It's important to have 1 or 2 good knives. Prepare your space and your ingredients. Before you start cooking anything, clear and clean your space if it isn't already. Cook with ingredients, not just recipes.
Even the best chefs once had to learn the basics of cooking. Good Food gives you the skills you need to know to go from being a nervous newbie to a confident cook. From learning not to rinse pasta after draining it to using a trash can, you can start a spreadsheet with cooking tips and never run out of ideas. Some cooking tips are so simple that, once you learn one, you can't imagine how you used to read a recipe.
That's why I made this list. Memorize these tips and I guarantee that your next meal will be a resounding success. Can they give you a horrible cut? Absolutely. But it is constantly proven that blunt knives are more dangerous.
They're more likely to slip when you cut, making you more likely to cut yourself. If you commit to keeping your knives sharp, you must also learn how to hold a chef's knife properly, as well as how to hold the food you're cutting. Sometimes, all a plate needs is a splash of lemon or lime to get to the next level. To get the most juice out of citrus fruits, roll them up on a cutting board before cutting them.
When a recipe says you should use a certain type of pan, use that pan. If you only have one non-stick pan, the best advice I can give you is to wait for a good sale at a kitchen store and then buy yourself a stainless steel pan and a cast iron skillet. It's also smart to replace cheap nonstick pans every few years, as the coating can wear out. You already know that you can store leftovers in the freezer basically forever.
But if you leave space in your freezer, it can also hold a number of items that will make your life easier. Frozen ginger will stay fresh longer and will be easier to grate on a microplane. Tomato paste, broth and sauces can be frozen in ice cubes and easily thawed to prepare recipes. You can also freeze cookie and cake batter, egg whites and yolks, and vegetable scraps (for broth) and use them whenever you need them.
The freezer is also an ideal place to store a bag of items that you intend to convert into compost, since the cold eliminates odor and tooth decay. You've probably heard this a million times, but it's important (and worth saying again). A blunt knife requires more force to cut food than a sharp knife, meaning your hands are more likely to slip in the process. A sharp knife helps you speed up prep work and make evenly sized cuts, helping proteins and vegetables cook more evenly.
Ultimately, this means a food that looks and tastes better. Do you want to learn how to keep your own knives sharp? Read this guide to sharpening knives to learn the basics.
