By Megan Isola
For most people, cooking is a natural part of modern life. Better yet, with so much knowledge and experience at our fingertips at all times, it’s never been easier for individuals to become masters of their kitchen. However, the average person likely struggles to break free from their cooking “rut.” Beyond a handful of tried-and-true recipes, most individuals don’t know how to maximize their productivity and comfort with their kitchens.
But let’s change that, shall we? Whether you’re already a cooking whiz trying to expand your skills or you’re a total newbie who wants to be comfortable with a chef’s knife, here’s how to transform your cooking habits and master the basics.
Step 1: Assess Your Current Kitchen Proficiency
To enhance your skills, you must know what you’re capable of already. One of the best ways to know how well you can do in the kitchen is to try a new recipe you’ve never made before. Ideally, it shouldn’t be so complicated that you wind up giving up halfway through, but it should be challenging enough to show you what you need to know.
For example, how good are you at chopping, dicing, and prepping raw ingredients? What about cooking multiple items on the same stovetop simultaneously? Are you better at grilling, broiling, baking, or steaming? Are you an attentive cook who likes to keep moving, or do you prefer to “set it and forget it?”
Once you know your current proficiency, you can build from there.
Step 2: Determine What You Want to Achieve
Now that you know how good you are in the kitchen, it’s time to determine how good you want to be. While you may need a formal education to become a master chef, there are plenty of ways to upgrade your cooking habits and master the basic elements of cooking. Based on the recipe you tried from step one, you should be able to figure out where you’re lacking.
For example, maybe you want to get into baking. Alternatively, maybe you’re already good at baking, and you want to get better at making more “gourmet” style meals. Or, perhaps you just want to be able to turn whatever ingredients you have in the fridge and pantry into a delicious meal, no matter what they are.
Once you know where you want to be with your cooking mastery, write down the specific skills you want to improve. This way, you can focus your time, energy, and attention on refining those capabilities and not the ones you’re comfortable with already.
Step 3: Buy the Right Equipment
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how good of a chef you are. If you’re working with subpar kitchen equipment, you have to work that much harder to achieve the results you want. For example, if you have a shoddy frying pan, it will be more challenging to fry, saute, grill, or sear your favorite dish. Similarly, if you don’t have the right gadgets to make certain ingredients, you won’t be able to follow specific recipes.
Even the pots and pans you work with can make a huge difference. If your current lineup hasn’t been replaced in over a decade, now’s the time to start searching for bigger and better alternatives. Ideally, you want something that can take a beating and still work well. This way, you can cook over and over again without having to replace your kitchen equipment every year.
Also, don’t forget about what you wear while cooking. Sometimes, the best way to feel comfortable in the kitchen is to feel comfortable. If you’re wearing clothing that constrains your movements or must be tucked back constantly, it can make cooking feel like more of a chore.
Step 4: Start Small
Step three is the exciting part because you get to go shopping (either in-person or online) and buy some awesome products to use with your next recipe. However, the next step is to start using these pieces as a practical means of refining your cooking skills.
That said, you don’t want to start improving your cooking habits by trying top-tier recipes that require extensive food knowledge. Remember that list of skills you wrote down earlier? Start with one of those skills and look for simple recipes that require you to use them.
For example, if you need to work on your knife-handling abilities, you can choose recipes that call for chopped vegetables, meats, and other ingredients. After a while, you’ll feel much more comfortable with a blade in your hand, and you can move on to the next step.
Another example could be learning how to cook different types of meats. One way to practice your skills is to cook the same dish with a different meat. So, instead of using beef, use pork. Or, instead of chicken, use fish (just make sure that the swap makes sense for the type of dish you’re making).
Step 5: Keep Refining Your Skills
One of the best things about self-improvement is that there’s no end date or “finish line” you have to reach. As long as you keep working on your kitchen habits, you’ll get better and better over time. Also, don’t get discouraged by failure. You’ll always mess something up the first time you do it, but the important thing is to learn from your mistakes and correct them each time afterward.
Another great thing about improving your kitchen comfort is that you can combine different skills and habits to reach new heights. For example, once you’re more proficient with a knife, you can use specialty knives for unique dishes. Perhaps you start using a paring knife to trim the fat from meat or to remove unwanted sections from vegetables.
Similarly, you can use a boning knife to cut meat from different parts of the animal. Typically, bone-in meats are more affordable, so learning how to de-bone these cuts can save you a lot of money in the long term.
Overall, there are no right or wrong answers. You select the path you want to take and determine how slowly or quickly you want to march along that path. Happy cooking!
About the Author
Megan Isola holds a Bachelor of Science in Hospitality and a minor in Business Marketing from Cal State University Chico. She enjoys going to concerts, trying new restaurants, and hanging out with friends.
