Hi, you know that poll you shared about levels of cooking? I've been on level 2 for a long time, mostly because my kitchen is not that well equipped but also I find it very overwhelming. Do you have any tips to start improving in cooking? Like, how to handle meat and chicken (I'm not ocd but I'm scared to contaminate my kitchen), how to make better sauces and use spices and all of that?
For those jumping in here are the levels listed in the poll in question:
Level 1: I don't use or have a full kitchen. Meals are prepared for me or I eat ready made food. I can reheat in the microwave.
Level 2: I use the kitchen sparingly. I will heat food in the microwave, on the stovetop, and/or in the oven. I am comfortable adding simple ingredients together for a meal (cereal and milk, granola, yogurt, and fruit). I can prepare simple things on the stovetop like instant ramen, instant mac, pasta or rice.
Level 3: I use the kitchen often. I am comfortable following simple recipes. I can prepare fruits and vegetables with a knife. I follow recipes with multiple steps (chop then pan-fry, boil then bake). My recipes often include multiple seasonings or sauces. I will handle raw meat like ground beef or turkey (if applicable)
Level 4: I use the kitchen everyday. I often use recipes with many steps or make meals with multiple side dishes. There are some dishes I don't use a recipe for, or I can make up simple recipes. I am comfortable handling most types of raw meat (think chicken breast, steak) and do so regularly (if applicable)
Level 5: I use the kitchen multiple times a day. I don't use written recipes very often. I can create dishes from whatever food is on hand. I make complex meals often. I can prepare any type of raw meat (full chicken or turkey, butchering your own food)
Almost all of this is practice and you start with little steps. If you're at about a level two I'd say that it's a good time to practice some fundamentals and work with limited resources. Level two is a good place to learn to do stuff like make pancakes from scratch (good practice for measuring, mixing, and using a frying pan) or work on soups (chopping, reducing, and getting to know more about spices) or other similar things.
If you are, like, a very low level two I'd say to start by preparing slightly more complicated almost-readymade foods. Instead of just boiling rice on the stove, find a mix for a rice pilaf or something that requires a couple extra steps. Something like Uncle Ben's Chicken Rice, which requires you to heat butter, sautee the rice, then mix in a spice mix and bring to a boil before reducing, might be a good place to step up. Bake a cake from a mix, and once you're comfortable with that make something more complicated like cinnamon rolls from a mix.
If you are a somewhat higher level two and you can afford it, I think that you might really benefit from something like Hello Fresh or Blue Apron. My dad and sister were at about a high level two a couple of years ago and they're closer to a low level four after a couple years of meal delivery kits.
People looking to go from level 2 to level 3 might want to look for recipes for the following:
Quickbreads (like muffins, pumpkin bread, and biscuits - these are bready foods but don't require much kneading or any time to rise)
Simple soups (chicken noodle, mushroom and rice, etc)
Simple meat dishes (meatloaf, grilled chicken breast for salad, shake & bake pork chops)
If you aren't used to handling raw meat, start on easy mode. Get the boneless skinless chicken. Get ground beef. Get pre-sliced pork chops. This will minimize the amount of handling that you have to do as you get used to what it's like. I would strongly recommend getting a dedicated small cutting board/cutting sheet for meat (if you get sets of plastic cutting boards they often come in multiple colors - usually the red one is designated as the meat board, this is to avoid cross contamination with foods that will stay raw). This FDA guide on how to handle meat while pregnant is a good place to start if you're totally new to handling meat. The big deal with raw meat is keeping things separate. If juice from raw meat gets in your sink, nothing else can go in the sink (to get rinsed or thawed, for instance) until the sink is sanitized (typically by wiping down with bleach). If your cutting board is used for raw meat, it needs to be washed with hot, soapy water. If your hands touch raw meat, then touch a knife, then the knife gets set on the counter, you need to wash your hands, the knife, and the counter before you can put anything else in contact with those things, and you need to also think about whether you've touched the faucet and the soap bottle and need to sanitize those too.
The way to get good at this is to do it with small projects and low time pressure while being careful. Don't try this when you're attempting to put together a dinner for five after work, try this on a day off when you've got plenty of time and nobody waiting on you. You can even attempt to get good at this before you start handling meat (and look, these handling rules also apply to raw eggs and depending on immune compromise may apply to things like raw greens too - these are not meat-exclusive rules) by thinking about the way things move around your kitchen when you're handling not-meat. If you cut up an apple, what gets touched in your kitchen? The apple, possibly a cutting board, a knife, yes. But did you touch the sink to wash the apple? Did you touch a drawer pull to get the knife. Did you need to pull out a paper towel to wipe up the juice?
That kind of thing requires planning to make sure that things stay safe. If I'm going to be working with raw meat I always make sure that one side of my sink is clear for washing stuff as needed (so that if I need to wash a knife it won't get raw meat juice on dishes in that side of the sink), clear counterspace around a cutting board (so that there's little likelihood of juice running and touching other stuff), knives and tools like tongs or bowls that I'll need out on the counter so that I won't have to open cabinets with unsafe hands, and the pathway to wherever I'm going to be cooking the meat clear (so if i'm using the oven the oven can't be full of pans; if i'm using the stove the burner i want is clear; if i'm using the air fryer it is on the counter, plugged in, and the basket has foil already prepped on it so that i don't have to touch the foil box with meat-juice hands).
