If you have a rich flavour (creamy or buttery), you'll likely need a hit of acid such as vinegar or lemon juice to balance things out properly. Salt can also make the flavours of sweet things pleasantly intense.

Know which flavours go together

When we rush, we tend to make time-consuming mistakes - increasing the heat too fast to sear more aggressively or spilling and incorrectly measuring ingredients. 'Hurry up, slow down' is a reminder that taking time to do things right the first time is usually the fastest path to success.

'Hurry up, slow down'

Cooking with softened butter will yield an entirely different result than cooking with melted butter. You'll get a much more flavourful and crispy result when you butter your bread with softened butter instead of melting the butter in the pan. It is because the fat solids emulsified in the softened butter.

Cooking with softened butter and melted butter

<ul><li>If your cutting board keeps slipping around the counter, put a wet towel or paper towel under it to make chopping safer.</li><li>Keep your elbows in when you cook. Pressing your elbows into your centre will stabilise your arms, so they don't shake and prevent small injuries.</li><li>Clean up your kitchen as you go. You'll become more efficient and always have space to work with minimal cleaning afterwards.</li></ul>

Kitchen tips

<ul><li>Don't crowd the pan, no matter what you're pan-frying. Instead, get a bigger pan or fry in batches.</li><li>Always season liberally. Adding a little more salt will make a world of difference in your food.</li><li>Season everything. Don't assume one flavour will permeate the whole dish. Season the chicken, season the pasta, season the sauce.</li><li>Taste as you go. If it tastes good to you, it will likely taste good to others.</li><li>When you're cooking burgers, make a small dent in the centre of the patty with your thumb. Your burger will stay completely flat instead of shrinking.</li></ul>

Cooking tips

A good sauce can save almost anything. Learn to cook at least three quick sauces from memory. A red wine sauce can turn a dried out piece of meat into a great meal - a cup of wine, butter, onions, salt and pepper. A quick marinara can taste as good as sauces you eat at restaurants.

Learn to make a good sauce

<ul><li>A sharp knife is a safe knife. Dull knives are more prone to slipping and causing accidents.</li><li>When you know how to use a knife, you'll save a lot of effort and reduce injuries.</li><li>'A falling knife has no handle.' Don't try to catch a knife that's falling. Instead, step back and pick it up once it's on the floor.</li><li>Always FLIP the knife over before you use it to scrape things into a pot or bowl.</li></ul>

Knife safety and knife skills

Stashed ideas

28 Culinary School Grads Share Their Best Cooking Tips

Marinating is the process of soaking meats in a seasoned liquid before cooking. It's an easy way to add flavour and moisture and make everyday food taste a little bolder. When you know the fundamentals of marinating, you can skip the store-bought marinades and make your own with ingredients that you have in your pantry.

Marinade for a fabulous taste

Marinades often use an acid such as vinegar or citrus juice or an enzyme such as mango, papaya, or kiwi fruit to enhance flavours and change the surface texture of the meat. The marinade causes the meat's tissue to weaken on the surface and should be used for short periods of time, otherwise the meat will become mushy, tough, and dry. Marinade works well with thinner, flat cuts or pieces of meat that have been cut into cubes or slices.

What's in a marinade

When you make a marinade, such as using ginger, honey, and soy sauce, the ginger and honey will remain on the outside of the meat, but the salt in the soy sauce will penetrate a bit deeper into the meat. Salt draws out the liquid from the meat by osmosis, then the brine is reabsorbed into the meat while breaking down the muscle structure. The oils are used to transfer fat-soluble flavors from the seasonings like herbs, chillis, and spices onto the surface of the meat.

