15 Dishes That Will Teach You Valuable Cooking Techniques
With the right techniques and plenty of imagination you can cook just about whatever the hell you want
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We’re no strangers to choice these days, and technology has allowed us to order pretty much whatever we feel like and have it delivered to our door. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with home delivery or eating out, hey I eat out all the time, but it shouldn’t be your bail-out move every time you’re not sure what to cook.
Being able to invent recipes on a whim isn’t something people are born with, it comes from knowing certain techniques and being able to apply them to different ingredients.
Whether you’re an absolute beginner in the kitchen or somebody that considers themselves a pretty keen cook, there are certain recipes that are better learned early on than others. Recipes that’ll teach you basic techniques that you can apply to literally thousands of future recipes for the rest of your cooking life.
The recipes below will either teach you valuable techniques that can be applied across multiple recipes, or they’re simply good go-to meals that you can pull out when you need to.
Disclaimer: You’ll notice a lot of the linked recipes are from Serious Eats. I’m not partnered with Serious Eats in any way, I simply think they’re one of the best sources for well-researched and well-executed recipes. They also explain a lot of the science behind a recipe which is cool.
Breakfast
French Omelette
So I’ve specified a French omelette here over the more commonly cooked American style for a couple of reasons:
- The focus is more on the eggs.
- They are more delicately cooked and require the eggs to set without browning.
When done well, a French omelette is ridiculously satisfying. Soft, buttery, and with the perfect amount of runny-ness. Topped with some chopped chives, it makes a perfect breakfast or go-to snack.
A few tips for a better omelette:
- Low and slow so you don’t burn the eggs.
- Use a non-stick pan that is in good condition. Damaged non-stick coatings will make your life harder.
- Don’t over whisk the eggs. The idea is to incorporate the whites and yolks well without adding too much air.
- Butter for the win, every time, not oil.
Ultimate French omelette | BBC Good Food
Pancakes
This one is on the list because, well, everybody loves pancakes, but not everybody knows how to make them. They’re much quicker to make than most people think and make a kickass weekend breakfast. Not to mention you can add pretty much anything you like and it doesn’t change the process.
Pancakes will teach you how to make a batter and understand when it’s going to be fluffy or not.
You’ve probably seen the Japanese souffle style pancakes circulating around social media but I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to whisk your egg whites and yolks separately, make a meringue, or own an expensive mixer to make great pancakes.
All you need is a bowl, a whisk, and a non-stick pan.
Get your basic batter dialed, then start playing around with whatever add-ins you like. They can all be added to the batter before hitting the pan and almost never affect the cooking process.
This same batter can also be used to make crepes. Just thin out the batter with a little more water and spread thinly on the pan.
Light and fluffy buttermilk pancakes | Serious Eats
Eggs benedict
So, this one is hard, but it’ll teach you two valuable skills that most people never learn:
- Poaching eggs
- Making an emulsion sauce (Hollandaise)
Poached eggs are awesome, and well-made Hollandaise takes it to another level. Both learning how to poach eggs and making emulsions are skills you can apply to hundreds of recipes for the rest of your cooking life. An emulsion is simply fat and water combining to create a uniform consistency. Think mayonnaise and vinaigrettes.
Neither skill is so difficult you’ll struggle to learn it, but both in one recipe will teach you time management like no other.
A few tips for good Eggs Benedict:
- Make your Hollandaise first and store in a thermos to keep warm. Then you don’t have to worry about it while you’re poaching eggs.
- Use very fresh, cold eggs for better poaching. You’ll thank yourself later.
Quick Go-To Meals
Pasta Algio e Olio
There are definitely more exciting pasta dishes that can be made over Aglio e Olio (Literally ‘garlic and oil’ in Italian) but none are as simple or quick to make.
The dish is made by lightly sauteeing sliced, minced, or pressed garlic in olive oil, sometimes with the addition of dried red chili flakes, and tossing with spaghetti. You can use any type of pasta you like but the traditional version is served with spaghetti.
Aglio e Olio, being dead simple on ingredients, will teach you how to perfectly cook your pasta and to saute your garlic to the perfect point without burning it. It’s a quintessential dish that you can make at any time with what you probably already have in your pantry.
A few tips for better Aglio e Olio:
- Focus on perfectly cooking your pasta. A dish with so much focus on the pasta means it should be cooked al dente and salted properly
- Your water should have about one tablespoon of salt for every pound of pasta. It should taste unpleasantly salty when you test it.
- Saute the garlic at medium to medium-low to avoid burning it. Cooking too hot and too fast will just give you a sharp, raw-garlic taste.
Pasta Aglio e Olio recipe | Food Network
Steamed white rice
Another dead simple but necessary dish to master. Fluffy, steamed white rice. It’s the backbone of a lot of Asian cuisines and one of the quickest things you can make.
