First, let me explain why this is a ‘Part One’ – I’ve been composing this post in my head for months, and while I keep coming up with more things to add to it, I keep having the nagging feeling that there’s still more I’ll miss, more that I’ll wish I’d included. My solution is to make this an open-ended series – when I have more to share about my cooking philosophy and methods, I’ll make another post. Until then, I can be content starting the guide, without worrying that it’s naturally incomplete.
So what is Really Cooking? How is it different from plain ol’ cooking? To me, really cooking is creating with food, with only your intuition, skill and knowledge to guide you. Yes, following a recipe is cooking, and you end up with good food at the end. But it doesn’t take a guide to follow a recipe – the recipe is a guide unto itself.
Why really cook? Well, it’s fun – experimenting, playing around with ingredients. There’s a freedom that comes from eyeballing amounts instead of measuring them, making spice decisions on your own. It’s exhilarating to create something new, and even more thrilling when it ends up being delicious! It also makes a dish special when you know it won’t be replicated – it’s a unique creation, rather than yet another instance of following the directions reliably.
It can also be scary – especially if you don’t have a lot of experience working with food. If you haven’t done much cooking even with a recipe, the alchemy of creating food from scratch can be intimidating. So here, in no particular order, are a few tips to get you started!
1) Try it! Grab some ingredients, throw them together some way or another, and see what happens. There are a few basic formula dishes that really don’t need an ingredient and allow you to experiment freely and confidently. To make a stirfry heat oil and add veg, protein, spices and sauces; add some cooked rice and soy sauce into the mix, and you have fried rice. Mix veg, protein, maybe some grains, and some sauce in a baking dish and bake until everything’s cooked and bubbly – easy casserole. Once you’ve mastered classic ones, try substituting – bake veg, sauce, and protein with pirogies instead of pasta for example.
2) Food Failure Happens. I’m a pretty good cook, and I can create a variety of delicious things without so much as a glance at a recipe, but I have had my share of spectacular failures. Before I had any inkling of what really went into a Caesar salad dressing, I tried to whip one up with what I had in the fridge, experimenting with what I thought ‘should’ go into it. The end result tasted like stomach acid. As comedian Christopher Titus said, “I don’t fail. I only succeed in finding what doesn’t work.” In the kitchen, this is definitely true.
3) Brush up on your science. If you know the science behind cooking rules, you can better decide which ones you need to follow at any time. Know which oils have higher smoke points than others, and why that matters. Know what differentiates types of flour, and how it will affect your baking. For a while, I was having trouble with my bread not rising nearly as much as I wanted it to. I did a little research and found out that unscalded milk has enzymes that break down the proteins in the bread flour. Now if I really want my bread to rise, I either omit milk or scald it before adding.
4) Learn what goes together. Specifically, what elements can give a dish a distinct cultural flavour – what makes your casserole taste Thai or Mexican? Often sauce and spice combinations and authentic vegetable choices can make all the difference. Look at a variety of recipes from a culture you want to emulate, and pick out the common ingredients. There’s a theory that I heard about once, suggesting that foods pair well with other foods from the same part of the world. Choose spices that are local to the vegetables you’re cooking, and you can’t go far wrong.
5) Pay attention to the results. Notice what worked in your latest experiment and what didn’t. ‘This would have been great with a little less cinnamon.’ ‘You know what would have made this really pop? Almonds!’ ‘I love how the cheese balances the tomato.’ Make a mental note to grow and improve if you attempt a similar dish again.
6) When in doubt, try it with a recipe first. I make bread without a recipe these days, but I’ve made many loaves from recipes before I tried striking out on my own. I had to be confident in my knowledge of how much liquid made a loaf. I had to get a feel for how dough feels when it’s properly kneaded. I followed a recipe the first few times I tried making custard, because I didn’t know what it should look or taste like. I may try a few more times with a recipe before experimenting on my own.
7) Don’t run before you can walk. If you’re just starting to experiment with cooking, a souffle might not be the be the best first thing to try to experiment on. Learn what dishes are fairly forgiving, and which ones are a little more tricky.
8) Cook with people who know how to. And observe. And ask questions. They can help bolster your confidence, and give you tips that they’ve learned the hard way. They can tell you when something looks right, or feels right, or is thick or thin enough. I had my sister confirm the doneness of my salmon the first few times I cooked it on my own.
Ultimately, just get yourself into the kitchen and have some fun – and don’t feel too bad if not everything turns out!