8 things you’re doing wrong in the kitchen, according to real chefs
Think you’re a pretty decent cook? Then take a moment to read these tips from professional chefs. They know exactly how you’re fumbling around in your own little kitchen – and how you can do better.
Starting to cook immediately
There’s a reason chefs in a professional kitchen start with an extensive mise en place. First weigh, slice, peel, chop and set everything out, and only then start cooking. This creates calm, allowing you to focus on exactly what’s happening in your pans instead of trying to do eight different things at once like an octopus.
Being reckless in the kitchen
Every chef has a great story about burns and scars, but it comes down to this: working in the kitchen can be dangerous if you’re not careful. Sputtering frying fat, boiling-hot oil, sharp knives, gas flames: all the ingredients for a disaster are readily available, so watch out a little, OK?
Only cooking on holidays
If you want to learn to cook well, you’ll have to do it often. There are weekend cooks who only venture into the kitchen on holidays to create a masterpiece. Well, does that really have anything to do with craftsmanship? Cooking every day, making a dish until you know it inside out, persevering: that’s how you really learn to cook well.
Following the recipe blindly
Most recipes are guidelines, not laws. Does the recipe say you should add garlic but you don’t like it? Leave it out. Easy enough. Improvise, and don’t panic if you need chives for decoration but happen not to have any at home. A sprig of parsley is just as cheerful!
Not weighing anything
If you’re baking, carefully weigh your ingredients beforehand. You can still improvise somewhat when cooking, but baking really requires precision, so buy a digital scale and weigh everything accurately to the gram.
Cold icing on a hot cake
How often have you seen this happen on Heel Holland Bakt? The cake is hot, the icing is cold, and yet the home bakers spread it on anyway. It will melt and drip, turning into a disgusting mess. Have a little patience and let the cake cool completely when you’re baking at home, because there’s no jury or camera crew here.
Opening the oven repeatedly
When you’re making an oven dish, it’s very tempting to keep looking in the oven to see how things are going. Don’t! Every time you open the oven, hot air escapes, so it takes a while for your oven to return to temperature. Besides: soufflé, cake? They collapse spectacularly if you keep slamming that oven door.
Adding flour straight from the bag to the batter
Sift the flour before adding it to your bake. Sifting removes the small lumps that inevitably form when flour sits in the bag for a while. Light, loose flour is incorporated into the batter more evenly, resulting in a better bake.
Read also:
- 10 tips for keeping your food fresh for longer
- These are the very best cooking tips from star chefs
- Gordon Ramsay’s 10 tips for the best steak
Source: BoredPanda
