If you are not experienced, you will only learn by doing. Not everyone is a great cook naturally. Every person can be able to learn to cook, however. If you want to improve your culinary skills, there are few important things that you should be aware of. Below, you will find some helpful tips that will get you going in the right direction.
Double up by setting a watch timer in addition to the oven timer. You are assured of knowing when the oven timer goes off wherever you may be if you also set the timer on a watch you are wearing on your wrist or a stopwatch you are wearing around your neck.
Do not purchase boneless meat and fish. Put the bones, cooked or raw, in heavy duty ziploc bags and store them in the freezer until you are ready to use.
When the insides of fresh fruits are exposed to air, they tend to turn brown. Bananas, pears, peaches, avocados and apples are some of the fruits that brown when sliced. Lemon and salt water will stop the process, but the best flavor to use to stop the browning is by dipping the fruit in pineapple juice. It is not necessary to completely saturate the fruit; just a quick dip in and out of the juice is perfect.
Organize your materials as best as possible, if you desire to prevent the hazards of burns in the kitchen. Having all your kitchen tools handy and organized will help you turn out a good meal. A cluttered, unorganized cooking area will leave you scrambling to find things while your food gets more and more “well done”. You will end up burning things and throwing them away when simple organization would have allowed you to cook a wonderful dish!
Use cooking oil for measuring sticky foods! Before you even measure, add a little cooking oil to the spoon, such as canola, and the thing being measured will fall off the spoon easier, so that way you won’t have any waste and cleaning up is easier. This works for honey and peanut butter too.
It’s easy to get stressed by just the notion of cooking for a large gathering of people. Instead of being overwhelmed, be prepared, starting the night before. Ingredients can be measured, vegetables chopped, and marinades mixed well in advance of the start of the main cooking process.
There are many fresh new ways to enjoy oysters. Oysters are typically eaten raw with maybe a splash of lemon, but there are other ways to prepare them. Place the oysters in a broiler pan, being careful not to remove them from their shells. Add cream to each oyster. After, top them with some parmesan cheese, and finally broil them. You can also saute oysters. Coat oysters with some seasoned flour and saute in warm butter for a couple of minutes, until they are golden. Oysters are best cooked in their shells. Put them in a deep baking dish, season them with breadcrumbs and a little butter over each, then put them in a 425 degree oven for about five minutes. As soon as the juices and butter start to bubble, they are ready to be served with a simple toasted baguette.
In many cases, you can mistakenly put too much salt into your recipe before you taste it, but this is not a lost cause. Allow some chopped potatoes to simmer within the sauce for awhile. These potatoes will take on some of the extra salt you added. If it is a tomato sauce, you can try adding additional tomatoes and your will end up with more sauce that is less salty.
Though not everyone has a born talent in the kitchen, if you can follow directions, you can become an amateur chef in no time. It may be easier than you think! Make sure you apply the tips you have just read and experiment with new ideas.