Most of the cookbooks I find on techniques teach you How To Cook, but there are only a few that teach you How NOT to Cook.
Years ago I thought it would be fun to look at some of the most basic cooking techniques used every day and the common mistakes we make when doing them. You will be surprised at how many mistakes we all make that you didn’t know about.
I was planning on publishing this collection of articles as a cookbook but decided it would be more helpful to post them on my website instead so I can get your feedback and add new chapter in the future. Over the next few months, I plan to introduce these posts describing common cooking mistakes we make all the time in our kitchens and how to avoid them.
I hope you enjoy this new section of The Reluctant Gourmet.com, comment on some of your own cooking mistakes and please share this page with your friends and family.
More Steaming Mistakes and How to Avoid Them This is Part 2 of How NOT to Steam Foods. If you want to read Part 1, click here. Mistake #5 Covering the Pan Loosely If you think that you are steaming in a vessel without a lid, or just loosely covered with a piece of parchment, […]
How NOT to Steam Foods Steaming is arguably one of the healthiest ways to cook because no added fat is needed. It is also a very gentle method as foods aren’t knocked around by boiling water or stirred over high heat. Rather, the steam gently penetrates and cooks all foods at around 212ºF, the boiling […]
The Importance of Good Kitchen Equipment Before You Start a Recipe Mistake #6 – Not Having the Right Equipment As part of reading the recipe and getting your mise en place together, you should also have inventoried your cooking equipment. While it is acceptable to make some substitutions with equipment – using a sauté pan […]
More Mistakes Home Cooks Make When Starting a Recipe Mistake #4 – Not Prepping Your Ingredients Almost as important as making sure you have all your ingredients is making sure that your ingredients are cooking ready. How many times have you started a recipe only to realize you need a chopped onion or diced carrot […]
Before You Even Think of Starting a New Recipe, Read This Mistake #2 Not Giving Yourself Enough Time I cannot stress this enough: just because recipes say that they can be made from start to finish in thirty or forty-five minutes does not mean that a person who is unfamiliar with the recipe or the […]
What A Recipe Is Before I talk about how not to start a recipe, I want to take some time to talk about what a recipe is. According to Miriam Webster, a recipe is “a set of instructions for making something from various ingredients.” The second definition is “a formula or procedure for doing or […]
Common Mistakes When Seasoning With Salt Salt is critical for bringing out flavors in the foods we cook. One of my problems with eating out, especially at good restaurants, I find chefs often over salt their dishes. I’m not sure why and this would be a great topic for another article but I find it […]
A Simple Chart Describing Herbs & Spices & How to Use Them Let’s take a look at some of the more commonly available herbs and spices. These listings are by no means exhaustive. Many of the spice plants are not native to the United States; in these cases, I provide the USDA hardiness zone information […]
More Common Mistakes When It Comes to Herbs & Spices Mistake #2 Keeping Herbs and Spices Forever Most of us have a dark, dusty corner of our spice cabinet where old spices go to die. You know the place. It’s where you keep the rarified spices that you bought to make a special dish for […]
How NOT to Season Foods – Common Seasoning Mistakes & How to Avoid Them Spices and seasonings are our passport to a whole world of flavor possibilities. We are very lucky that we live in a time when a host of spices are readily available for our use and experimentation. In the past, wars have […]
I'm a work-at-home dad who enjoys cooking, learning everything I can about the culinary world and sharing it with you. To learn more about me... Read More
How to Make the Best Beef Wellington This Beef Wellington recipe has become a tradition in our house. We prepare it every couple of years for Christmas and made it again this year. If I’m lucky, we will have it next year and the year after that. My wife originally found a recipe in Fine […]
Christmas Standing Rib Roast Thanksgiving is a holiday in which turkey really shines. Many of you would rather not deal with another turkey just four weeks after Thanksgiving. Some of you might still have some frozen leftovers. The Christmas meal is a celebratory meal, and as such, celebration food is a natural at the Christmas […]
How to Bake A Ham For Christmas
Baked Christmas Ham Recipe Would you like to serve a wonderfully flavorful and juicy ham for the holidays? Here’s a can’t-go-wrong recipe that will have your guests asking for seconds, and for a plate of leftovers, as well. Be sure to read about the history of serving ham on Christmas and the various types of […]
