Cooking Fundamentals: Heat, Flavour and Technique
Learn why recipes work, so you can cook well without one.
For anyone who can follow a recipe but has no idea what any of the steps are for. You'll learn how heat cooks food, why browning makes flavour, what salt, fat and acid each do, and how to taste a dish and fix it. By the end you can open the fridge, decide on a plan and cook dinner without a page to follow, and you'll know the food-safety rules that are not negotiable.
By the end you can
- Get a deep golden crust on meat, chicken and vegetables instead of a grey, steamed surface
- Taste a dish, say in one word what's wrong with it, and fix it with salt, fat, acid or depth
- Cut safely and efficiently, and time two or three dishes so they land together
- Build a dish from what's in the fridge, and keep it safe from board to leftovers
Heat
- How heat cooks food
See the three ways heat reaches your food and the one split that matters most: dry heat or wet heat. After this you can look at any recipe step and say what the heat is doing.
- Browning: where flavour comes from
Learn what actually happens when food browns and the four conditions it needs. After this you can get a deep golden crust on meat, chicken and vegetables instead of a grey, steamed surface.
- Controlling the pan
Preheating, choosing a fat that can take the heat, reading the flame, and the cooking that carries on after the pan. After this you can decide what heat a dish needs and when to take it off.
Flavour
- Salt: the first lever
What salt actually does to taste, why it matters when you add it, and how to season in layers. After this you can fix most flat-tasting food before you reach for anything else.
- Fat and acid
Fat carries flavour and builds texture; acid brightens and cuts richness. After this you can look at a dish and say which of the two it is short of.
- Balancing a dish
A method for tasting a dish, naming what's wrong and choosing the smallest fix. After this you can rescue a flat, heavy, harsh or over-salted pot instead of hoping it improves.
Technique
- Knife skills and safety
How to hold a knife, how to keep your fingers out of its way, how to cut an onion, and how to keep a board safe around raw meat. After this you can prep faster and with far less risk.
- Mise en place and timing
Read the whole recipe, get everything ready before the heat goes on, and work backwards from the time you want to eat. After this you can cook two or three things and have them land together.
- Vegetables, eggs and rice done right
Three things almost everyone cooks and almost everyone slightly mistreats. After this you can roast vegetables that brown, cook eggs that stay tender, and understand what tahdig is actually doing.
Cooking without a recipe
- Build a dish from a base
One pattern sits under stews, khoresh, curries, soups and most sauces: aromatics, main, liquid, finish. After this you can cook without a recipe by filling in the four slots.
- Pan sauces and fixing mistakes
Turn the browned bits stuck to a pan into a sauce in five minutes, and learn the standard rescues for over-salted, thin, split and burnt food. After this, fewer dinners get thrown away.
- Improvise dinner, safely
Put the whole course together: open the fridge, choose a plan, swap ingredients by the job they do, and keep the food-safety rules that are not negotiable.
Keep it, don't just read it
Pathwise brings each idea back just before you'd forget it, with a quick question. Free on Android and on the web, in English and Persian.