This is where the concept of mise en place comes in very handy. Mise en place is a technique that is centered around preparing your space for use. If you've watched the videos from Tasty where they've got all the ingredients pre-measured in little glass bowls, that's an example of part of mis en place. It's often used in restaurant kitchens and it is how I was first taught to cook in my home economics class when I was 11.
In that class it was extremely tedious to measure out all of the ingredients and put them in bowls before mixing them together and actually cooking them, but it was a very good way of learning to multitask and it was EXCELLENT for planning so that we weren't scrambling to find the baking soda so that we could get our zucchini bread in the oven and have it cooked before the bell rang. It was so annoying! And it will be annoying for you too! But meticulously pre-planning everything you cook - considering the ingredients you'll need, the tools you'll need, the surfaces you'll need, whether you'll need to pre-heat the oven or let a dough chill - is the best way to practice improving as a cook.
So if you wanted to do one thing today to improve your cooking with the things that you've already got, that's precisely where I'd start. Cook something you already know how to cook - let's say pasta with a jar of sauce - but do it consciously and meticulously. First clear off the part of the counter you'll be using so you have an open workspace and make sure that your sink is clear of dishes so you can clean as you go. Set out the box of pasta, the jar of sauce, the pots you'll be using, the strainer, a stirring implement, and any salt or cheese or butter that you'll be using. Measure out ingredients you'll need - salt for the water, butter for the pasta - before you start cooking and have them ready at hand. Start the water boiling and open the sauce to begin heating it on another burner. While the water is boiling, wash the tools you used to measure the butter or salt or water. Add the pasta to the water and stir it, then dispose of the box (unless you want to use it to check how long the pasta needs to cook) and rinse and recycle the jar. Check the heating sauce; if it is bubbling vigorously stir it and reduce to the lowest heat possible. Are you grating cheese for the pasta? Grate it now, between checking the doneness of the pasta, and collect it in a bowl then wash the grater while you wait. Make sure the sink is clear, then strain your pasta; you can oil the pasta or toss it with butter or toss it with sauce, then plate it to serve and sprinkle the cheese on it while it's still piping hot.
Once you've done that and you're comfortable with it, increase the challenge level. Make garlic bread while the pasta is cooking. Once you've done that and you're comfortable, increase the challenge level. Make your own pasta sauce (this is at least an hour endeavor; you can't do this WHILE pasta is cooking, you've got to give it time) and make garlic bread and maybe also bake some broccoli with olive oil and garlic when the bread is heating up.
You're looking for incremental change and taking the easy way out. There are going to be a shocking number of dishes at first, but as you get better at knowing your way around the kitchen you can begin to skip pre-measurements, etc. For instance, I rarely pre-measure when baking because I've got a very comprehensive baking station set up with all the ingredients in one place, labeled, and ready to go when I need them. I don't tend to lay out my implements ahead of time because I've got a utensil holder on the counter and a magnetic knife strip that mean I only have to touch the one knife I want when I need it to cook, no drawer pulls or rifling through a silverware sorter.
For the moment, don't worry too much about making good sauces or making good use of spices. You'll get there, and you'll pick up more as you expand the recipes you're comfortable with, but for now, just focus on the basic fundamentals of consistent results with simple recipes and feeling physically comfortable and like you know what you're doing in the kitchen.
These are the things that I think get overlooked in most "how to cook" videos. Gordon Ramsey can teach you how to chop an onion like a pro, but he's not going to break down "okay, in order to chop an onion you need a clean, very sharp knife, a cutting board, clear counterspace, a clean onion, and someplace to put the onion once it's chopped (is it going right into a pot? is it going to sit for a while? if it sits for a while on the counter is that your only counterspace?)."
And I think things like this are where a lot of people get really overwhelmed - they're not used to what a mess it can be to cook, they don't know how to reduce that mess as they go, they aren't used to thinking about ingredients so they don't realize that their partner ate the last egg for breakfast so now they need to stop mid recipe and run to the store or throw out what they were working on. It's *a lot* easier to feel comfortable deboning chicken thighs or whatever when you know where you're going to wash your hands and the knife after you're done deboning the chicken but before you're done cooking because you're going to need that counter space for the next step.
Anyway that's probably a lot but yeah, TL;DR:
Look for simple recipes - quickbreads and casseroles are a good next step from level 2.
Slightly increase how complicated your cooking is; go from cooking plain rice to a rice mix that has a few steps to making spanish rice from a recipe. Do this gradually, and only when you're comfortable with each iteration.
Do the next easiest thing. Don't jump from heating precooked meats to roasting a turkey, instead go to prepped meats like pre-cut pork chops or boneless skinless chicken breasts.
Don't cook when you're in a rush or under pressure; give yourself time on relaxed days to practice new skills. You're going to hate cooking if you try new stuff when an entire household is waiting for dinner or when you're trying to eat something between getting off of work and going to bed.
Learn about mise en place techniques and be very conscious of the things you're planning on cooking. Plan ahead for what tools and ingredients and appliances you'll need, prepare surfaces and ingredients before you start cooking, clean as you go.
ALSO: If at all possible, see if your local community center has cooking classes. If you can afford to take a cooking class it is usually a very worthwhile investment.
