A lot of good cooking is in technique. What’s something that you discovered or was told that really changed something meaningful for you? For me, I had struggled a lot to make omelettes. They always wound up becoming scrambled eggs because I sucked at flipping them over to cook on the other side (I like my eggs cooked pretty well so this was important to me.) Finally, watching someone else make an omelette, I noticed they didn’t flip it. They put a lid on the pan, turned the heat down, and let the top cook that way. I tried it myself and now I make almost perfect omelettes every time. Have you had anything like this happen to you? If so, what was it?
The most recent one for me was learning how to backslice when cutting certain things, like green onions or herbs. You typically get a cleaner cut that way, even if your knife needs sharpening.
Brine chicken, especially chicken breasts for a few hours or overnight for much more succulent meat.
Mise en place makes things soooo easy. When I meal prep I chop up all my veg on Saturday and stick it in the fridge, then cook on Sunday. Makes the whole process less overwhelming than doing everything in one sitting.
Salt meats the night before you cook them. Especially tougher cuts, but salt is good for all cuts.
Browning ground beef really means getting a sear on part of it, not just making it not pink. And split it into batches so that you don’t have all the water coming out and boiling the meat instead of searing it.
When baking, weigh ingredients. Most of cooking is art; baking is science.
For ground beef, especially, too many people try to chop it all up and get it “gray”. I don’t eat beef often, but when I do make ground beef, I basically treat it like making a hamburger: salt it immediately prior to placing in a hot pan, and don’t touch it until there is browned crust, and then try to flip it and get a crust on the other side. Only then will I break it up into little pieces. If you have too much meat to do that, you are better off getting a good sear on half of the meat, and tossing in the other half later, than trying to do all of it and basically just boiling the meat in juices.
Learning how to properly sear food them let it cook the rest of the way over low heat. Potatoes, chicken, etc.
Kind of the opposite of that, sous vide steak then sear with a screaming hot cast iron pan.
The broiler in your oven is fantastic for toasting buns and melting cheese on top of stuff. Also good for putting some char on your food if you need that.
