Some Cooking Tips for Beginners

[Dados1950]

I'm not a professional cook or writer/author (was an englsh major in college) , but I enjoy cooking very much and writing about it. Hope you find these tips helpful.

Whether we want to or have to, there may come a time when you need to cook.

When I first got married…some 40 years ago…I decided to dabble in the kitchen.

I worked in banking and my wife was a dental hygienist. As a result, I had the traditional Federal holidays off but my wife had only the major ones like 4th July, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. Being “home alone” some days, I decided it would be a thoughtful gesture to prepare a nice dinner meal when she came home from work. Like most newlyweds we had a good number of assorted cookbooks given as shower or wedding gifts. The assortment included books for the beginner or “easy meals”.

That’s where you begin…

Tip #1-Get one or more of this type of cookbook. If you’re like me, “a picture is worth a thousand words” and these books usually include pics so you can see your creation. Helps build confidence plus ingredients are generally straightforward and as the book implies instructions easy to follow.


Tip #2-Review your pantry first and then make a shopping list for the needed ingredients. Over time, you’ll find that you will collect an assortment of spices and seasonings and just have to get the main ingredients. If you’re like me, you won’t check as often as you should and wind up with several jars of oregano, parsley, garlic powder, etc. Then you create a clutter problem.


Tip #3-Once you have all your ingredients, do all the prep work first. Chop the onions, slice the vegetables, mix all the liquids, measure out per the recipe…etc.

Tip #4-If you’re making a main course, one or more side dishes and maybe a sauce, check the time needed for each one. You don’t want to start a vegetable that takes 10 minutes if your chicken dish takes a 45 minutes to roast. While the 45 minute chicken is roasting, you can organize yourself for the other dishes. Tip #4-A would be to invest in more than one timer in your kitchen so you don’t get confused or forget when did I start that dish?

Tip #5-Take time to set a nice table. While you don’t have to do this every day, it takes little to no effort to use those nice placemats and napkins you got as a gift along the way and the “special occasion “dishes that were wedding presents. It will make the meal more special for your spouse, friend, or guest and make you fell even better about time you spent preparing it.

Tip #6- If you’re so inclined, enjoy the meal with a nice bottle of wine.

These are my ideas for the beginner. There are many others and over time as you find them, the better, and more enthusiastic a cook you will become. Besides that cooking will become easier and more economical. Some of the tips will become natural, others you may want to write down and keep for reference.

Over the years, I feel I’ve graduated from a “rookie” to a very good “amateur”. You don’t need years of training to enjoy a wonderful meal. Just the desire……

Hope this helps motivate you to expand your cooking talents.

 

[Cinisajoy]

I agree with all but #6.
The best books are Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook and Joy of Cooking.
Booze is never necessary for a good meal.

 

[sidevalve]

Necessary , maybe not - nice yes.

 

[buckytom]

To add to #1, watch a lot of how to cooking shows. Not the ones where they use the magic of television where they throw some things together, then open an oven behind them and voila', it's done. But rather where they do most of the steps from start to finish.

 

[Francesca]

@Dados1950,

Exceptionally lovely penning & lovely post.

 

[Cinisajoy]

To add to #1, watch a lot of how to cooking shows. Not the ones where they use the magic of television where they throw some things together, then open an oven behind them and voila', it's done. But rather where they do most of the steps from start to finish.

In other words, Tiffany in the kitchen or Pioneer woman or whoever else is actually cooking and not a competition like Chopped.

 

[buckytom]

I've never seen Tiffany. Will look for it.

I don't like The Pioneer Woman. The permanent fake smile is off-putting for some reason.

Chopped is not for beginners. It's interesting, but strange in that no one would normally try to use such weird combos of ingredients. Especially not a beginner.

 

[Cinisajoy]

I've never seen Tiffany. Will look for it.

I don't like The Pioneer Woman. The permanent fake smile is off-putting for some reason.

Chopped is not for beginners. It's interesting, but strange in that no one would normally try to use such weird combos of ingredients. Especially not a beginner.

Why I said NOT Chopped.
I also saw a cooking show with Valerie Bertinelli. She was good.

The Pioneer woman irritates me too. Not for her fake smile, but for her idea of an empty pantry.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

@Dados1950 - I wish I had seen something like your post when I first decided to take cooking seriously. This would have provided me with structure that I didn't have in trying to graduate from macaroni and cheese from a box every night to something substantially better.

