r/Cooking • u/ProfessoritaUwU • 2d ago
what would you recommend for a beginner cook to get better
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u/Scoobydoomed 2d ago edited 2d ago
Learn how to make and perfect all types of omelettes.
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u/yvrev 1d ago
Why omelettes specifically? Coming from someone who has that in the learning backlog.
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u/Scoobydoomed 1d ago
Because it's a simple way to learn different techniques and about knowledge about things like using the correct temperature, and timing. It's one of those easy to learn and hard to master things that will leave you with good skills once you master them. There are many types of omelettes, all requiring different technique, and most just need eggs and butter to make.
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u/silybira 1d ago
Where could one start? I didn't even know there were multiple types of omelettes
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u/Scoobydoomed 1d ago
Start here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KveBXEIYaIU
And once you master everything else you finish here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tjO3QpxQ-I
An actual tutorial:
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u/Creative-Leg2607 1d ago
Its a relatively cheap, easy to learn hard to master skill that requires a lot of solid cooking fundamentals
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u/kikazztknmz 1d ago
That's an interesting take. I worked brunch on the saute station for a few years in my early 20's, probably made thousands of omelettes over 3 years, and thinking back, it probably did contribute to getting better at cooking in general. My flipping game certainly got really good anyway.
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u/Front-Structure7627 2d ago
Depends what u want to cook. Then keep cooking till u perfect it.
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u/ProfessoritaUwU 2d ago
wanna learn about fine dining
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u/Effective-Slice-4819 1d ago edited 1d ago
Restaurant cooking isn't really like home cooking. You aren't making a recipe, you're a cog in a machine that sautes or plates salad. The dishes you help create stop reading as food and simply become "product." The schedule is typically grueling and makes it impossible to have a social life outside of the industry. Cooking at home feels like work, so you eat a lot of handfuls of cheese for dinner over the sink at 2 am.
If this still sounds appealing, practice your knife skills. Consider culinary school, but you'll get more respect if you get a job in the dish pit and work your way up.
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u/Letsforbidadds 1d ago
Best you can do is go fine dining as much as you can and work for one fine chef who likes to teach. Culinary school generally doesn’t get too deep into gourmet gastronomy. It’s all about sensitivity both in taste and aesthetic.
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u/Qzrei 2d ago
I read that you're aiming to become a professional, and honestly it depends on where you want to work.
Fast food? Get good at pouring things into baskets, cleaning a kitchen in under 30 minutes, dealing with people yelling at you, arranging burgers and tacos or whatever.
Short order? Get good at traditional breakfast stuff + burgers. Previous restaurant experience preferred.
Family restaurant? Get good at multi-tasking a variety of fried items, salads, pasta dishes, steaks, burgers, microwaves, etc. You'll need kitchen experience in your resumé.
Hotels? Go to school for culinary arts and/or build up a respectable resumé showing dedication, clear progression which displays your readiness for it and also that it is the next logical step in your progress w/ culinary school equivalent amount of experience/knowledge.
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u/ramdonghost 2d ago
Start by understanding what makes a good dish for you. Texture? Flavour? Aroma? Colour? Then look for things you would like to feel, a good sear on a steak, the creaminess of a pasta sauce, the heartiness of a stew. Develop one at a time. Along the way you will develop essential skills like different cuts, how to take care of your instruments, temperature control, time control and cleaning, there's no cooking without cleaning.
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u/Diplomatic_Barbarian 2d ago
Cook things that you like. Eat, floss, repeat.
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u/ProfessoritaUwU 2d ago
i mean... i meant like to be professionel i want to be prof cook so need better techniques
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u/BxAnnie 1d ago
If you want to be a professional, you need restaurant experience, not just know how to cook a thing. Have you looked into culinary school? If you enroll, you get taught literally everything from bussing tables to presenting a gourmet meal, along with restaurant/hospitality management and things outside the kitchen.
Good luck!
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u/Diplomatic_Barbarian 1d ago
If you want to be a pro, you need either to go to cooking school, or intern at a very good restaurant. I'm afraid there's no YouTube substitute for that.
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u/stevejparks 2d ago
Focus on the basics.
- Ingredients
- start by working with a few key fresh ingredients, but buying good quality. Eg chicken, salmon, carrot, celery, onion, potatoes, courgette, cheese, yoghurt.
- build a small but useful stock cupboard. A few key herbs and spices such as oregano, bay leaf, thyme, paprika. Some basics: rice, pasta, noddles, tinned tomatoes, tomatoes purée, tinned tuna, tinned coconut milk, tinned sweetcorn.
- have a few basics to hand: a good olive oil for dressing food, a cheap one for coking, a good vinegar (eg red wine or cider)
From just the ingredients I mentioned here you have a rich palette you can mix in many ways and create strikingly different and delicious dishes.
- Tools
- have a good frying pan, a good saucepan and an oven roasting dish
- one good knife is enough
- big plastic spoon for stirring, spatula
don’t buy any fancy gadgets
Techniques
Learn how to cut/chop vegetables. Lots of YouTube videos for this
begin by making really really simple recipes and learning how to do them really really well. Eg pan fried salmon and courgettes with rice; herby chicken roasted on a bed of carrot, celery and onion; courgettes stuffed with tomatoes, onions, tinned sweetcorn, topped with cheese; chicken marinated in yoghurt, tomato purée and spices, grilled and served with rice; etc
once you build confidence experiment with mixing these simple ingredients.
then gradually grow your palette to have a wider range of ingredients to play with.
