When it comes to cooking, you must remember that everyone started somewhere. I do not know one chef, who was born with a cutlery set ready to go. There is a lot of training that should be done in order to become an expert chef and even then they are still learning. Not only do you need to learn the basics when it comes to cooking but you almost need to begin again when learning to cook different cuisines such as Italian, Korean, or Chinese food.
This means that at any time when you’re learning to cook, there is probably someone somewhere that is better and/or worse than you. Take heart from this because even the masters have bad days. There are many people who cook for different reasons. Some cook as a means of income while others cook because they just like to. Some cook to release stress and others cook because they are bored. No matter what type of person you are, make sure you start with the basics.
The most basic thing that you need to learn is the cooking language you will come across in recipes and what it really means. There are many different terms that you will find in most recipes. These words can mean the difference in success or failure when it comes to recipes. You should be able to find a section in any good cookbook that explains the different meanings for unfamiliar terms. If you aren’t sure what is meant by “a dash of sugar” it is in your best interests to find out first.
Another piece of advice in cooking basics is to try easy to follow recipes first, and then broaden your horizons to the harder recipes that are out there. Most recipes will note their degree of difficulty and you can read the recipe first to see if it is something you want to prepare, or confident that you can create. Remember success isn’t created overnight and it will take time to create a bunch of recipes that you can master.
One good thing is that once you’ve mastered the basics of cooking, you probably won’t need to relearn them. This means that you can keep building up and expanding your cooking knowledge. As you learn new recipes, your culinary skills will improve and you will discover talents that make preparing your meals from scratch more rewarding than preparing out of the box meals that are bought in the grocery store.
You will also learn as your experience and confidence grows, that you will see yourself improvising more as you go and changing recipes according to your personal tastes. If you want more or less of certain ingredients or want to make a recipe a little more or less flavorful you can make easy adjustments along the way to achieve this. In other words you will, in time begin to create recipes you can call your own. That is something you won’t necessarily learn in the beginning, but you will never learn if you don’t master the basic cooking skills.