A lot of people add more water than necessary and simply strain the rice when it’s cooked, and while there’s no problem with this method, it’s not the ideal rice for Asian cooking. It ends up dry and loose.
Learning how to master your rice will help with hundreds of meals you plan to cook in the future and it even makes a more satisfying snack that you may think.
Tips for better steamed rice:
- Wash the rice 3–5 times before cooking. This removes excess starch that’ll make your rice clumpy and unpleasant.
- Add the right amount of water. About 2:1 ratio of water to rice.
- When the water reaches a boil, reduce to low and simmer.
- When all the water appears to be evaporated, turn off the heat and let steam for another 5 minutes.
Another tip that’ll level up your rice is using good rice. Like many other ingredients, going the cheap route will only yield lackluster results. If you want quality, well-steamed, not-starchy rice, buy quality rice.
Fried Rice
Building off the steamed rice is the crowd favorite, fried rice. Stupidly easy to make, and a great way to use up leftover rice.
Day-old rice is actually perfect because it’s had time to dry out, so it won’t clump together and make a sticky mess. Fun fact, this is called starch retrogradation and it’s basically gelatinized starches recrystallizing as they cool, making the rice firm. I talk about it below in my article on the necessary techniques that’ll improve your cooking.
Fried rice from start to finish (assuming you’re using day-old rice) should take no longer than 15 minutes and it’s a good way to use up whatever produce you have the fridge.
Pretty much anything can be thrown into fried rice and it works. It’s an infinitely variable dish. Just make sure to note the texture of what you’re throwing in and adjust the cooking time accordingly. Carrots are going to take much longer than spinach or pees.
Some tips for better fried rice:
- Although not 100% necessary, it’s best to use day-old rice for better frying.
- Break up the rice before adding it to the wok.
- A wok is the perfect vessel for fried rice. It’s big, gets ripping hot, and has different heat zones for managing different foods.
- Go easy with the sauce and add-ins. After all, fried rice is about the rice.
- Unless you’re vegan, always add egg. You’ll thank yourself later.
Fried rice with blistered green beans and basil | Serious Eats
Soup
Soups are the all-terrain dish that we all need in our lives. They can be served as a starter, the main course, or a quick lunch. They can be watery and clear, or creamy and thick. It all depends on your mood.
Although not always quick to cook by any means, soups are easy-as-hell to prepare (most of the time) and require minimal supervision during the cooking process. That being because most soups require simmering for quite some time.
The most basic soup you could probably learn is tomato soup. Roast whole tomatoes with skins on (skins are the good part) with garlic, onion, and carrot, then just pulse everything in a blender with a little salt and oil and return to a simmer for 20 minutes or so to reduce.
You can definitely saute all your vegetables in a pan instead but roasting in the oven will allow more of the natural sugars to release and improve the overall flavor.
This roasting then blending technique can be applied to literally hundreds of soups — Squash, pumpkin, carrot, and ginger, just to name a few.
Some tips for better soups:
- Make more than you need to. Soups freeze well so make a double batch and freeze for easy go-to meals in the future.
- Simmer, simmer, simmer. If you’re cooking soups with pieces of vegetables or meat, always go low and slow as high heat will turn veggies mushy and meat tough.
- Consider each ingredient’s cooking time. A pea will cook much quicker than a cube of carrot so stagger the addition of ingredients accordingly.
The Main Events
Steak
Sorry vegetarians, you can skip this one. Everybody who eats meat and considers themselves a keen cook should know how to cook a steak perfectly.
The best way to do that is probably the reverse sear method.
Reverse searing involves cooking the steak in the oven at low heat then finishing it off with a hot sear. It’ll give you a steak that’s perfectly medium-rare from edge to edge with a crisp crust and overall tenderness.
The options for sides to accompany steak and almost limitless but some go-to options you should have up your sleeve are roasted or mashed potatoes, garlic mushrooms, grilled asparagus, and roasted brussel sprouts.
Some tips for a better steak:
- Don’t cook it straight from the fridge. Let your meat come to room temp for more even cooking.
- Use a thermometer to monitor the temperature of the meat while in the oven. You’re aiming for around 46°C for medium-rare and 52°C for medium.
- Sear the steak in a cast-iron skillet or grill that is ripping hot.
- Let the meat rest for at least 10 minutes. Cutting into hot meat allows juices to escape and leaves you with dry meat.
Reverse seared steak | Serious Eats
A Thai curry
The term curry is extremely broad, and at the risk of offending a lot of people, I’ve decided to specify Thai curry here. When most people think of curry, two countries come to mind — India and Thailand, however, apart from being completely different cuisines from different parts of the world, there are some other notable differences in their preparation of curry.
