10 Amazing Kitchen Hacks to Boost Your Confidence as a Novice Cook

Kitchen tips and rules so you don’t have to learn it the hard way

Photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash

It took me a while, after lots of experimenting, to establish those rules for my work in the kitchen. I’m going to share them with you so you, the novice cook, ease into loving to work with and around food.

1. Add ingredients in the right order
   Sigh. I didn’t believe it when starting out cooking meals at home. And I paid the price. Especially when it came to adding herbs at the wrong time. Herbs are great for spicing up most dishes but if you let them cook in your meal, they can easily lose all their flavor. As a rule, herbs are often added toward the end of the cooking process.
2. Buying and storing herbs
   While we’re on the subject of herbs I want you to treat them with excitement. I love the aroma of fresh mint or rosemary. There’s something about knowing you making rosemary potatoes your side for dinner. Can you smell it?
   I am making a habit of buying my fresh herbs every Sunday night or Monday morning. My standard supply of fresh herbs is Rosemary, Thyme, Cilantro, and Mint.
   Storing fresh herbs so they stay quite fresh for a week is not difficult at all. I wrap them in a paper towel moistened with water and put that into a plastic freezer bag to be stored in the vegetable drawer of my refrigerator. Works like a charm. When the herbs are still wet coming from the store, I don’t even have to wet the paper towel.
3. Chop onions without crying
   A lot of cooks have just one recipe for cutting onions: Let the sous chef or a kitchen helper do it, haha. You can read all sorts of recommendations and secret tips on how to prevent crying when chopping that vegetable that is so essential for many meals.
   Yes, you can wear a pair of goggles. And yes, you can peel and chop onions submerged in water. I found a simpler trick that’s quicker and it’s working for me: I breathe through the mouth. According to the website Frenchi: “Breathe through your mouth and stick your tongue out. This draws the gas over your wet tongue. The olfactory nerves, which are closely located to the tear duct nerves, will be bypassed and there will be no tears generated. This is easily confirmed when you forget and breathe through your nose. Instant tears!” There you have it, folks.
4. You can never use too much garlic, amigo
   I read the other day, “The only recipe that should have only one glove of garlic in it is a recipe for only one glove of garlic.” In my kitchen there’s no such thing as only one glove of garlic. I hate vampires. So, there’s a minimum of two or three for me. I love garlic! Imagine that nice sauteed shrimp dish with 5 gloves of garlic in the butter. And a nice Chardonnay to go with it. Yummiest!
5. Hold the salad dressing until you’re ready to eat
   Yep, while you make the salad you want to hold off on the dressing until you’re sitting down and start eating. The dressing can make the salad real soggy and that’s not what you want. My rule for salad dressing: Less is more.
6. Say yes to blanching veggies
   If you want your veggies to look like the ones in a restaurant salad, you gotta blanch them. It means that you briefly submerge them in boiling water then, once they have reached the desired level of done-ness, plunge them into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. They will turn out crisp with bright colors. That’s what we want. Right?
7. Deglaze your pan, bro
   Ever heard of thee word ‘fond’ in cooking lingo? It’s French for foundation of a sauce. You will often see that cooking meat in a hot pan will leave little bits stick to the bottom of that pan. That’s the base for a foundation and to get them is called deglazing. You can deglaze a pan with water, wine, juice, or broth to get those little bits to come loose and use them in your sauce or other parts of your dish.
8. You don’t need to rinse your meat
   Fact is, the cooking process will be able to kill off any bacteria. That means you don’t need to rinse or wash your meat. You avoid cross-contamination and there’s little chance that you inadvertantly change the flavor of your meat. So, don’t rinse, just dry the meat with a paper towel.
9. Season your meat
   Plenty of salt at least 30 minutes beforehand is a great way to allow your meat to retain moisture as it cooks. I made it a habit of taking the steaks out of the fridge 30–60 minutes before cooking and putting salt on them right away. A steak will cook more evenly when it’s at room temperature. Skirt and flank steaks are tougher than e.g. rib-eye and therefore benefit from being marinated first. The marinade adds flavor, and the acid in the lemon juice helps to tenderize the meat.
10. The more rest, the juicier your meat
    When you geet the meat out of the oven or pan and slice it right away, you’ll have a mess of juices on your cutting board. You don’t want that. You want the juices to remain in the steak. Right? So, let the meat sit on the cutting board for 10–15 minutes and allow the juices to redistribut. Besides, the residual heat will continue to cook your steak after you’ve removed it from the grill or the pan. So, knowing that, time your grabbing that steak wisely and let it sit there. You’ll love the taste!

Photo by Ezequiel Garrido on Unsplash

There are many more suggestions and rules for making it easier for beginning cooks to love working in the kitchen and avoiding some pitfalls. The above rules will save time and help creating wonderful meals.