Flavoring the surface

Fat: Use olive oil, sesame oil, yoghurt, buttermilk, tahini or mayonnaise.Salt: Use miso, pickle juice, sea salt, soy sauce, or fish sauce.Acid: Use citrus juice, pickle juice, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, hot sauce, and buttermilk.Enzymes: Papaya or papain (a common meat tenderizer) can be used.Seasonings: Add chilli powder, adobo seasoning, peppercorns, ginger, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, curry paste, tamarind paste, and mustards.Herbs: Thyme, chives, basil, marjoram, tarragon, dill, lovage, oregano, parsley, or mint.Sugar: Ketchup, honey, agave, <a href="https://www.jessicagavin.com/sweet-spicy-barbecue-sauce/">barbecue sauce</a>, molasses

Basic ingredients in a marinade

<ul><li>Time: Marinating some food too long can result in tough, dry, or poor texture.</li><li>Adding acid: Too much acid in a marinade can dry out and toughen chicken or meat, so finding the right oil/sugar/acid/salt balance is critical.</li><li>Sugar: Marinades containing sweeteners like sugar, agave, honey or molasses will burn quicker.</li><li>Marinate in the refrigerator to minimize bacterial growth.</li><li>Don't reuse a marinade that has come into contact with uncooked meat.</li><li>Use non-reactive materials: Acid in marinades can react with some metals and pottery glazes</li></ul>

Things to keep in mind with marinating

Meats could be marinated in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to overnight. <ul><li>Fish and shellfish should marinate for only 30 minutes to an hour.</li><li>Chicken can be marinated for two hours, but poultry can marinate for up to two days in the refrigerator.</li><li>Beef and Pork can marinate for up to 24 hours. However, a marinade can ruin better quality steaks.</li><li>Tofu can be marinated for up to 24 hours.</li><li>Soft vegetables should only be marinated for up to 10 minutes.</li><li>Firm vegetables like potatoes or carrots can marinate for up to 30 minutes.</li></ul>

How long to marinate foods

<ul><li>Grill: A perfect way to cook up some kabobs or flank steak is to slice up thin and enjoy in tacos. Using a skewer is a wonderful way to grill marinated meat efficiently.</li><li>Broil: Try some garlic, parsley, olive oil, and lemon zest marinated shrimp which cook up fast under the direct heat of the broiler.</li><li>Bake: Try a yoghurt, turmeric, garlic, and garam masala mixture slathered over chicken breast pieces.</li><li>Roast: Pork roast might taste great in a marinade of apple cider vinegar, coriander, honey, and garlic.</li></ul>

Best ways to cook marinated foods

A guide to marinating and how the culinary process works. If done properly food will taste more flavorful on the surface and inside.

Marinating: A Guide to How it Works and What it Does

Before you start, have everything prepped, organized, and ready to go. It means chopping all of your veggies, measuring out your spices, and gathering your tools, pots, and pans before you start cooking.

The start to successful cooking is mise en place

Acid helps brighten flavours, adds freshness, and can help make a heavy dish feel lighter. If you find yourself stuck with a dish that tastes flat, use an acid to season food such as white wine, lemon juice, or a splash of vinegar.

When it comes to seasoning food, acid is as important as salt

Those crusty brown bits stuck to the bottom of your pan are the secret to making restaurant-quality sauces. They are the key ingredient for a rich, savoury sauce.

Making super-flavorful sauces

Sugar can help to transform a lacklustre sauce into something balanced and bright. If you find yourself with produce that tastes dull or underripe, or the sauce is bland, try adding a pinch of sugar to improve the flavour of a dish.

Sugar can help balance savory dishes

While you can use a paring knife, other tools work much quicker. A mandoline makes the most consistent knife cuts in the least amount of time. Mandolines might seem intimidating but go slow, use the handguard, and you’ll be slicing like a pro in no time. Y-shaped peelers can make thin ribbons of vegetables, cheeses, and other delicate items.

You don’t always need expert knife skills

A brine is a solution of water, salt, and sometimes sugar used to keep proteins moist and tender. You simply soak your meat in it (usually pork or chicken) for several hours, dry it off, and cook it as usual.

