Here’s a few things I’ve learned in the past year or so when I started cooking:
- Food continues to cook after you stop cooking it.
- This goes for ALL foods: meat, cake, cookies, vegetables, etc. Even though you’ve taken the roast out of the oven, it will continue to cook for long after. The outside of the food you’re cooking is still much hotter than the inside, so the inside will heat up.
- Better underdone than over
- If you’re not sure if something is done or not, better under than over (this is my opinion, not sure if the experts agree or not). Once something is overdone, that’s it, it’s done. If you’ve undercooked your food, you might have a chance of saving it. And I prefer medium-rare steaks and chewy cookies anyway.
- Salt and pepper is all you need for steak
- I used to marinate all my steaks before grilling them. I think this is a bad way to make your meat tastier because you’re pretty much masking the real flavors in the meat. Before you grill your steaks, let them rise to room temperature, sprinkle with salt and pepper on both sides, wait for about 10 minutes, THEN grill on medium-high heat. What the salt does is pull the juices to the outside, which allows for better searing (aka flavor) on the outside of the meat.
- Char means flavor
- Don’t be afraid to add a little bit of char to the outside of your food. This goes for meat, vegetables and fruit when grilling. If your heat is high enough, you can get some char on the outside and still have a perfectly done inside. Char adds a deeper flavor to your food.
- DON’T touch your food when you cook it
- I know, you want to touch it, move it around, make sure it’s ok. Your food is fine, relax. Don’t poke, prod or move it when cooking. It can damage the food or make it take longer. Or it will cause your food to leak precious tasty juices that you like.
- Learn how to judge doneness by touch
- I know, I just told you to not touch your food. But you need to touch it a few times to test its doneness. Basically the softer it is, the more rare it is. I can’t give you specifics, every grill and piece of meat cooks differently, but after some practice you’ll get it.
- Don’t follow the directions exactly
- As I said above, every grill (or oven or stovetop) and piece of food cooks differently. You can’t follow directions. Cooking is like trailblazing, you can’t follow someone else’s directions exactly, things are different where you are. Your chicken could be bigger, your oven cooler, your grill hotter. You have to be able to ‘wing it’ and go by feel. It takes some getting used to, but results in better food.
(Steak pic from HenryFigueroa)