I think, if you're a true novice, you need to start modestly and work your way up to full meal prep. In my case, I decided to start cooking seriously because I wanted to make one thing: guacamole. In retrospect, it was silly to think that I used to spend time trying different guacamole at supermarkets, or ordering it from restaurants, when making it myself was so simple....and better.

This changed when I went to a party several years ago, and someone brought some delicious guacamole. The woman who made it noticed my reaction, and wanted to know if I was interested in the recipe. It's a question I had never heard - or even considered! - before, but I said "yes". She told me that the recipe was from a woman she knows who was from Mexico. I was impressed to hear that I was getting something authentic! And, even with that first recipe, I had to make a tweak: hers was pureed in a food processor, while I always liked the texture of hand-mashed avocado and bits of pepper for color. The simplicity of the preparation - and how much better it was than anything I had had before - got me to start thinking of other things I liked in the same way.

When I started trying to figure out how to make other recipes, I started with the internet, not cookbooks, because the internet had user reviews and ratings that I could read to see if the recipe was what I wanted. And, this is where I learned something else: people don't always tell the truth with their ratings! I decided to make Hot & Sour soup, and I found what was supposed to be PF Chang's recipe. It had a 4-1/2 star rating out of 5, so I assumed it would be great. I made it, and it was overwhelmingly hot, not sour at all, and mostly not at all like PF Chang's recipe. So, I decided to re-look at some of the reviews that gave it a 5-star rating. All of them seemed to have the same sort of wording:

Great recipe! But, I decided to reduce the pepper by half, add extra rice vinegar and tamarind, and cook it for 10 minutes longer
​

Hang on...you gave it a perfect rating, but you proceeded to change everything about it?? This is where I learned that I had to use recipes as a guide for what I wanted to make rather than just following what someone else posted, no matter how good the rating.

Now, when I want to make something I've never made before, I typically look at a dozen or so recipes and do some research into the history and different variations of the recipe.

 

[Morning Glory]

Now, when I want to make something I've never made before, I typically look at a dozen or so recipes and do some research into the history and different variations of the recipe.

That is what I do to - plus consulting recipe books and the Flavour Thesaurus (which is a prize on offer in the Spice Challenge, ). I think you need a certain level of experience of both cooking and tasting good food, plus mastery of basic skills before you can gain the confidence to do this, though.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

That is what I do to - plus consulting recipe books and the Flavour Thesaurus (which is a prize on offer in the Spice Challenge, ). I think you need a certain level of experience of both cooking and tasting good food, plus mastery of basic skills before you can gain the confidence to do this, though.

What a brilliant thing this sounds like! There are some things that I know go together, and others that either clash or are redundant, but I didn't know that someone went to the trouble to figure this sort of thing out. Thank you for that!

UPDATE: just ordered a copy from Amazon.

 

[Morning Glory]

What a brilliant thing this sounds like! There are some things that I know go together, and others that either clash or are redundant, but I didn't know that someone went to the trouble to figure this sort of thing out. Thank you for that!

UPDATE: just ordered a copy from Amazon.

You could have just won it in the Spice Challenge!

 

[Morning Glory]

UPDATE: just ordered a copy from Amazon.

You won't regret it. Its wonderfully wittily written. I tend to ignore the 'wheel' which I don't think particularly useful. But the sections on each ingredient are inspiring! It isn't comprehensive (as the author states in the intro) but it is quite different from any other culinary book I have ever come across. @epicuric won a copy last year and I know he rates it. Also @LadyBelle won it in the Spice Challenge and was delighted.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

You won't regret it. Its wonderfully wittily written. I tend to ignore the 'wheel' which I don't think particularly useful. But the sections on each ingredient are inspiring! It isn't comprehensive (as the author states in the intro) but it is quite different from any other culinary book I have ever come across. @epicuric won a copy last year and I know he rates it. Also @LadyBelle won it in the Spice Challenge and was delighted.

I saw the wheel in the preview and it looked interesting at first. Then, I realized that all it did was categorize certain select things as earthy or citrusy or whatever: I already knew that mushrooms are earthy and limes are citrusy.

The sample also give some exciting ideas about chocolate pairings, so I may just have another recipe in me for the latest challenge.