Want To Become A Better Cook? Heres What To Do.

Want To Become A Better Cook? Heres What To Do.

Lets face it--many people do not know how to cook. This could be because they were never taught or they never had time to learn. But learning to cook is not as hard as people think it is. In the following article, you are going to be given advice that will make cooking simple.

Learn to use your hands when cooking (after washing them thoroughly first of course!). Hands are the most sensitive yet versatile cooking utensil you will own. They can be used for mixing, measuring and testing whether a product is cooked enough. A cake, for example, will show that it is done by springing back when touched lightly with a finger on its top.

When roasting any type of meat, ensure that when you remove it from the oven you give it time to "rest" before you carve it up and deliver to the table. Allowing the meat to sit in its own juices for ten minutes or so will make sure that the meat is not dry or overly chewy.

If you are following a recipe, make sure that you do not follow this religiously, as you should always add a personal spice to your meal. Instead of following a pizza recipe to the tee, add some red pepper to inject a punch into your dish to make it unique and individualized.

Boiling and other lengthy cooking methods strip vegetables of their important nutrients. When you use faster cooking methods, such as steaming and sauteing, vegetables keep more of the nutrients intact. The best way to make sure you get all the vital nutrients housed within veggies is to eat them raw.

To reduce the fat and calories in a recipe that calls for a lot of mayonnaise, simply replace half the mayonnaise with sour cream. Since mayonnaise serves primarily a textural purpose in many of these recipes, replacing it with similarly textured sour cream gives you the same texture with a lighter, healthier taste.

Cook your vegetables quickly to preserve flavor. Using a slow cooking method is sometimes suggested, but the results are less nutritious and dont taste as good. If you do this, it will provide you a vegetable that is higher in nutritious value. Learning to give them just a quick steam is the best way to cook them.

Brownies made for a bake sale are much more enticing when potential buyers can see what goodies are in them. To accomplish this task, when the pan of brownies has about eight minutes left of baking time, remove the pan from the oven, cover the top with a layer of miniature marshmallows and then sprinkle chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, nuts, caramel chunks and anything else you like to add to your brownies on top of the marshmallows. Put the pan back into the oven for the final few minutes of baking to allow the marshmallows to soften and toast and give time for the chips to melt. When the pan comes out, you will have an irresistible pan of brownies that look as good as they taste.

Nutrition

You can add new flavors for your meals by trying different liquids when recipes ask for milk or water. You could use chicken broth or juice, instead of water. Some great replacements for milk are sour cream, yogurt and buttermilk. Varying the liquids that are in your recipes is an excellent method of adding nutrition and variety to a dish.

To preserve more of the nutritional value of your vegetables dont cook them for too long. As you cook a vegetable, its nutrient content diminishes. Good techniques for quickly cooking vegetables are steaming and stir-frying. Slow cooking has its place, but dont neglect the quicker techniques with their greater nutrition.

As was stated in the beginning of this article, it is common for people these days to not know how to cook, no matter what the reason may be. By reading this article, you have begun the process of becoming educated on cooking. Who knows, you may have what it takes to even become a chef!