Cooking 101: The Basics





If you have never cooked before, cannot boil an egg and rely on take out, now might be the time to get back to basics and learn how to cook your own grub. There’s nothing more satisfying than shopping for decent ingredients, following a recipe and cooking your own dinner. Just because you are twenty something and haven’t even chopped an onion in a decade or more, doesn’t mean that you can’t start now. It’s never too late to cook. By learning to cook, you’ll be saving money on dining out, you’ll know more about the food that you are eating, you’ll be learning a new life skill and you will feel healthier for it. Take a look at these basics to help you take the first steps on your newfound culinary journey.

Baking

The best way to get back into cooking is to bake. Baking a cake using the all in one method is one of the easiest things you can do. There are some basic recipes all over the Internet that need flour, eggs, sugar, baking powder, butter and vanilla essence to make a wonderful and light basic sponge. All you need to do is measure out the ingredients, mix and pop in the oven. Start out with simple baking to get used to timings and following simple instructions. Then, you can expand your repertoire.

Find yourself a couple of bread baskets and invite some friends around for dinner complete with your homemade baked bread, homemade soup for starter and your three course extravaganza. Think of cooking as a science. Weighing out ingredients, adding ingredients at the right time, and understanding when food is ‘done’ are things you will learn as you grow in confidence.

Recipes

When you are adept at following recipes, you can begin adapting them and generating your own. If you love the Morrocan lamb tagine you cook, but you have a pescatarian coming round for supper, swap the lamb for monkfish and add pomegranate seeds instead of dried apricots. There’s nothing more freeing and exciting than playing around with flavors. Don’t worry about making something that tastes vulgar. All chefs do it. Trying out flavor combinations is how you become better at cooking.

Skills

Head onto YouTube and look at their basic cooking skills videos. Or you might want to head to a cooking school if you’re getting the gastronomic bug. Here, you will learn the basic skills of chopping quickly like a three Michelin starred chef. You’ll learn butchery, how to fillet a fish and how to make custards, jus and roulades. These basic skills will empower you to head to your grocers, fishmongers and butchers to pick up some top quality produce ready to turn into an extraordinary meal at home.

It’s never too late to learn how to cook. And don't think that you can't do something - this is way too defeatist. Instead, enjoy experimenting with flavors and welcome your friends and family to your home to enjoy your culinary creations.

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