My Guide To Making You A Better Cook

 Hi all. Plenty happening in my life at the moment. The contract is ending at my worksite in about a month and then it looks like a break from the workaday grind. I believe I am looking at a handy payout and think that this might be my chance to throw myself into a small business with a heavy online component. It is time to get creative. One of the ideas I have had is to post a series of blog and vlog posts of an instructional nature sharing what I know about food and cooking that can improve the meals that the average home cook is putting on the plate. Sure there are a whole heap of recipes out there but I believe that by focusing on a few cooking techniques I can give you a guide to more rapid improvement through greater understanding of what it is you are doing at the stove top. 

The areas of cookery I am looking at are braising and stewing, pan frying , Stir frying, crumbing and coating, roasting, soups, salads, and maybe even a barbecue lesson. I have noticed on some sites they have lessons that charge quite a bit for their lessons but as I am also learning as I go mine will at least for the foreseeable future, be free. 

What will I be sharing? Basically I will be getting my food nerd on and trying to teach not just what I know, but more importantly what I think will be helpful. I want you to be able to use recipes as general guidelines to you cooking, not carved in stone lists of instructions. I also want you to be able to go the shops any day of the week and cook something based on what you like the look of on the shelves or in the fruit and veg shop. 

Take a midweek meal. You walk into the shops thinking I have about 30 minutes to prepare the meal. Okay that probably eliminates roasting and braising. I've been eating heavy foods this week, looking for something light. Hmmm what is it I would like. Don't want too much clean up. It's a warm to hot night. How about a salad. It is dinner though so I need some substance to it. How about a nice Salmon fillet, skin on, pan fried served alongside a simple salad. Now the salad. Base mixed lettuce (a good handful) plus the usual culprits, tomato, cucumber, Spanish onion, capsicum and maybe a grated carrot. Now for a bit of an upgrade. Keep it simple. A handful of walnuts or almonds, a small tin of corn kernels for a sweet textural change up and maybe a few mushrooms or a tin of chickpeas to fill you up. Of course we need a dressing. Midweek means stick to basics, classic red wine vinaigrette, teaspoon of mustard ( Dijon is preferred but whatever is in the fridge will do) plus a 3 to 1 oil to vinegar mix. Olive oil and my go to is red wine vinegar. Of course if you saw a nice looking apple to add to your salad then maybe an apple cider vinaigrette would work better and if that were the case then maybe the pork medallion would go better. And on it goes. 

Eating is about choices. The more techniques you have at your disposal the better eating options and the more fun you'll have in the kitchen. And .. who knows? You might even impress someone as well. 

There is always a difficulty in teaching something that you find quite natural or easy to do. I've been working in kitchens for around 15 years now. That makes me feel old. Part of the challenge will be to do a bit of time travel, head back to beginner me. Head back to the a younger me hacking around in the kitchen, making mistakes or investing in loss to become a better cook. I want to get inside the mind of the beginner or learner. How do we do that? Go back to basics. I see teaching basics as being like a pro golfer out on the practice range. He or she doesn't just stand there hitting trick shots. Firstly they have to warm up, do some light stretching and then hit some basic shots focusing on hitting the ball nicely out of the centre of the club face. After that they can move on to more advanced techniques. A similar approach can be taken in the kitchen. Without a solid foundation in the basics, and I don't just mean doing, but also understanding then the more difficult dishes will be out of reach. I am a bit of a food nerd, I love to get in close and watch the simmering right up close and personal. Observing with Sherlock Holmes like scrutiny will improve you as a cook. Heston Blumenthal of the Fat Duck restaurant fame is big of questioning assumptions in relation to cooking. Just because you read somewhere that you should only turn a steak once when grilling it, doesn't mean that it is right. And, even if it is correct, it also doesn't meant that it is the only way. Cookery is not a maths test. There is more than one answer and usually a number of ways to get to the solution or in this case final dish. 

So, when can you expect to see the first lesson? Let's aim to have it up and ready to work through the written version by Sunday lunch. I have set myself a public deadline now it is time to deliver. Episode 1 of my guide to making you a better cook. Braising. 

Until then Happy Cooking!!!