- Thais mainly use pastes made from grinding fresh ingredients while Indians tend to use dry spice mixes
- A lot of Thai curries use coconut milk, while this is something you’ll only really see in the south of India
- Indian curries tend to be thicker due to a base of onion, tomato, and sometimes potato
- Indian curries tend to be vegetarian while Thai curries will almost always contain meat or seafood
Learning both Indian and Thai curries will teach you valuable skills you can apply to other recipes, but it’s the paste making of Thai cuisine that I want to focus on here.
Learning how to make a curry paste from scratch teaches you how to carefully select fresh ingredients and learn how they complement each other. That’s not to say that a dry spice mix doesn’t do the same, but you won’t fully experience the aroma of a dry mix until it’s already cooking.
Once you learn the basic technique for a Thai curry paste, it’s just a matter of changing a few ingredients and applying the same technique to produce infinite curry possibilities.
It’s important to not worry too much about authenticity here. Yes, learn the authentic recipes, but then play around with your own curry pastes and create flavor combinations that you like.
A few tips for a good curry:
- Your rice is as important as your curry. Make the best rice possible using the tips mentioned above.
- Use good-quality coconut milk. It’s the backbone of a lot of curries so don’t buy a cheap, overly-processed option that may affect the overall quality of the meal.
- The same goes for fish sauce. Use a decent fish sauce and you’ll thank yourself later
- More vegetables aren’t always better. Too many vegetables can affect the overall texture of the curry and make it all seem too mushy.
- Follow a few authentic recipes first, then start playing with ingredients you think will work well.
Authentic Thai Red Curry Paste | Eating Thai Food
Thai Red Curry | BBC Good Food
Grilled fish (skin on)
Grilled fish, either served with vegetables or salad, is relatively quick to prepare and delicious when done well.
At some point in your life, you’re going to find yourself wanting (or needing) to grill fish either for a dinner party, a date, or at a family barbecue, so everybody should know how to do it.
Fish with the skin on is much nicer to grill because you end up with a perfectly crispy piece of skin and perfectly cooked flesh. The skin also complements the meat really well both in flavor and texture. Direct grilling without skin also tends to dry out a fish in certain parts.
Grilled salmon with a side of herb-roasted potatoes or asparagus is dead easy to prepare and a definite crowd-pleaser (provided your crowd isn’t vegetarian).
Some tips for grilled fish (specifically, salmon):
- Choose the right cut. Choose thick center-cuts so the thickness is consistent throughout. This ensures even cooking.
- Dry the skin out really well with paper towel before grilling, then lightly brush with oil. This helps produce a nice crispy skin
- Season with salt before adding to the grill
- Grill with the skin side down and flip the salmon when the skin releases from the grill easily (about 4 minutes)
- The options for sides are endless. Consider sticking with a side that is roasted in the oven so you have time to focus on your fish.
Grilled salmon fillets | Serious Eats
Noodle soup (Pho and/or Ramen)
I’m at risk of offending people again here so I’ll choose my words carefully. I’ve chosen to put Pho and Ramen under the umbrella term of ‘noodle soup’ because, well, they’re both noodle soups, and both require you to make a broth.
Learning how to make a broth from scratch is incredibly rewarding. It’s a long process, but an easy one. In fact, you can make more than you need to (you should) and freeze the excess. Then you just need to defrost your broth when you expect to make a noodle soup.
Besides patience (a good broth takes a long time), making a broth will teach you how to build flavors, textures, and how collagen in meat converts to gelatin over time to improve the overall texture of the broth.
Tips for better broths:
- Don’t take shortcuts on the broth. It takes hours to get a proper texture with the right amount of gelatin from the meat, but it’s so worth it.
- Blanch the bones and clean them before boiling.
- Remove the scum as it rises to the surface. This is normal and won’t affect your broth overall.
- The noodles and broth are the most important elements. The toppings won’t matter if you’re not using good noodles and a well-made broth.
- Simmer gently. Low and slow will yield better results.
Tonkotsu Ramen Recipe | Serious Eats
Pizza
I honestly haven’t met anybody that doesn’t like pizza, and I’m not sure I want to meet the person that doesn’t.
It may just be the ultimate food. Bready, cheesy, and topped with basically whatever the hell you want. Ok, maybe not “whatever the hell you want”, but the topping options are almost endless.
One time in Ireland, I saw a tuna and banana pizza and I don’t think I’ll ever recover from that.
Everybody who considers themselves a keen cook should learn to make pizza or attempt it at least once. You’ll see how yeast works, learn how to handle a dough, and understand gluten structure.
That last part is important — gluten is the backbone of good pizza dough and the better you understand it and can work with it, the better pizza you can make at home.
Believe it or not, the dough isn’t actually the hardest part about making pizza at home, it’s your equipment. A home oven simply can’t reach the temperatures required to fast-cook a dough like a real pizza oven can. Although we can mitigate this slightly by prepping as best we can and using a pizza stone.
