Cooking 101

Preparation 101

"Succes is often achieved by those who do not know failure is inevitable" /Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel is right. Every time I try a new recipe I'm always convinced I know exactly what I'm doing. Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm not. Yes, cooking comes naturally to some people (just like reading) but it doesn't mean you can't learn. When it comes to cooking, learning is by doing.

I feel there are three major misstakes most people make when they start cooking

1. Not following any recipe - If you're a chef, go ahead, but otherwise use some guidelines...!
2. Following a recipe exactly - This will never work. Every oven, stove and ingredient is different. Watch out for cooking times!! Also, the starch in potaoes will vary, the thickness of a steak, size, texture...
3. Taste your food! Never ever ever serve anything without tasting it.

This goes back to the point of learning by doing. Often you have one recipe you "master". Ever wondered why? It's not because it's easy. It's because you recognize when you need to add more water/salt/pepper, when the texture and taste is right. This same logic will apply to everything, the more you bake for example, the more you recognize when the dough is right/too loose/ to thick.

I adjust my recipes everytime. If the lemon is bitter, I add sugar. You can't possible assume all lemons have the exact same sweetness/bitterness. This goes for all ingredients. In addition we all have different opinion when it comes to how sweet something should be, or sour, or spicy - So trust yourself to change/adjust the recipe!

Tips

Any recipe has to have three major components to balance out the flavors.

• Acidity (lemon, lime, balsamico, vinegar, youghurt, sour cream..)
• Saltiness (Sea salt, Soy sauce, anjovies..)
• Sweetness ( White/brown sugar, honey, syrup, stevia...)

Generally one will be stronger than the others. For example in brownies sweetness is key, but the best brownies in the world have salt in them because it cuts an overpowering swetness.

As an experiment, press the juice of one lemon. Taste it (yes it will be bitter and sour), add 1 tsp of salt and taste it again. Add an additional tsp of salt, do antoher taste test. Suddenly the lemon juice is not so sour anymore.The secret to a great Margarita cocktail...

Acidity, saltiness and sweetness all balance eachother out. This is great news, because if you add too much salt to a dish, quickly add an acid component like vinegar/lime. What salty/sweet/acid component to use can often be found in the recipe itself. If you've been using lime, stick with that.

Finally, recognize that each and everyone of us have bad days. No one is perfect always, sometime we feel bad, or we feel we look bad, have a bad day at work... Just like that you will have bad days in the kitchen. There is no shame in failing, throwing the entire dish in the trash and order pizza!

Presentation 101

Some might be cooking for the first time, others might have been cooking for a long time but struggle with presentation. The "Why does my food not look like in the picture" feeling comes often...

First and foremost, I want to say that I've been cooking my entire life, and presentation was something I learned maybe 1-2 years ago.

Second, a picture may say more than a thousand words, but a thousand pictures makes you able to edit whatever you want to say. My point is, a lot of proffesional food bloggers, and especially cook books, have proffesional photographers and editing programs. They take thousands of pictures, from different angles, and get to pick the one angle where it all looks perfect.

In addition, it is common to take photos of food when it's still raw/uncooked (it looks better), and use substances like hairspray to make it shine (!). Now, are you still wondering why your food doesn't look like in the picture?

Yes, I take all pictures myself and usually with my phone, I edit nothing except for tones in the entire photo (make black&white/sepia/enhance colours), but still I admit I have the priviledge of picking the best pic. I also always have the opportunity to not publish something I feel didn't look so good. Keep this in mind, and don't get discouraged! The most important thing is that the food tastes good. Don't care what it looks like if it tastes discusting. 

Tips

Now some steps to take in order to get you inspired about presentation.

• It's all about planning. Think about presentation already when you're shopping for food.
• Serving. Are you making one large pan for the table, or serving each dish separately on a plate? What is more convenient, and fits the atmosphere. Fine dine or casually grilling?

• Herbs. Whatever you're making the easiset way to garnish is to use herbs. 
• Always decorate/garnish a dish with herbs, even your dip sauce will look prettier.
• Texture. All liquids don't mix. Think outside the box.
• If you have a purée like sauce, or youghurt dip, you can drizzle oil over it in circles, and it won't mix. Instead it will look fresh and pretty. For example Tsatziki is often decorated with circles of olive oil & herbs.
• Any soft texture needs to be cut with something crispy, use this as a garnish opportunity. What could that be? Chopped hazel/cashew nuts, seeds, chopped and fried bacon...

• Color. If you're food is the same color, it will look very boring. A good rule is to always have something green, red and yellow on the plate. Green=herbs, Red= chopped chili, chopped peppers.. Yellow as garnish can be mango, peppers, lemon...
• "Empty space"
• Do you want your steak/fish to sit empty on a plate? Or is it prettier if you have a lettuce base under it. Why use only green lettuce?
• NEG = Non Edible Garnish
• Don't ever use NEGs. If you use flowers, make sure they're edible. If I want to look at art, I go and look at art. When I eat, I want to eat. The whole point of garnishing is the small challenge and triumph in using natural ingredients.

In essence, start small and go big. The first time you frost a cupcake will be a messy messy war... If it goes anything like when I did it, out of 20 cupcakes, one looked about right. Don't take on too large a challenge, start by buying forsting, that way you know the texture is right. If you start by making your own, you can't really tell if you suck at frosting, or if your frosting sucks.. :)

Finally, be creative! Google the same recipe, look at different blogs and sites, there is no one right way to garnish.