Article created by: Denis Tymulis
Anyone who’s ever set foot in a kitchen can tell you that cooking is a learning process. Whether you effortlessly whip up Michelin-worthy plates in no time or, on the contrary, hesitantly swirl around and manage to burn everything you come in contact with, it's a skill that takes time to master. But it’s oh-so-rewarding when you prepare a mouth-watering dish that makes everyone squeal in excitement. And while you need proper practice and techniques to do it well, you can always benefit from the handy little tricks of others.
If you want to up your culinary game right away, this thread posted on the 'Cooking' subreddit has got you covered. "What is the single greatest cooking tip you ever got?" asked Redditor profligateclarity and invited hundreds of cooking enthusiasts to share their helpful advice.
It's a baking tip:
If you're going to be cutting butter into some kind of pastry (scones, pie crust, etc) **freeze the stick of butter and grate it**. It makes everything SO much easier. I'll never ever go back to the older method of cubing the butter and then endlessly trying to cut it into smaller pieces etc. Plus doing that takes so long half the butter melts. Using the grated butter means I only have to spend about a minute mixing everything together so it's much easier to avoid overworking the dough. Puffy scones, flaky crusts.
Cooking you can pretty much do with your heart, but baking recipes are architectural plans and every ingredient is a load bearing structure. You can make changes, but you better know what you are doing
The thing I learned it, a good sharp kitchen knife makes cooking more fun and even if you think your knife is sharp enough it probably isnt. Made all the difference for me.
READ THE COMMENTS of the recipe if you find it online. Of course you have to sift through the people who think half n half is spicy, buuuut there’s usually a lot of good feedback.
Sometimes when a dish is missing something, it's not more salt but something acidic like lemon juice. Vinegar can also add a lot
Use freshly grind pepper and not the powder. It's true in general that freshly grind spices taste better (and/or smell better) but for pepper it is a difference between night and day.
Don't whisk eggs in a circle, whisk them in a back and forth motion. I can still hear chef saying "You're chasing the eggs around the bowl!" when we did it wrong.
Wear an apron. So many cool t-shirts ruined.
Let the stainless heat up before putting ANYTHING in it.
Don’t crowd the pan.
Just because you chopped all those onions (garlic, herbs, etc.), doesn't mean they all have to go into the dish.
If you want the best fried mushrooms, fry them without any butter or oil.
There is so much liquid in mushrooms, that the won't burn for quite some time. Frying them like that, makes them sort of hyper concentrated. Once all the water has cooked of, add butter. They will suck up all that flavor.
Use a scale to measure things. It's even easier if you set the scale to grams, not ounces. Much easier to scale a recipe up and down that way.
When I was 19, the grandmother of a friend taught me that it's easier to brown flour without any fat, just all by itself in the pan.
Brown the flour, let it cool, put it in a jar, add your liquid, cap and shake the hell out of it. Return to the pan, bring up to temp, THEN add your butter.
Life changing! I really used to struggle with fat coated raw flour trying to brown it.
Brown your ground beef like you’re frying a giant burger. Get it nice and charred on both sides and only THEN break up the meat.
Gather all your ingredients before you begin. Read all the directions before you begin.
Don’t begin until you know what you’re doing.
Advice from my grandmother
Smash the garlic. It makes peeling and cuting it way easier/faster. Plus you get to smash the garlic. 10/10
Clean as you go. Nothing worse than cooking a lovely meal and having a giant sink of dishes w waiting for you. I make sure I have an empty dishwasher before I start cooking and then every dish I dirty while cooking goes straight into the dishwasher. Once we are done eating the only plates to clean are the ones we ate off and any pots that need a scrub. It takes so much pressure off to clean as you go.
Taste as you go, even when for instance making meatballs: season them and cook a tiny simple then adjust if needed.