Learning how to make pizza dough will make all your future bread-making seem much easier. You’ll already have an understanding of how flour behaves over time and how kneading and resting affect the final dough.
Start by making the most basic pizza from scratch, Margherita. Starting simple with few ingredients will allow you to pay attention to your dough and learn how it behaves. Once you’ve nailed Margherita, try some wilder combinations of toppings.
Some tips for better pizza:
- Flour quality matters. Buy 00 flour if you can, and if you can’t, good-quality AP flour will work fine. But avoid the cheap crap.
- Don’t overproof your dough. Most pizza dough is cold-proofed in the fridge for 24–48 hours. Any longer than this may overproof the dough and affect its final texture and rise while cooking.
- Set your oven as hot as it goes and preheat your pizza stone for at least 30 minutes. This is your best chance at simulating a pizza oven environment.
Desserts & Fun Stuff
Basic vanilla cake
Everybody should have a couple of desserts in their recipe repertoire, and a basic vanilla cake is arguably one of the easiest. Besides, everybody should know how to make a cake. There are a million occasions that call for cake.
Baking is a lot easier than it seems, but there’s less wiggle room than cooking and if you’re just starting out, you should always follow recipes carefully to avoid disappointments.
Cakes are one of the easiest things to bake, and once you’ve nailed a few of them, every subsequent baking recipe will feel increasingly easier.
Smash out a couple of vanilla cakes with frosting then move onto something a little harder like doughnuts or a tart.
Tips for a better cake:
- If you’re new to baking, follow the recipe exactly as it is. Don’t sub in ingredients you’re unsure about.
- Use room temperature ingredients for a batter that mixes together more evenly.
- Let your cake cool before cutting into it. Cutting into your cake too early lets too much steam escape and will dry out the cake even quicker.
- Don’t increase the temp to take shortcuts. Baking is almost always at 170–180°C — This is because the Maillard reaction (browning) is triggered at this temperature but it’s low enough to cook everything evenly without burning the outside.
Vanilla cake recipe | Sally’s Baking Addiction
Custard
Custard may seem a little boring but it can be used to lift other ingredients in a dessert and it’s also the first step of many desserts like ice cream, semifreddo, and Crème brûlée.
Custard is another form of an emulsion and learning how to prepare it will make loads of other custard-based desserts more approachable because you’ll better understand the backbone of the dessert.
It also teaches you the technique of cooking in a double boiler (bain-marie). This is essentially a heated bath, when you cook something in a bowl placed over boiling water. It’s a more gentle way of heating the mix and ensures the custard doesn’t curdle before it emulsifies.
Custard can be eaten on its own, either hot or cold, served with fruit, or eaten with warm desserts like apple crumble.
Learn to nail a simple custard a couple of times then step it up and make something more complex like semifreddo, creme caramel, or lemon meringue pie (the filling is technically a custard)
Some tips for a good custard:
- Always use a double boiler
- Follow the recipe closely. There’s little to no wiggle room here.
- When baking custard, always use a water bath. This keeps the temperature uniform and ensures even cooking.
Homemade custard | BBC Good Food
Sourdough
Not everybody is interested in baking their own bread, especially one that relies on fermentation and natural leavening, but once you bake your first bread, you may never go back to store-bought bread again.
Making sourdough from start to finish is without a doubt one of the most rewarding things I’ve learned to do in the kitchen. At the same time, you have full control of everything that goes into the bread and seemingly little control of the bacteria and how they’ll behave once baked.
The process starts with making what’s called a starter — a mixture of flour and water that’s been left to ferment and allow lactobacilli to thrive. This is the bacteria that gives sourdough its signature sour taste, due to lactic acid.
Baking sourdough will teach you not only how to create and care for a starter, but the entire bread-making process and how to properly ferment, rest, and shape dough for baking.
Some tips for better sourdough:
- Bake when your starter is strong. Use the float test to verify that your starter is ready. If a small piece of it floats in water, it’s good to go.
- Baking in a dutch oven will trap steam and improve the final crumb.
- Use quality flour. It doesn’t have to be bread flour specifically but the cheapest flour at the grocery store won’t do you any favors.
- Like pizza, bread can be over-proofed. Be careful to stick to your proofing times and use the poke test to judge. If it springs back fully, it’s underproof. No spring back, over-proofed. A little spring back, perfect.
There you have it, one hell of an article and a lot of recipes to have fun with if you’re looking to level up your cooking. All the skills mentioned are ones that you’ll be able to apply to other recipes and should be learned by anybody that considers themselves a keen cook.
That being said, this article should be taken as advice only, and by no means are you a bad cook if you can’t cook all of the recipes mentioned.
Cooking should be fun and feel relatively easy, and learning the techniques mentioned here will help make that a reality.
Techniques are your roadmap in the kitchen. When you know where you can go, and why, the possibilities are endless.
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