Tips

Beginner Tips
oak23 Anyway some things to follow when youre a beginner cook:

• Don't constantly shift your food around in the pan if you want to form a crust on it, the less you move it the better.
• Don't be afraid to add water if youre frying up food and the food/sauce looks a bit dry.
• Don't fry up your garlic early on in the cooking process (unless youre making a quick garlic oil) as the garlic flavour can straight up disappear if overcooked for too long and/or the garlic can become bitter if burnt
• Don't overcook your vegetables. Look up recommended cook times for them. Your distaste for vegetables stems from them being overcooked and being poorly seasoned.
• Don't microwave stuff for more than 2 minutes at a time unless you know what you're doing. Reheating stuff tends to fare better when you mix food between microwaving times since microwaves develop hotspots if you microwave it uninterrupted for too long.
• Don't try cooking everything at the hottest setting. It's super tempting to have a high flame and do a meal quickly but actually follow directions and cook at medium or low heat.

lukewarmorangejulius These are such good tips!! It’s crazy how many adults don’t know some of these- once you learn them you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them

I’m currently in culinary school so I hope you don’t mind if I add a couple tips myself:

• Salt and pepper are your bffs, salt especially. Even a little bit of salt can have such an impact on a dish and it helps bring out and amplify all the other flavors in a dish
• When you’re cooking green veggies, never EVER cover them. You may have grown up hating broccoli, green beans and brussel sprouts that were limp and that horrid shade of olive puke green. It’s because if you cook or steam green veggies in a covered pot the enzymes and parts of the plant that make it green will break down and turn that nasty shade
• Speaking of cooking vegetables, I’m begging you to please please look up and try roasting veggies if you’ve never done it before!! It’s so so easy, it works beautifully with practically any vegetable you can imagine and you can season them however you wish!
• My last tip is if you’re going to invest in any sort of kitchenware, have it be a good sharp knife and good quality pots/pans. And if you do end up getting these items, make sure you take good care of them! Most metal kitchenware will last longer if you hand wash them, as opposed to always running them through the dishwasher which will rust them so much faster. So make sure to look up proper care if you’re unsure

And most importantly, don’t be afraid to make mistakes or mess up!!! Even in a professional kitchen accidents happen or things don’t go as planned! Cooking is both a science and an art, and it’s just waiting for you to come be creative and experiment!!!

bootsandcleats82 Also a few other things off of my head

• When frying chicken breasts, only flip once or twice. It will turn white as it cooks, so when it's white to the centre of the thickness, flip it and let it cook from the other side. Flipping it again and again dries it out. (Same as bbqing and frying other meat that isn't ground.)
• When cooking potatoes, microwave them first to speed up cooking (like 5-10 minutes)...before bbqing or roasting them, and they're cut up in the glass bowl, it will help cook them through the centre and a bit faster.
• And for mashed potatoes; milk and blend them. Hand mashing works, but if you have a hand mixer/blender, use that and it gets them super smooth and creamy. Just hold the pot lid up or something so it doesn't spray everywhere (my dad always makes a mess)
• Crock pots are awesome, just dump stuff in and stir and turn it on for the day...keep it on LOW if all day (7-8+ hours) high is for the last hour or so if needed, or if you're starting at noon to eat at 5 or something. It can burn on high if you don't watch it, and since you don't stir it constantly in a crock pot, it burns unevenly.
• 1 tbsp water + 1 tbsp corn starch =thickener. Five minutes before serving/done cooking, for sauces, stir it in, wait a minute. Mix it up first then pour the solution in, don't just drop corn starch in, it won't mix evenly. Doesn't mess with the taste. Gluten free so works for that food too.
• If you're making something gluten free, the recipe isn't always the same. The flours are different, consistency changes, make sure your recipe will work with gf ingredients, or adjust as needed.