If you’re a home cook, there is a lot that you can learn from your favorite restaurants, even if you’ve never worked in the industry yourself. Eating out is a great way to learn about flavors, but you can also learn some clever chef techniques to improve your skills and meals too.
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Respect The Mise
The most important thing that chefs first learn is the importance of the French term ‘mise en place’. It just means you have all your prepped ingredients in one before you start cooking or baking. You can do the same thing when you cook at home. Make like the chefs and prep, prep, prep. Before you start cooking, lay out and prepare all your ingredients. Your mise should also include things like seasoning and garnishes so you can just grab them when you need them, whether you’re making a full roast dinner or a simple pizza sauce.
Flip It
We all know the move. If you’re sitting watching the kitchen at your favourite Mediterranean Restaurant or any other restaurant, you’ve seen the chefs flipping the food in the pan. This is done with a flick of the wrist. The pan flip makes sure that the food cooks evenly all the way through without the need for stirring. With some confidence and some practice, you can learn to do the same at home.
Visit An Open Kitchen
Can’t afford culinary school? No problem! Eat at restaurants with open kitchens and sit where you can see what the chefs are doing. Watching them in action is a great way to learn. Watch what they’re doing, from the way they hold their knives to that all-important pan-flip action. You can take the tricks you learn home to your own kitchen.
Use Kitchen Scissors
Most of us imagine chefs wielding impressive knives, but actually, small kitchen scissors are one of the most popular chef tools. Knives can be too hard on soft things like herbs, but these delicate scissors are much more gentle. The small blades allow you to do precise jobs like deveining shrimp, slicing fish, and cutting through meat without damage, with more control. Embrace the scissors!
Use Everything
Chefs don’t waste food. Chefs are often working to tight budgets, so nothing is wasted. Whether it’s using bones and waste cuts of meat to make broths for the next day, or turning a leftover salad into pesto, you can turn just about any leftovers into something delicious if you’re creative. There are lots of recipes online for making use of ends of ingredients, so get in the habit of getting all the use you can out of the food you buy, and cut right back on food waste.
Add A Flourish
One of the things that make restaurant food look so appealing is the plating. A lot of these tricks can be learned at home. For example, anyone can quenelle as long as you have a pair of spoons. Add these flourishes when you cook at home to make everything look better.
This is a contributed post. You can read more about that here.