Are there any professional cooks here who can tell us some tricks of the trade to make our cooking easier, faster and tastier at home?

coffeecore · 4 months

Just a few: -Buy a decent knife, develop your knife skills . There are plenty of guides online. - Focus on technique rather than complexity when you're learning to cook. Learn how to properly sautee, build a sauce, how to truss and roast a chicken correctly, etc. Thomas keller's cookbooks are pretty excellent for this, especially Ad Hoc. -Don't be afraid of salt and fats. Fats used in correct quantities at correct temperatures don't saturate your food. Salts used in correct quantities enhance the flavor of a dish, but the second something tastes salty you've used too much.

kyuuzousama · 4 months

Mise en place! Get everything ready before you turn on any elements. Cut all of your veg, prep and season meats and have everything ready to go. The actual cooking process takes far less time than you think. Buy some small Tupperware containers at a dollar store and put the processed food in them.

Yes butter is nice and margarine is crap, but that's no secret. Proper seasoning makes a massive difference, s&p used properly make something "meh" into something "yeah!". Also quality of ingredients is huge too. If you buy your meats at the supermarket your handicapping yourself right off the bat. Look for farmers markets and butcher shops, and if the butcher can't tell you everything there is to know about the meat don't buy.

Learn about the food you eat, where does it come from and how should it look. Knowing if something is ripe is key.

Cook things properly! If you cook veggies too much they lose vitamins and flavours leaving them mushy and useless. A lot of what makes a tasty veggie is not the over use of butter, but cooking it to that perfect doneness. Meat is no exception, well done steaks are useless, a chicken at 205 degrees is the same. Buy a thermometer and know your temps! Also remember that meat in the oven or on the grill will rise an additional 5 to 10 degrees when it's taken out as the outside still cooks the inside a little.

I'm hungover and just woke up so I will try to post more later

tsdguy · 4 months

First, home cooks don't use enough fat when cooking. You need oil/butter in the pan to sauté properly. And second, more browning. Home cooks don't brown food enough whether it's chicken in a pan or beef for stew or chili.

A bonus trick is finishing in oven. Most meat cooks better by browning on stove and finishing in oven. Make sure your sauté pans are oven safe.

Luminose · 4 months

Rest your meats. Don't lose the juice!

MylesMDT · 4 months

Fat. Salt. Acid. If something doesn't taste quite right, it needs one or more of these.

Don't forget your towel. Put a damp kitchen towel, or even damp paper towels under your cutting board.

foodgeekfish · 4 months

Stock - make your own, make it good. This will take time, but it's not attentive time, so you can be doing other things while you knock it out over a weekend.

Roast your bones before making the stock.

Use good water.

For the love of all that is good and holy do not boil your stock. The more it agitates, the more crap breaks loose from your flavor components and the cloudier/scummier the stock becomes.

Start a slight cooking of veggies in the stock pot on the stove top. Add water and bones, and place in a 200 F oven for a good long time. Overnight works. After it's cooked and the large solids are removed and the stock is at a safe temperature, put it in the fridge with a layer of cling wrap on the surface. As it cools the fat will rise and coagulate, adhering to the cling film. Next day, remove the cling film and most of the fat. Freeze the finished stock in ice cube trays, then pop your stock cubes into a gallon bag, removing as much or as little as needed when cooking.

GyroscopicSpin · 4 months

I'm sure there are some people here that are fullblown chefs. They are most likely more knowledgable that me, but I'll tell you what I know from working in restaurants the better half of my adult life (I'm still in college, but I'm older than most graduates. Shut up, I took a short break to work in the food industry!)

Do some prep. Prepare things that you use commonly. If you like to use onions, mushrooms, etc., slice enough up so you can use them over multiple meals. Maybe you like soup every day; then chop up a lot of onion, carrot, and celery for the mirepoix (pronounced meer- pwah) so you don't have to for the following batch of whatever soup you want to make. Also, make large batches of things like tomato soup and chicken stock, put it in tightly sealed plastic bags or resealable containers (don't buy some weak generic bullshit), and throw it in the freezer. You can use it later for making soup or stew a lot more quickly.

