Adopting certain methods regularly used by professional chefs to prepare and cook food will enhance the taste of home-cooked food and add refinement to any meal you make. Read this article to learn fifteen basic cooking tricks guaranteed to help anyone cook like a professional chef.
1. Preparation is very important. Before you start cooking a dish, make sure you have all the ingredients at hand. This means they should be out of the kitchen cabinets and on the counter next to the pot, or on the cutting board ready for chopping etc. You don’t want to be whisking something on the stove with one hand and fumbling around looking for the salt with your other hand – extremely unprofessional!
2. Never use “cooking wine”. Cook with cheaper brands of quality drinking wines instead.
3. Never use cooking sprays in aerosol cans. They contain chemicals. Instead, put olive oil in a spray bottle and use that.
4. Always prefer fresh herbs and spices to the dried variety. Rather than a teaspoon of dried sage, use a tablespoon of fresh sage leaves. The flavor of your dish will improve immensely.
5. When broiling steaks in the oven, pre-heat until the broiler is really hot. The high heat will sear the outside of the meat and keep juices inside. Use tongs or a spatula instead of a fork to turn the meat so the juices won’t leak out.
6. To make perfect mashed potatoes, you need a ricer. This is the best utensil to mash potatoes with; the potatoes will not be grainy or lumpy, but smooth and light.
7. If you’ve had trouble with steaming vegetables, then you need one of the collapsible steamers that you can insert into any size pot. You’ll be surprised how perfect your steamed celery or broccoli will be – no more sogginess, no more raw vegetables. You’ll be able to serve perfectly steamed food that is crisp and bright on the outside, yet tender on the inside.
8. You should do two things to make your salads as good as those prepared by professional chefs. The first is to use alternatives to boring iceberg lettuce (red, green or Romaine lettuces, for instance). The second is to purchase a salad spinner so that your salad greens are perfectly water-free. This inexpensive plastic device is made of an inner basket (where you put your washed salad greens), an outer cover, and a crank with a handle that you turn to spin the salad in the inner basket. The spinning gets rid of any water on the salad (it is caught in the outer cover).
9. Use roasted garlic instead of butter on bread. It’s delicious and brimming with health benefits. To roast a garlic bulb, sprinkle it with a mixture of white wine, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then wrap the bulb in aluminum foil and roast it for an hour at 350 degrees.
10. Instead of transferring hot soup to a food processor, use a hand blender or hand mixer to puree. Much easier.
11. Professional cooks never wash mushrooms under the tap because these vegetables are very porous and will absorb a lot of water.
12. To get hard-to-reach dirt out of leeks, chop them first and then place in a cold water bath. Drain in a colander until you’re sure they’re clean.
13. When you buy a cabbage, check to make sure its outer leaves are not wilted and that the cabbage head is compact and heavy.
14. If you don’t have a pepper grinder, you can crack peppercorns by placing them inside a plastic zipper bag and whacking them on top of a wooden cutting board using a hammer. It will be noisy but it also serves as a great way to get rid of some of your frustrations. Then serve the cracked peppercorns in a condiment bowl with a small spoon.
15. The most important rule for successfully grilling any food is to start out with a clean grill. To prevent sticking, spray or brush the clean grill with cooking oil.
Use the fifteen food preparation techniques above and you will be cooking like a professional chef – and serving wonderfully flavorful home cooked meals.
Michelle is definitely an expert publisher whose specialty is writing articles about very easy, yet delectable, home cooking. Her articles or reviews typically stress the many benefits of crock pot recipes such as slow cooker recipes, which is certainly one of her absolute favorites.