Day 62-- 6 tips for beginning chefs

Happy August!  It's been exactly two months since I started to learn how to cook things beyond Mac and Cheese and oatmeal, and I've definitely learned some things along the way.  You have to understand, when I started this summer I didn't even have a cutting board, let alone a can opener, or flour, or butter, or mixing bowls... It's been a journey and here are some tips for beginning chefs as I learned the hard way. 

Tip #1: Don't buy all of your supplies at once.

You must know this: cooking is going to be damn expensive at first because you have zero supplies.  For example: your first batch of French toast is going to cost about $19, but once you own flour, sugar, vanilla extract, and keep butter and milk in the fridge, your French toast is going to cost about  $.75 a batch. 

It's tempting just to get all of your food supplies in a hurry, but don't.  You're just going to get discouraged that you spent a bill and can only make two meals out of it.  Buy things bit by bit. 

Tip# 2: Soaking a pan in Coke will help with burnt bottoms.

Coke is strong enough to remove rust from engines, so it'll do wonders for your food-burnt dishes.  Fill your pan or pot with enough Coke to cover the area and sit overnight.  Use muscle to scrub.  Repeat if necessary.

Tip#3: Timing is everything--check the recipe card

Timing really is everything when it comes to cooking.  This is especially important with side dishes and chopping so that everything finishes at the same time.  Want potatoes with that?  40 minutes, so typically start them first.  Want broccoli with that? 10 minutes.  Want garlic bread with that?  5 minutes + 2 minutes for cutting and putting on the spread.  Time to chop an onion?  Using the restaurant way about 5 minutes.  Want bacon, eggs, and toast?  Bacon is 4-5 minutes, so start first.  Toasting bread, 3 minutes. Eggs are 2 minutes, so do after you start the toast.

One of the best purchases I've made were these little dipping cups that I stuff with fruit or salad and stick in the fridge as the rest of the meal cooks.  Also, during the lulls of waiting for the oven or heat, or food to sizzle, or meat to broil are the best times to do dishes.

Tip#4: Buy good steaks.  

I don't care how well you season, marinate, or cook it, if the main dish is steak for steak's sake, buy a good steak--top sirloin or filet mignon.  Steak is a treat and should be treated as such.  And if it's between a bigger steak and a smaller one, go with the smaller one.  People like finishing their plate. The exception is when the dish includes steak, but isn't the main idea, like a steak burrito, or beef stew, or fajitas, ect.  In those cases, no worries about poorer quality of steak because the other stuff is so yummy. 

Tip #5:  Vary a little from the familiar in starting off

Try adding a little fresh basil to your pasta sauce tonight, or maybe add chopped onion to the ground beef to make hamburgers, ect.  Just a little change is a good way of starting off for a new chef.

Tip# 6: All-purpose flour vs self-rising flour vs bread flour, kosher salt vs salt, baking powder vs baking soda

All-purpose flour is just regular flour.  Self-rising flour is flour with baking powder and salt added.  You can make self-rising flour by adding 11/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt for every 1 cup of all-purpose flour.  Bread flour is wheat flour that containing a higher percentage of the protein gluten than other flour.  This gluten makes the flour far more elastic when kneading and is typically used for chewy breads that rise while cooking, like pizzas and pastries.   From personal experience, if it calls for bread flour, you must use bread flour or it's just not going to taste good at all.

Sea salt, regular salt, and kosher salt are pretty much the same thing as far as composition goes.  The biggest difference is texture.  Regular salt/table salt is really tiny and fine in size, whereas kosher salt and sea salt tend to come in larger flakes.  Sea salt isn't as processed as table salt, so it still contains flavor from minerals of the sea.  Kosher salt is usually preferred in cooking because (1) it too isn't as processed as table salt so it can a bit more flavor, (2) due to the surface area, it absorbs moisture better in things like meat, and (3) because it's bigger than normal salt it's easier to pinch up if you're measuring just with your fingers.

Baking power and baking soda are both leveling agents in making flour rise.  Baking powder contains baking soda, plus cream of tarter and sometimes cornstarch which helps preserve it.  Baking soda works far faster, so once you add it to a mix, you must bake it quickly.  It also has a more bitter taste, so it's often used when baking things with sweets to counteract the taste (like cookies).  Due to the tarter, baking powder can rest a little longer (thus it's usually preferred with cooking).  You can't substitute baking soda, but you can substitute baking powder by simply mixing two parts cream of tartar with one part baking soda.

Good luck, and happy cooking!