By the way, chicken and beef stocks have some damn good flavor, especially home made. you can add a little bit to sauteed veggies or you can cook some small diced steak in it to make some tasty, tasty tacos.

For more flavor, add spices. I like to cook stuff with an asian flare, so I rub 5 spice onto poultry and saute it up with sliced ginger (also good for a nice cup of lemongrass ginger tea if you're into that sort of thing), glaze it in a liiiitttle bit of honey and deglaze the pan with a splash of soy sauce. Add noodles, cilantro, and scallions, juice from a wedge of lemon and some rooster sauce and it's fucking good. Where was I going here.. Oh yes, the spices on the chicken play an important role in flavor. Every bite is phenomenal. Choose the right spice and apply this technique to other meats and you won't be sorry.

Finally, don't worry about making everything perfect the first time around if you're going for speed. Practice chopping, slicing, and becoming more efficient whenever you cook and the taste factor will soon follow.

And one more thing. Learn how to eat. Taste everything! What flavors go with what? What texture is best for the veg (i.e. how long should it cook)? What's the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

Obviously, I've given a lot of specific examples, but many of these examples can be applied across the board. What I'd like to convey the most is this: **Do your prep work* **Make an effort to cook faster* *Taste your finished work and analyze how to improve upon it **spice things up* **Relax, it's only food*

A lot of people are suggesting butter. Yes it's good, but don't over do it. Don't be a one trick horse! Good luck friends!

of4strings · 4 months

Watch this episode of Good Eats where Alton reviews knives and proper knife use.

In-fucking-valuable.

drinkalcohol · 4 months

Butter is the main reason why good restaurants taste better than your home cooking. They use an assload of butter, in nearly everything. (It's also the reason why you're always shocked when you look at the nutrition information.)

RosesSpins · 4 months

You can create sauces like a pro at home and they'll all start with the same base. Olive oil and butter in a pan. (Olive oil doesn't burn, keeps the butter from scorching)

Add onion, till almost translucent (shallot at this point if you've got it) and garlic. Remember garlic will burn and turn bitter quickly, so add it after the onion is almost done.

Now you can go in any direction and never fail. . . De glaze with white wine and add herbs of your choice.

Tarragon and parsley? It's perfect for scallops. Pat them dry, sear, and pour the sauce over.

Herbs de Provence? Saute chicken and serve with herbed potatoes.

Basil and Oregeno? Saute Veal or chicken cutlets and then swirl some pasta in. Ponzu? Add carrots, water chestnuts, snow peas, and Mushrooms then saute chicken. Dollop of honey or molasses and rice. . .tasty.

Add dijon mustard, some deli ham, a little cream and stir in cooked pasta.

You cannot go wrong!

PeachyKeynesian · 4 months

TASTE EVERYTHING YOU MAKE AT EVERY STOP ALONG THE WAY. This is the only way to make great food.

Cooking Meat: Generally, drier is better (before cooking, anyway) - to get a good crust, browning on meat ( which is where a lot of the flavor comes from) the surface has to be dry. For chicken, loosen the skin from the bird, rub with salt and maybe some baking powder, let it sit in the fridge over night UNCOVERED. For steaks, I like to start them out in a low oven first, then sear them. This dries out the steak, and actually makes it like a turbo charged dry aging. THen when yhou sear it, it takes less time and you get less of that nasty, chewy, gray area.

For Veggies - Roasting almost always trumps steaming, boiling, etc. For almost any savory food, browning improves the flavor. The Maillard Reaction is a beautiful thing. Don't buy in to that butter is bad for you crap, either. Animal fats are a necessary nutrient in the body.

For spices - don't store them above your stove. They need a cool, dry environment. Furthermore, put them in plastic bags with a folder label and put them in one small box. Saves a ton of room and saves you from rifling through your cabinet looking for a rarely used spice. Also, blooming most spices in hot oil almost always improves their depth and flavor. THis does NOT go for herbs.

