How to Become a Better Cook

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By Angela Tunner
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Cooking is a Life Skill and Enhances Your Life

Cooking is a life skill. Like eating, it is basic for survival. Cooking is also a great way to reconnect when the food you prepared is shared. I find it interesting that while the act of eating is essential, a necessity to life, that the act of cooking for years, has not been treated with equal importance. It should be but where do you start? Cooking may seem daunting, but take heart, even if you think you are hopeless in the kitchen, there is hope. Like any skill, when you increase your knowledge and practice (which is needed in order for there to be improvement) your abilities are sure to improve, your confidence and sense of satisfaction will rise sky high! Here are some steps to get you feeling more confident and on the road to becoming a better cook.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A good basic pantry stocking list
A food encyclopaedia
A few basic kitchen tools
Don't take it too seriously
Giving yourself permission to try!

Step 1

RELAX Take a deep breath and give yourself permission to try. It is not rocket science, it is just cooking! Not everyone is going to be a five-star chef ... and that is OK. You get big points for simply making an effort. Even if you make a mistake, just toss it and try again. You will be happy to know that with experience, you may be able to save your mistakes and those happy accidents can sometimes make for a fantastic dish!
Step 2

BIGGEST COOKING MYTH DEBUNKED One of the biggest untruths about cooking is keeping tons of people out of the kitchen and away from daily meal making is the “TIME” myth. THE MYTH: I don’t have the time/it takes too much time. THE TRUTH: While many recipes are time consuming, contain many ingredients, and require a lot of preparation, this is not true of the act of cooking itself! Cooking is merely taking a raw food and bringing it to a cooked state and adding flavor. Fresh and healthy meals are a snap when you stick to basic food prepared simply and it will be a ridiculously easy to prepare and fantastically delicious every time.
Step 3

KNOW YOUR INGREDIENTS Whether you are seasoned chef or a complete cooking novice, ingredient knowledge is key. It was the first thing I studied even before introduced to cooking methods or techniques. Many people are stuck in an ingredient-rut and this is easily eliminated. Reading through a food encyclopaedia and learn about basic foods. Buy one from your local bookstore, used bookstore or borrow one from your local library. There are many out there. Be sure to look for one that describes the foods and shares how that food is best prepared and cooked.
Step 4

KNOW BASIC COOKING METHODS Simply put this is the how foods are cooked. Some are better than others depending on particular foods. Here in a nutshell are some of the basics: STOVE TOP: Frying, sauteéing, poaching and boiling. OVEN Roasting, baking and broiling. Knowing how and when to cook using these methods and doing them well, goes a long way to improving your cooking skills.
Step 5

TOOL KNOWLEDGE Same as with ingredients, tools are essential to a cooks results. They need not be expensive, but they do need to be good in order to be used safely and well. A dull knife or tool that is hard to use increases your chance of injury, which in the United States, kitchen injuries result in about one million injuries that arrive at hospitals yearly. This can be avoided with the use of good tools, used well. Practice using them and you will greatly increase your skills as a cook. Some of your basic tools needed are a good kitchen knife (a large chef knife is NOT necessary, especially if you are inexperienced with knives. Even with all my years of knife skills, I still use a small knife for best control and most of my food preparation. It is a sharp knife the size of a steak knife, and it is my favorite, most used and ideal for those new to the kitchen). Other basics are a sharp swivel head vegetable peeler, a melon baller, a spreader knife, wooden spoons is various sizes, whisks in various sizes and flexible rubber or silicone spatulas plus stiff ones for used pancakes and thin flexible ones for taking cookies off baking sheets.
Step 6

BE STOCKED Being unprepared adds to the ‘time’ and too-much prep’ myth. Sure, if you had to shop each time you cooked, that would be really time consuming. Even the best chef in the world cannot cook if he/she does not have ingredients. Well, like the Boy Scouts say...Be Prepared... this really applies when it comes to your kitchen. To be prepared means stocking your Pantry cupboards, Fridge and Freezer. This is a must. It does not mean you have to spend a fortune either! When a kitchen is appropriately stocked it is a huge step in taking the time-crunch and stress out of cooking because you will have stores of what you need. With increased practice, you are even able to make terrific meals completely out of the pantry that taste great and are not all casseroles!
Step 7

KEEP IT SIMPLE Now you have knowledge of ingredients, you are stocked, have your tools and know your basic cooking methods, it is time to cook. The cardinal rule is ‘Keep it Simple’ Even in France, one of the biggest food-focused nations where cooking at home is a daily occurrence for the smallest of kitchens and families... simplicity is always on the menu! Focus on flavor and just cooking food to the best of your abilities will go a long way to making you a better cook each time you make a meal. Happy cooking!