In this food blog, you will find tutorials to teach you basic skills to learn to cook. I will provide cooking tips in all my recipe posts and have general guidelines on how to stir fry, how to make the perfect steak, etc. It is my goal to make cooking more accessible to the average home cook.
Now, I know it sounds like a very daunting and scary process. But you can do whatever you put your mind to! If you feed your mind positive thoughts, that is what will flourish in your life. It is a simple and powerful truth.
You can definitely learn to cook if you put some effort and time. I believe in you.
But like most things, you will probably have some failures at first. That’s perfectly okay. That’s how we learn. I’ve definitely had my fair share of failed kitchen experiments. And it is to these failures that I owe my basic cooking skills.
Cooking is actually very intuitive. Not easy, but intuitive.
Now, what does that mean?
It means that you can learn how to cook properly based on what you can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell.
Learning to Cook with the Senses
Learning to Cook with Smell
Remember what a delicious pizza smells like when it’s on your table? Well, that’s what you smell from your oven when your pizza is almost done.
Remarkable, isn’t it? Same goes for cookies, breads, lasagna. If it starts smelling like how it’s SUPPOSED to smell when it’s on your plate and done cooking, you know it’s done.
If you smell burning, then that might be a big problem. Might signal the need to re-do your dish.
Learning to Cook with Taste
How do you know that a sauce or stir fry is properly seasoned? You taste it. You take nibble and see if it has the right balance of sweet, savory, sour, spice, etc. that you want.
If not, figure out what seems to be missing and try to add it in. Your dish may need umami (yummy-ness).
Consider putting some soy sauce, anchovy paste, miso, garlic salt, or fish sauce. If it needs salt, then put some sea salt or seasoned salt.
Sometimes a dish is lacking in sweetness. Then you would add some sugar or honey in it. You get the hint.
For sour, add a squeeze of lime juice, a splash of wine, or vinegar.
For spice, black pepper and red pepper flake are great.
Learning to cook with Sight
Look for “GBD”-golden brown and delicious for your seared, broiled, baked, and fried foods.
For boiled veggies, you are looking for the color to intensify (orange becomes more orange and green becomes a deeper brighter green).
For meats, you are looking for the color to change from red/pink to brown on the crust and slightly pink in the middle.
Does your pasta look dry? Add some sauce.
Does your shrimp look too grey? Let it cook a little longer.
These are cues to do something about the food you are cooking in real time.
Learning to Cook with Touch
Poke your bread to see if it bounces back.
Gently squeeze your cupcakes to see if they are still moist and tender.
Touch your steaks to test for doneness-the tougher the meat is, the more done it is.
If you are frying something, run a fork across the surface to see if it has resistance from the crust. If it’s too soft, you likely need to keep frying to achieve a crispier texture.
Are your vegetables too soft? Give them a poke to check for texture. Most veggies should still have some crunch left in them after being cooked.
Learning to Cook with Sound
Listen to your meat sizzle in the pan when you are searing or stir frying. That is a good sign. If there is no sizzle right when you place your meat down on a pan, that is a bad sign. It means you will likely end up with steamed meat instead of creating a sear.
When you first start frying the sizzling sound will be very loud. As you near the end of cooking, listen to it. It starts to quiet down, which is a sign that it’s almost done.
The signs are everywhere when you’re cooking. You just have to open your eyes and ears and pay attention to what the food is telling you.
Easy Dinner Recipes for Beginners
Easy Meal Prep Chicken and Veggies
Zuppa Toscana-Healthy Vegetable Soup
Best Crispy Baked Chicken