General:

Try to establish the best method of cooking for each dish - in the oven, in a skillet, etc. and choose your equipment accordingly. That said, use boiling water for pasta. Use it for almost nothing else. I've found that dry cooking methods are usually superior to wet such as boiling, steaming etc. Braising is ok if you want to make a sauce with the braising liquid. Otherwise, find a better way.
Try to find a good balance of salty, acidic, and sweet in your cooking flavors. Flavor combinations is the biggest challenge to being a good cook.
99% of common wisdom recipes have something incredibly wrong with them.
About half of what comes out of Alton Brown's mouth is ill-informed garbage. I fear I'll be downvoted all to hell for this, but do some research on the man - he is not a nice person and some of his advice is just plain wrong.
Anthony Bourdain is a pretentious hack.
Jacques Pepin, however, is awesome. As is America's Test Kitchen, Serious Eats, Bon Appetit.
Use stainless steel for most dishes. You don't really need nonstick, more than likely. I use nonstick for eggs and most fish. That's about it.
STOP OVERCROWDING YOUR PAN
Take the time to find the best brand of ingredients. Most people might not realize it - but there is a HUGE disparity in the quality of canned tomatoes, cheeses, spices, etc.
Clean as you go.
" Cook more often. Don't study; Just cook" - Masaharu Morimoto
TASTE EVERYTHING YOU MAKE AT EVERY STOP ALONG THE WAY. This is the only way to make great food.

bonestamp · 4 months

What about cleanup? Are there any pro tips for making things easier for cleanup?

edit: really poor grammar

[deleted] · 4 months

Easier - definitely get a crock pot.

BonerJams71 · 4 months

mise en place, shallots, butter, SALT(KOSHER) AND FUCKING PEPPER, Proper utensils don't buy shitty target tongs and what not go find a restaurant equipment store buy a few restaurant grade items you will use alot like tongs, spatulas, etc they will last you a life time in the home kitchen and keep it simple, and fresh and don't get all overly complicated with too many sauces and shit. Also go grab a few good cook books, I just got Momofuku by david chang and I read it cover to cover the book blew my mind.

coolkid9 · 4 months

Butter ALL the things.

wee0x1b · 4 months

easier, faster and tastier

Buy a pressure cooker.

Girlinnjtraffic · 4 months

Besides fresh butter, kosher salt, cracked black pepper, and pro tools, I'd suggest sourcing local ingredients. When I was in upstate ny, I found that the food tasted so much better mainly because the ingredients were from that area. Avoid Perdue pre packaged chicken, and buy fresh from a butcher or local farmer. Same for eggs, which can sit on a shelf for 30 days before being sold as "fresh". Milk is another thing that is often sold long after it's lost it's taste. Find your local dairy, and go there. The difference will blow you away. Good Greek olive oil is available over the Internet. If you live near the coast, fresh seafood is available off the boats. It might not be as convenient as one stop shopping, but your food will taste so much better.

Xethos · 4 months

Grind all your spices fresh.

constantgardner · 4 months

Cook often . The more you do, the more you'll learn.

Shalmanese · 4 months

Asking chefs advice for making better food is like asking pornstars advice about having better sex. A lot of the common chef given advice is wrong at at least misleading for home cooks:

Prep everything ahead of time: If you're making 100 covers of the same dish in 1 service, then of course you live and die by prep. For the home cook, it's purely a personal preference. Newbie cooks should probably prep more and some cooks prefer everything prepped but it's also perfectly possible to figure out the various gaps during cooking and fit prep in then. For example, while the meat is browning is a good time to chop onions.
Plenty of butter: Chefs don't have to eat what they cook and so butter sneaks into everything. At most, chefs have to make dishes that sound healthy which is why you get 1000 calorie salads. For a home cook, we sadly, do not have this luxury.
Supermarkets sell crappy food: Chefs never buy anything from a supermarket, everything comes from a supplier, so what do they know about supermarket food? In truth, the stuff you get at the supermarket is often better than all but the top tiers of Sysco which is where most restaurants get their food from. That neighborhood taqueria or hole in the wall chinese place is almost certainly working with worse ingredients than you're buying. Develop a palate and learn to judge for yourself the quality of the ingredients you're buying. I've managed to get fantastic produce, meats, cheeses, wines and condiments from my local Safeway.

sUPERbUTTEReXPRESS · 4 months

I <3 this thread~

in_question · 4 months

Kosher/Sea salt. MSG (no really). Hack your stove (if you have gas) to make a higher flame (higher the heat = faster/tastier your food will be. Also keeping those vegetables you blanched crisp.) I'm not sure if anyone has said but, BUTTER. Unsalted butter.

chobbs · 4 months

Make sure your pan and the fat in it is hot before you add the food you are cooking. Don't be afraid of some smoke. When sauteeing stuff like scallops, vegetables, or anything really the food will cook faster and take on better color if your pans are hot.

