skilled chef

1. Before attempting any dish, Be sure to know all the ingredients required and also be able to differentiate which are compulsory ingredients and optional.

For example, you cannot decide to prepare Nigerian ayamashe (local rice sauce), then forget to procure iru (locust beans) at the market or prepare Jollof rice and forget groundout oil or even rice itself.

2. Stay away from dishes whose ingredients are too scare or too hard to find.

This cannot be over-emphasized. This is very important in the case of preparing continental dishes and when you want to cook to impress

3. SPICES

According to the name, spices are meant to improve the taste and aroma of the food and not overcome the food’s major essence. So, keep it simple with spices.

It’s better to cook a simple delicious meal than one that will upturn the stomach.

4. UNDERSTANDING SPICE MIXING

 Spice to spice interaction and spice-food interaction. For example, some spice have strong aroma and tend to over-ride all other ingredients

we have thyme and rose Mary in that section.

You should also know which spice will go for which food and which spice blends well.

For example, cumin goes with coriander while ginger and garlic are also very good together.

5. Train your tastebud to understand how to apply salt and stock cubes.

It is important to know at this stage that stock cubes already has high amount of salt and that iodized salt can be added to food anytime.

 Note (my opinion): Never put salt in food before stock cubes. You run a high risk of oversalting the food.

6. ADDITION OF WATER

Adding water to food which later overwhelms the food and make it unpresentable and tasteless is another major problem.

Every food at one stage or in its entire preparation needs addition of liquid, water most times.

This can be learnt over time to know the exact amount of water that will be needed to cook a particular dish.

Before I became good, what I do is I add water sequentially until it’s done.

 Although, this requires you not being far from the food but it is better than spoiling the food.

7. Except you are cooking alone which is rare, always have a person you can call to taste for you. This can be easily acquired as nobody rejects food..lol.

This is because sometimes, our taste buds fails due to stuffs previously eaten, sickness, heartbreak etc.

 So, before you dish out that food to your family or customer, get a foodie who understands food to taste for you.

8. Never neglect your food. You don’t start cooking and go play football, games or whatever demands your 100% concentration.

It’s not a good idea and its dangerous because of fire outbreaks.  It’s either you stay close or have a sous chef on ground to take over the cooking.

9. UNKNOWN INGREDIENTS

Dont ever add what you don’t know much about into your main course dish. You can separate a small portion out to do a controlled test.

This is so you don’t have to throw away the whole pot and start again. To learn more about developing professional skills, visit Chef’s cooking skills

10. To be a better cook, there is nothing wrong having an experienced person around to learn from.

New skills are being developed everyday and nobody was born with cooking skills. It was acquired. Even if you have to pay, you can only pay once!

Love you guys and I hope your cooking skills improve and DON’T forget to share our page and click on the notification button so you don’t miss our posts.