How To Improve Your Cooking Skills From The Comfort Of Your Own Kitchen
Cooking Is An Art Form - Is It Time To Hone Your Skills?
If you’re out of practice creating beautiful meals in the kitchen, worry not. You can easily master some basic culinary skills and impress your family and friends. With just a few tips and the right equipment, you can produce delicious dishes to be proud of every time.
Being able to enjoy cooking for yourself or hosting dinner parties for friends opens up a whole new world of possibilities. You can even try your hand at mastering different techniques and new, exciting recipes to improve your cooking skills.
The team here at Gifts Australia has pooled our ideas on simple and easy ways for honing your skills. It’s an opportunity to develop a wonderful new hobby, and you’ll also be able to sample the mouth-watering results! We also have handy kitchen gadgets to make the job easier and great gifts for home chefs if you're looking to treat yourself or friend who likes to cook.
Inspiration For Taking Basic Cooking Skills To The Next Level
Not many of us have the budget to splash out on luxury ingredients every day or go to culinary school. But, the good news is the fine art of cooking can be mastered entirely for free with a little preparation. Here are 8 ways to ensure you produce tasty delights every time you’re in the kitchen!
Best Kitchen Tools & Ingredients
Making sure your pantry is well stocked with the best essential cooking ingredients you can afford is the first place to start. Fresh fruit, veggies, dairy products, olive oil and a variety of herbs and spices are a must. Also, it’s worth hunting around for a good set of cooking equipment and tools that will last. These can help you improve the speed and ease of cooking preparation too.
Learn To Use Your Hands
If you’ve ever watched Jamie Oliver, you’ll know just how sensitive and useful hands are in the cooking process. Your hands are your most sophisticated cooking accessories! Developing your sense of touch means you will learn how different foods feel during preparation. It can also help you tell when fruit is ripe, dough is kneaded, or bread is baked enough. Good hand techniques also make it much easier to mix ingredients and shape your baking creations!
Master Safe Knife Skills
You don’t need to be able to slice an onion in 10 seconds, but you do need to teach yourself about kitchen knives. Each one has a different use and can help you master the skill of chopping veggies or meat in pieces of the same size. Uniformity is one of the keys to advancing your culinary skills as food will cook evenly and thoroughly with less risk of burning.
Always Reduce Your Liquids
To achieve a flavour-packed result every time, reducing your sauce or stock content is essential. It concentrates those delicious flavours. If you’re cooking meat, chicken or veggies, you can always take them out when they’re ready. Deglaze your pan and reduce the liquid a little more, then add them back in. You will serve up extra flavour every single time.
Constantly Balance Flavours
Learning how to balance your dishes and which flavours to boost is essential. If you recognise when one taste is overwhelming or it’s too sweet or sour, you can learn how to fix it. Boosting the right flavours will produce a perfect dish. If you still feel like it’s too bland or missing something, then try acidic ingredients like lemon juice or vinegar to liven up your tastebuds.
Taste Is The Essence
Professional chefs taste every ingredient and are constantly taking tiny samples during each step of the cooking process. It makes sense to do exactly the same. If you want an appetising end product, then not tasting it until it’s on your plate will usually lead to disappointment. Tasting a morsel of everything will also help you to balance the flavours as you go.
Don’t Trust A Timer
A timer’s buzzer is a handy tool, but it doesn’t tell you your stew or cake is actually ready. Develop your own judgement by using your senses of touch, smell and sight. Descriptive recipes are a great help as it’s helpful to pay attention to instructions like “roast until crispy and golden brown” or “reduce your sauce by half”. Don’t think so much about the time involved.
Practice Makes Perfect
This saying is absolutely true when you’re working on how to be a better cook. Cooking homemade meals regularly will help you learn, increase your confidence and refine those culinary skills. If you fail, then try again and play with the ingredients and flavours until you’re happy. What starts as trial and error can soon make you a serious chef in your kitchen!
9 Practical Items For Your Cooking Skills Checklist
Whether you’re completely new to home cooking or are about to start experimenting, kitchen tools are a vital element. You can improvise, but there are some essentials for your cooking skills list that will enhance your experience and help set you up for success.
- A copy of the Plan, Buy, Cook Book which takes you back to basics. It will help you with fundamental techniques planning and shopping ahead, and simple, tasty recipes to try.
- An affordable set of chef’s knives or a Masterpro Knife Block set with chef's safety glove. Made in stainless steel, there’s a razor-sharp blade for every task that makes slicing and dicing effortless.
- The World’s Best Knife Sharpener for keeping your cutting edges in tip-top condition. Nothing makes cooking harder than dull blades in the kitchen, and this is an investment!
- A handy meat tenderiser and Meat Thermometer will make cooking in the kitchen a breeze. Even cheaper meat cuts will taste exquisite and slice through like butter.
- A beautiful Spice Jar Set which you can fill with spices and seasonings. With flavourful choices, you can feel confident cooking food inspired by cuisines from the world over.
- Perfect for baking and cheffing, a sturdy set of Copper Measuring Cups and spoons are essential. Choose a durable set, and they will help with your cooking for years to come.
- For perfecting those quintessential Aussie BBQs, a good cookbook with tips and tricks for home barbeques will let you produce flavour-packed meals every time. Choose the The Aussie BBQ Bible, and bring the wow factor to your family barbeque.
- An at-home herb garden or groovy Urban Greens Grow Kit so you can have fun growing your own. Fresh herbs and greens will turn your meals into appetising savoury feasts.
When there’s a celebration, treat yourself to a fabulous Chef’s Experience day! Hone your cookery skills in luxury and learn all about new dishes and their preparation. A wonderful way to share your love of cooking with other home chefs. Explore our range of essential kitchen gadgets and chef tools to enhance your skills in the kitchen.