Blanch vegetables in heavily salted water before you cook them. When you reheat them in a pan always use a ton of butter or lard and season well with stuff like balsamic vinegar, garlic, onions. Vegetables such as collards, green beans, and asparagus can develop great color, texture, and flavor from blanching.

Tenchiro · 4 months

Use good salt and crack your own pepper. There is a huge difference in flavor from your basic iodized salt (which should be avoided) and something like Sea Salt. Gray Sea Salt is really good stuff due to all extra minerals. Himalayan salt is pretty tasty too and you can get it in slabs big enough to sear your meat on, otherwise a small cube can be purchased for a song at places like Home Goods and TJ Maxx.

When you get pepper ALWAYS get it whole and grind it yourself. I like to mix a few different kinds of pepper with a little Allspice. McCormick's Peppercorn Medley can be purchased in any grocery store and is one of my favorites.

richcarl32 · 4 months

most home cooks start cooking everything in a cold pan for saute. Wait until that pan is hot enough before you even put any oil into it.

Ricktron3030 · 4 months

The best tip I've ever gotten was to toss in shallots. Shallots are usually a chefs secret ingredient people don't think of.

[deleted] · 4 months

I'll probably be downvoted, but....

I haven't even been a redditor for more than a year yet I've seen this topic way too often.

Just a few for anyone who might find them useful:

October, 2011 http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lforv/chefs_souschefs_line_cooks_of_reddit_what_tricks/ Novermber, 2011 http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/maox1/cooks_and_chefs_of_reddit_what_foodrelated/

soth09 · 4 months

KISS

Keep it simple stupid.

The first rule of fight Club

ifyoucantcallme · 4 months

Carmelization! Don't play with your meat. Let it release naturally from the pan, nice and golden brown. Control your temps.

nicholas_urfe · 4 months

This exact same thread is made about once a week with the exact same answers. Its no problem, Im just saying that its getting very repetitive in here - "I made pizza", "Kitchen Tips", "Nailed It", "Any cooking tips to nail making pizza?"

woadgrrl · 4 months

Many people have said this, but I'll reiterate, because it was one of the things that amazed me most when I started cooking in a restaurant kitchen: prep!

Especially if you're cooking from recipes often, it's not always obvious that you can do an awful lot of things ahead of time (sometimes several days ahead). Prepping vegetables, shredding cheese (don't pay more for pre-shredded), and even par-cooking or par-baking things, or pre-sauteeing onions/garlic, etc. Pre-cook breakfast stuff (whole packets of sausages/bacon), then just microwave a serving for 30 sec. to warm them, and pop them under the broiler/grill for a minute or two to crisp up.

If you plan your weekly meals ahead of time, you can spend one afternoon getting things ready, and then throw things together quickly and easily through the week. Or, if you're not typically that organized (and I'll admit I'm not), you can still do this for holiday meals/entertaining. For example, this Thanksgiving, I had my potatoes and yams peeled and cubed and kept covered with water the day before. I also prepped and sauteed the ingredients for my stuffing, so all I needed to do was heat them up and add the croutons and stock. It makes things so much less stressful.