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u/BxAnnie 1d ago
Get a decent, but easy, cookbook. Pick out some recipes you think would be good you like. Follow the recipe to the letter (tasting as you go along, if possible). If you like it, make it again, but try some deviations until you can make it better or you find flavors you prefer. Don’t be afraid to add more (or less) of an ingredient as you’re cooking. Make recipes your own.
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u/The_Issa 1d ago
If you want to be a professional chef, focusing on getting a good set of basics is key. Even the simplest things like good knife skills are very important, especially in fine dining. I’d start with carrots, celery, and onion chopping them in the different traditional cuts (julienne, batonnet, brunoise, etc). Then you can use these pieces along with some bones to learn how to make stock. From there you can begin to learn how to make sauces starting with the mother sauces. Learning to perfect eggs, and in particular the omelette, are considered to be top skills as well since eggs are so difficult. One of my last finals and culinary school was actually an omelette.
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u/Farry_Bite 1d ago
Cooking. You get better at cooking by cooking.
Ok, I know it's an oversimplification, but it is also true. By doing you learn the things that no recipe is able to convey: what should the onions sound like on your pan when you aim for a certain result? When you taste your sauce and it's missing something, what is it? Acid? Salt? A touch of chili? Red wine? What is "the right concistency"? How will this particular cut of meat become what I want it to be? And so on and so on.
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u/Salt_Attitude_3722 1d ago
I learnt lots from the cooking shows from Delilah Smith. I think they are on YouTube now.
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u/New_Yard_5027 1d ago
Videos, especially where the chef explains why they are doing a particular thing. A written recipe cannot convey all the technique that goes into a dish.
Alton Brown is a good one.
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u/Not_Today42 1d ago
Big thing is to learn different meats, what their internal temps should be so that you don't over cook them. YouTube is a wealth of knowledge for learning some new stuff. Best is to look at those video, see something you like and then replicate it.
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u/Sheshirdzhija 1d ago
Learn proper temperature control and monitoring.
Simmer vs boil will yield different results in soups/broths/stocks. Thinner protein and thicker cut protein require different temperature to cook properly (usually thinner = hotter and faster). Toasting spices, using different fats, all affected by temperature.
It affects smell, texture and taste of pretty much all cooked ingredients.
Good instant and probe thermometer are at the least good tools until you can judge things, but better yet a standard practice.
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u/LadyJoselynne 1d ago
Knife skills, multi-tasking (start with CLAYGO), searing and write down specific temperature for a specific meat.
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u/Adventux 1d ago
To assist you in your quest for great cooking:
2 Good Cookbooks for you to learn from:
Taste of Home Cooking School: Cooking School Cookbook
There is also How to Cook Everything: The Basics from Marc Bittman.
I have the second one in my kitchen and still reference it every so often. especially if trying a new ingredient or dish.
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u/EnvironmentalAngle 1d ago
I for one like knowing the science behind what I do. I'd recommend GoodEats. The one where he explains saturated fats is a good one and any episode in eggs.
While those episodes are quite old another option would be to watch the YouTuber Adam Ragusea.
In my opinion the number one way to get better at cooking is to treat flour delicately (unless you're making bread). Always gently fold it into wet mixes and when doing stuff like muffins, pancakes, or waffles, you want to barely mix it. Mix until you see no more flour and don't sweat the lumps. Seriously you want to barely work it.. 10 seconds of mixing pancake batter is too long.
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u/BrandonPHX 1d ago
I would strongly recommend learning with some type of braised dish. I love them for learning, because it uses a wide variety of different transferable skills. It's also pretty difficult to really fuck them up. Molly Stevens has a fantastic cookbook called All About Braising, which has a bunch of different braised dish ideas. When you braise you will learn to:
- Prep everything in advance and then start cooking. This makes the cooking part much less stressful. Don't start out by having something in the pan while you are trying to cut up some veg for the next step. Prep sets you up for success. Also remember good prep starts before you even go to the grocery store. Make a list before you go, check things off so you don't forget anything.
- Lots of veggie prep helps improve your knife skills.
- Teaches you how to sear meat.
- Teaches you how to sauté veggies.
- You might even need to deglaze a pan.
- It cooks slow, so once you get the poot into the oven there's not much to do other than taste and adjust seasoning at the end.
One big note on learning to cook in general. Make the same thing over and over again. PIck one of those braised dishes and make it weekly for several months (on a day off from work since these take a few hours). When you try a new dish and fail, make sure to immediately try that again until you get it right. Don't get discouraged when things go wrong. Even good cooks mess up (this was the greatness of Julia Child, she always showed the mistakes too).
Finally just cook often. Try to cook something at least one a day. Even if it's just frying some eggs. The more you do it, the more comfortable you will become. That's true for all things in life.
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u/StinkyJ55 1d ago
Learn different technics. (Braising, frying, grilling) Then apply that knowledge to foods that you find approachable. I think risotto is a good example as most people think of it as a food rather then a technic, but you can "risotto" a lot of different grains or pasta.
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u/DekuDynamite 1d ago
Start working on 1 (and only one) of the "5 mother sauces".
Get it down to the point that people drool over it. Then, and only then, move onto another sauce.
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u/lebetepuante 2d ago
The book Start Here by by Sohla El-Waylly
https://www.amazon.com/Start-Here-Instructions-Becoming-Cookbook/dp/0593320468
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u/SexyChef1234 2d ago
As you cook - taste and smell everything. From your ingredients and your spices as you prep, through the cooking process it's amazing how much you can learn just by relying on your senses.
I used to just follow a recipe from start to finish and not taste anything until it was completed on my plate. Tasting throughout the cooking process was a game changer for me.