Brining makes chicken and pork nearly impossible to overcook

Cleaning as you go makes cooking easier and more enjoyable. It clears up workspace, makes it easier to focus on the task and prevents a mountain of dishes at the end. The easiest way to adopt this practise is to simply wash your dishes as you’re cooking.

Clean as you go

Ultra-high heat adds a distinct savoury flavour to dishes. This is because of the Maillard reaction, which occurs between amino acids and sugars when they come into contact with heat and make food turn golden-brown. Let your pans heat up for a good amount of time. It might feel like a long time, but it will help you achieve a deep, flavorful sear. When you see small wafts of smoke coming from the pan, it’s ready to use.

High heat means high flavor

Dull knives are prone to slipping and sliding off of vegetables, putting you at risk of cutting yourself. Sharp knives make cooking more enjoyable, safer, and faster, so don’t neglect them. Sharpen your knives every six months to a year.

A sharp knife is a safe knife

The 9 Most Important Things I Learned in Cooking School

The nature is telling us on what to eat and what to not eat.<ul><li>Food that did not contains killing the whole animals or plants means it "wants" to be eaten. Which is, fruits, milks, and nectars.</li><li>Eating seeds, leaves, or even flesh of an animals means killing it. It means they don't want to be eaten from the first place.</li></ul>

Some Foods "Wants" To Be Eaten, Some Are Not

<ul><li>Fruit, nectar, or milk has been produced dilligently in a way that it's directly digestible. </li><li>For example, plants needs to bear fruit to sprout their seeds. The seeds doesn't want to be eaten, it wants to grow. The animals who eat the fruit help the plants to sow the seeds somewhere. Same applied for nectars.</li><li>On the other hand, milk is produced for newborn of the same species. That's why we still suffer from lactose intolerant because cow milk means to be consumed by cow, not us.</li><li>However, doesn't mean we can't eat other food. That's why we invent cooking.</li></ul>

Why We Invent Cooking

<ul><li>Cooking not only helps us eating undigestible food to the digestible one. It shapes and grow our brains.</li><li>Cooking also changes our social structure. Back then, bonfire is not only for cook, but also for socialize.</li><li>Now, food still become a center of any party or gathering. It acts as social lubricant.</li></ul>

Cooking Is More Than The Nutrition

<ul><li>Fast food is convenience, however it is not only strip the nutrient, but also strip the social experience of eating the food.</li><li>GMO or other modified organism may be beneficial for us, but we don't know the effect of it in the long run.</li><li>Globalization has make any food available in any place possible, however this means local food are being replaced significantly. Unfortunately, our body can't adapt for change quickly. That's why some people can't digest certain foods.</li><li>Abundance of food in supermarket or restaurant make us eat more food than we need. This leads to "modern" diseases like obesity.</li></ul>

The Modern Approach To Food Reduce The Value Of It

<ul><li>People in different region needs a different kind of food.</li><li>That's why some diets, like paleo or medditeranian, are not suitable for most people.</li><li>The reductionism approach to food, to only focus on nutrition, is damaging us in the long run.</li><li>Our ancestors, everywhere, eat a diverse range of food. Not a protein bars or supplements.</li><li>So it's better to eat your traditional or local food as much as possible.</li></ul>

Some Diets Are Suitable For Some People Only

<ul><li>Shop in the edges of supermarket. Means, avoid processed food and choose whole food instead.</li><li>Avoid GMO if possible.</li><li>Respect your food cravings or aversion as long as it doesn't pose any significant risk. For example, aversion might indicate allergy.</li><li>Expose ourselves to eat a diverse range of food, especially food that comes from our ethnic background.</li><li>Perceive food as a whole, not only about nutrition.</li><li>Reduce food stocks and have an occasional fasting. This will avoid us to gorge food and eat more calories than needed.</li><li>Eat foods with other people.</li></ul>

Actionable Tips

A summary of the chapter 5, "Food". Read this if you want to change your diet or eat better.