4 months

[deleted]

lomotil · 4 months

Master heat control, ie know what is truly high, medium and low burner settings are. Properly heat your pans before adding your ingredients. Very important is carryover cooking. For example scrambled eggs, if you cook them in the pan until they are perfectly done the residual heat will continue to cook the eggs and they will be over cooked where as if you take your pan off the eggs when they are almost ready, the residual heat will continue to cook the eggs until they are perfect. The larger/denser a object the longer it will retain its heat. For ex a roast will probably continue to cook for an additional 10 minutes and it's temp will rise 5 to 10 degrees. Develop a palate, taste things, taste combinations catalog those flavors in your brain. It will help you learn what combinations will work and won't.

chefanubis · 4 months

Mise en place, master that and all the rest comes off naturally.

stikeymo · 4 months

I'm no chef, but amongst the best cooking advice I've had is no matter what I'm prepping, the first thing you should do when you walk into a kitchen to cook is to put a kettle on and boil some water. Chances are you're going to need it at some point. I've found this to be especially true if you're in a country with 110v electrical supply - since moving stateside, cups of tea have become long, drawn out affairs:(

7yler · 4 months

Not a pro, but I started seasoning with Vinegar like I season with S&P and have noticed a significant improvement in overall taste. A little bit seems to go along way to harmonizing the flavors and cutting some of the bitterness.

Panedrop · 4 months

The two biggest things for increasing flavor are caramelization and more specifically fond. If you don't know what they are find out how to make them happen for any given food item and how to incorporate the fond into your pan sauces via deglazing.

samthunder · 4 months

One simple thing that I think should be more common is the little ramekin for kosher salt. To me this is an easier way to gauge exactly how much I'm putting into the soup or on my plate. When you go with the grinder it's much more of a guessing game in my opinion.

Also, mirepoix: onions, celery, carrots, garlic etc etc etc any of several flavor base cuts of veg that you add to anything to deepen the flavor (and "beef it up" without spending extra money)

RosesSpins · 4 months

Oh, and the easiest Tomato and Bleu Cheese Bisque ever. Saute onions, garlic, and shallots in olive oil. When tender, de-glaze with red wine. Add some decent tomato sauce. Seriously your favorite generic bottled sauce is fine. Pour in a little half and half, stir, and bring to a simmer. Stir in a little bleu cheese, reserving some for garnish. YUMMY.

This was my go to when we ran out of soup of the day and it became so popular that we'd let "special" guests have it to order.

SouthFresh · 4 months

When peeling garlic, take unpeeled cloves, must be more than one, place them in a sealed container and shake vigorously for 10-30 seconds. Fully peeled garlic without smelly fingers.

JohnnyBeagle · 4 months

Cook with wine. The alcohol in wine helps to transfer flavors to the palette.

ah18255 · 4 months

when making a curry, simmer the spices first in a bit of oil, then add other ingredients. Simmering spices like this makes their flavor incredible. also- BUTTER makes everything taste awesome

sgwizdak · 4 months

Not a professional, but an advanced amateur.

Equipment that I like that I couldn't live with for my style of cooking: carbon steel pan that's been seasoned (Matfer Bourgeat) used for high-heat meat searing, a few stainless stainless pans of varying sizes (no need to get fancy, I just use vollrath), lots of small pyrex bowls for organization, a huge end-grain cutting board, one beater stainless steel knife (Messermeister), one razor sharp carbon steel knife (1930's Sabatier, reprofiled at 15 degrees), japanese "laser" style gyuto, thermometers, tongs, a good hand blender, a strainer, kyocera ceramic peelers, and some waterstones of varying grits.

Things I do to increase speed: keep a trash can next to your work area, I have cheap ikea cutting board (don't cut things on it, wood quality sucks), next to my good cutting board. When I'm working through veggies, I push the scraps onto the cheap board, then wipe down my work surface. That means I only have to clean up, hopefully, once toward the end. Keep a spray bottle of water with a touch of bleach to use as a sanitizer. Keep another bottle with just water as a rinse. Label carefully. Keep lots of towels around. And saran wrap, lots of it.

Neat tricks: cut salad greens a few times with your sharpest knife (don't chop), and soak in cold salted water for a few minutes before it gets a trip through the salad spinner. The greens soak up the water and become nice and firm. Pasta water is amazing base for a pasta sauce. Finish pasta in a pan with your sauce for a few moments before serving.

As for tastier: marination, seasoning, and brines are your friend. Learn to love them.

General advice: don't worry about calories, just try to keep your portion sizes small. Small amounts of high quality food is a lot better than mediocre food in large quantities. Learn how to poach fish. Don't be afraid of organs like liver or kidneys.

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