very possible to have tasty food using your favorite flavors without sacrificing the taste.
LEAVE IT ALONE!
Stop tossing the onions around every five seconds when the recipe calls for caramelization – let it sit in heat and do its own thing. Check back on it after a few minutes or so. Under done tofu is sticking to the pan because it has not been fully cooked on the first side, leave it alone and let it crisp before flipping. Bottom line, cooking (and most especially baking) takes a lot of waiting time – you’ve got to be patient. Flavors and textures are dependent on time in the kitchen. You’re not going to rush a good vegetable broth – you want to let it open up all the flavors from the ingredients in low heat for a few hours. Allow it cool down, let it marinate, soak, simmer, caramelize, bake, roast, ferment…not only will you get an even well-cooked dish but you will maximize its flavors by being patient. But please, keep an eye on your food – you don’t want to leave it alone and forget about it, that will be a recipe for disaster.
KEEP A VARIETY OF SALT IN YOUR PANTRY
Hear me out! HEAR ME OUT, HEALTHY FOLKS! Salt is the most diverse kitchen pantry essential needed for cooking and baking. It really is! How do you strip away bitterness from an eggplant and its liquids? You salt it for 30 minutes. How do you make sauerkraut? You salt it and leave it to ferment. How do you make an amazing well balanced chocolate chip cookie? You add salt. How do you boil pasta properly? In salt water! The list goes on, people – I have more in mind (but you get the point). While I’m not endorsing that you should make it rain in salt when you are cooking or baking, keeping a couple of quality salt in your pantry (if you don’t already) My staples are always sea salt and kosher salt for starters, which is good for any dishes and desserts. Every now and then, I’d add kala namak to the list (Indian black salt) for its “eggy” flavor to make vegan scrambled “eggs” or pink salt (just because it’s pretty).
YOU CAN’T CHEAT QUALITY
You really can’t. While it is very convenient to eat out of an instant ramen bowl or boxed curries that you can easily heat in the microwave, you will notice a huge difference between what is made from scratch at home and what is made in a manufacturing facility. I have nothing against convenience, I am guilty of buying instant soups when traveling or when I’m really crunched on time, BUT I would prefer to eat quality, wholesome food over something packaged with unnecessary ingredients. A good example of this is a good sourdough bread – bread is amazing. But when you think about it, making sourdough bread consists of flour, water, and salt. Flavors of a sourdough comes from the amount of time it’s been fermented. In grocery stores, sourdough bread is added with vinegar, commercial yeast, and even citric acid to speed up the process and mimic traditional bread. So, really do think about the quality of food and make it in your kitchen as much as possible – you don’t have to make everything from scratch but when you have control of what’s going into your food – it makes it more wholesome and even more special because you made it.
