Cooking is a great life skill - with some practice and guidance we believe you can improve your cooking skills like our guest, Monica. Photo via Unsplash
I have a love-hate relationship with cooking. On one hand, it can be a fun and relaxing activity. I love soaking up the aromas with a glass of red wine and a good playlist. On the other hand, cooking can be a chore. I’m not the kind of person who can just take whatever’s in the fridge and turn it into something delicious (luckily, my wife can!).
Like many amateur cooks, I rely on recipes. Which is why I want to get better at cooking. I want to be able to whip together a delicious meal in twenty minutes without having to run to Longo’s for last-minute ingredients. I want to be able to create my own recipes.
So, I talked to someone who taught herself how to cook at the age of ten. For most of us, our earliest cooking experience is of learning how to make something with our parents or grandparents. This is not the case with Monica Sarkar. She stepped up as the family chef with just a handful of cookbooks, like Loony Spoons (my first cookbook as well!) and no YouTube. She’s a true Amateur hero!
Talking to Monica, I realized the error of my ways. Cooking is not a chore. Behind every dish we eat, there is history, countless multi-generational hours spent determining the right combination of ingredients and perfecting techniques so that the taste is just right.
Cooking ought to be respected. After all, food is an intimate and integral part of our lives. I’m grateful to Monica for changing my perspective and teaching me how to improve my cooking skills. Here are some of the secret ingredients she shared in our conversation:
1. Focus on getting really good at one dish: Choose a favourite meal, or one you really want to learn, and focus on perfecting it.
Monica spent hours learning how to make pasta. She found experts in pasta making and watched their videos religiously. She took time to understand the composition of the dish, ordering it at restaurants and figuring out what makes it delicious. She tried cooking it multiple times, learning from her mistakes.
After years of trial and error, like Monica, you’ll get to the point where the dish tastes just the way you want it to!
2. Preparation makes perfect: Before cooking, it is important to make sure that you understand all the steps involved.
You want to make sure you have all your ingredients chopped and ready before turning on the heat (I can’t count the number of times I’ve forgotten an ingredient because I skipped this step). That’s why having a bunch of different sized bowls is an important tool for the amateur chef’s kitchen.
I admit I was pretty surprised by this answer, but you’ll definitely notice the bowl factor if you watch enough food preparation videos on social media.
Having the right tools can significantly improve your cooking experience. Photo via Unsplash
3. The tools make the human: Speaking of the little bowls, they come in handy for other purposes, such as ladling sauces, soups, and stews for testing and tasting.
On top of the little bowls, having good kitchen tools makes cooking a lot easier. For example, having a good, sharp chef’s knife will make chopping easier. And having good pans can even make cleaning less of a chore (but whatever you do, stay away from Teflon!)
4. Taste test: Try the food as you go and make adjustments.
When Monica watched cooking shows after getting cable for the first time, she was amazed to see people cooking without recipes. It was her introduction to the importance of tasting your food and trusting your instincts. This even applies to ingredients, such as the spices in your rack, or the vegetables in your fridge (but don’t taste raw meat, eggs, or flour – obviously!). Tasting our food as we go enables us to get it just right, or if not, to think about what we can do differently the next time to bring it closer to perfection.
Even a simple pasta dish can look like a work of art. Photo via Unsplash
5. Presentation skills: I used to think food styling was silly, but now I’m wise enough (I hope!) to understand that taste isn’t the only sense that food appeals to.
Just think about how good the word sizzle makes you feel! On this episode, we also found out how to use to our sense of touch to determine whether meat is cooked right. A beautiful plate of food is a heartwarming sight, so it’s worth the extra five minutes to make your meals eye-catching, by throwing in some parsley for a pop of green or adding a smudge of sauce at the edge of the plate. This will also make your food more photogenic, which is an important consideration in the age of social media!
6. Find mentors: Easier said than done. You could say there are too many recipes out there nowadays, which is why it’s important to find the true teachers.
Cross-referencing different recipes is one way to find the indispensable ingredients in any dish. Make sure the recipes you use are “peer-reviewed”, in other words they’ve been vetted by other amateur chefs. Also, use descriptive language to find the recipes that will give you the results you want (for example, Monica limited her meatball recipes using the word “fluffy”).
On the topic of mentors, find chefs and resources that you can trust, to return to again in the future. Here are some of Monica’s biggest influences:
- Famiglia Baldassarre (for pasta making)
- Sorted Food (bonus cut from the episode)
Like any skill, it is important to remember that there will always be room for improvement. Understanding this helps us embrace the learning journey. If your latest version of pad thai was slightly better than the last, then that’s a major victory! And if it’s worse, then consider it an opportunity to think about what will make it more delicious next time.
Feel free to comment if you feel like I missed anything or if you’d like to add something from your own experience. And be sure to check out some of Monica’s food creations on Instagram (@tmsarkar). Follow us to see how our cooking skills improve as well (@amateurpod)!