A provocative exploration of the tension between our evolutionary history and our modern woes—and what we can do about it. We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet we are listless, divided, and miserable. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, but our political landscape is unmoored, and rates of suicide, lone­liness, and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these truths? And how should we respond? For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our troubles is clear: the accelerat­ing rate of change in the modern world has outstripped the capacity of our brains and bodies to adapt. We evolved to live in clans, but today many people don’t even know their neighbors’ names. In our haste to discard outdated gender roles, we increasingly deny the flesh-and-blood realities of sex—and its ancient roots. The cognitive dissonance spawned by trying to live in a society we are not built for is killing us. In this book, Heying and Weinstein draw on decades of their work teaching in college classrooms and explor­ing Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystems to confront today’s pressing social ills—from widespread sleep deprivation and dangerous diets to damaging parenting styles and back­ward education practices. Asking the questions many mod­ern people are afraid to ask, A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century outlines a science-based worldview that will empower you to live a better, wiser life.

Book bits

A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century

GMOs are organisms that have altered genetic material, and this genetic alteration does not occur naturally.Modern biotechnology allows selected individual genes to be transfered from one organism to another even between nonrelated species.The food that is produced using GMOs are referred to as Genetically Modified Food.

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

The main objective of developing plants that have GMOs is to improve crop protection. Genetically modified crops have a higher resistance against plant diseases that come from insects, viruses, or herbicides.Moreover, in terms of durability and nutritional value genetically modified foods have perceived advantages to both the producer and the consumer.

The Production of Genetically Modified Food

To assess the safety of genetically modified foods, they focus on the following:<ol><li>Direct health effects</li><li>Potential to provoke allergies</li><li>Nutritional components</li><li>The stability of the inserted gene</li><li>Nutritional effects that are associated with genetic modification; and</li><li>Any unintended effects that could have resulted from the gene altercation</li></ol>

Assessing The Safety of GM foods

<ol><li>Allergenicity - the protocols for testing of genetically modified foods are evaluated thoroughly by the FAO and the WHO. No allergic effects have been found relative to GM foods currently on the market.</li><li>Gene transfer - the tranferability of the genes from GM food to the cells of the body is low, but the use of gene transfer technology that doesn't involve antibiotic resistance is is encouraged.</li><li>Outcrossing - this is the process where genes from GM plants migrate to conventional crops. Strategies have been created to reduce the possibility of this from happening.</li></ol>

Main Issues Concerning Human Health

The genetically modified foods that are available on the international market have passed the necessary safety assessments and are not likely to present any type of risk for our health.Rest assured that the safety assessment of GM foods is a continuous and ongoing process based on the Codex AlimentariusGenetically modified crops on the international market have higher nutrient content and have the following traits: insect-damage resistant, viral infections resistant, and higher tolerance towards certain herbicides.

Genetically Modified Foods Are Safe

Moving forward, the future of genetically modified organisms will include plants with improved resistance against: plant disease and drought.Moreover these crops will have increased nutrient levels, fish species will have enhanced growth characteristics.For non-food usage, these plants or animals can be used to produce important proteins for new vaccines.

Further Developments for GMOs

These questions and answers have been prepared by WHO in response to questions and concerns from WHO Member State Governments with regard to the nature and safety of genetically modified food.

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#foodscience

IDEAS ABOUT #foodscience

28 Culinary School Grads Share Their Best Cooking Tips

Marinating: A Guide to How it Works and What it Does

It's time to

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A PRO!

The 9 Most Important Things I Learned in Cooking School

A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century

Food, genetically modified

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

#foodscience

IDEAS ABOUT #foodscience

28 Culinary School Grads Share Their Best Cooking Tips

Marinating: A Guide to How it Works and What it Does

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

The 9 Most Important Things I Learned in Cooking School

A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century

Food, genetically modified

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career