Gently but confidently add food to hot oil, without dropping it in from afar. (Photo by Stacy Zarin Goldberg for The Washington Post)
Cooking is easy - or so it seems in recipes written with scant directions and TikTok videos that result in expertly prepared dishes in a matter of seconds. But if you’ve never really sauteed onions or seared a steak, it becomes a daunting task, and the final meal might be less than picture-perfect. It’s no wonder that cooking novices might turn more often to delivery than to a cookbook, especially after wistfully watching a celebrity chef gleefully chopping, whisking and frying on TV.
The fault isn’t yours. Every chef began with the same skills, or lack thereof, which means every home cook also has the potential to prepare a meal with the same fearlessness as Julia Child, Gordon Ramsay or Hilda Baci. Heck, Child didn’t have a clue how to cook an omelet before she was in her 30s - so there’s hope for us all.
"I wish I could cook like that” is a sentiment that regularly fills the classroom at Home Cooking New York, where founder Jennifer Clair has been teaching a popular back-to-basics cooking class since 2002. "People decide quickly that they are terrible cooks,” says Clair, whose book, "Six Basic Cooking Techniques,” is based on the class. "I’m always trying to undo trauma. People give themselves a lot less bandwidth to learn cooking as a skill than they would something like learning a language. It just takes practice.”
Clair frequently sees students who are timid in approaching the stove and only gingerly poke at the contents of a pan. "When I ask for a student volunteer,” she says, "they tend to stand two feet away. I tell them to move up to the stove and own their space. No one is in charge here but you.”
Building confidence in the kitchen won’t automatically turn a beginner into a five-star chef, but understanding basic techniques can mean the difference between beautifully browned onions kissed with just the right amount of caramelization and a pile of charred onion bits. "Once you learn very small things, you can up your game very quickly,” Clair says.
Here’s how to boost your kitchen confidence for whenever you step up to the stove.
Start with the hips
Knowing how and where to stand is where Clair begins. "I often have to move people so their hips are in line with the cutting board or the stove.” Keeping your hips square with your workstation provides stability, and having all your ingredients within reach when cooking allows you to stay in front of the stove, reducing the chance of food burning or pots boiling over. A professional chef stays firmly in one spot for good reason, an example we can follow at home.
Firmly grip both the handle of your skillet and the utensil. (Photo by Scott Suchman for The Washington Post)
Get a grip
The handle of that skillet is your friend. Hold on to it with one hand to keep the pan from sliding around the stove as you cook. It’s equally important to take a firm hold, with your other hand, of wooden spoons, spatulas, tongs and other cooking implements. You are in charge of those tools, not the other way around. Having physical control of the utensils is an important confidence-builder, in the same way that you may nonchalantly grab a hammer to tap in a nail to hang a painting.
Don’t fear the heat
Knowing how to properly heat a pan and when to add oil can be a game changer. For a stainless-steel pan, heat the dry pan over medium-high heat (you may see faint wisps of smoke around the edge of the pan, which is fine), then add the oil; this helps prevent sticking. If you tilt the pan and the oil moves in thin, fast ripples, then the pan is ready for your ingredients; if the oil is slower and smooth, keep heating until it thins. For a nonstick pan, heat the pan and the oil together. With frying, when you have a large amount of oil, don’t drop in pieces of, say, floured chicken from a height, causing hot oil to splash. Instead, use tongs to gently add food to the pan right at the surface of the oil.
Saute like a pro
Vegetables and proteins are sauteed so they are lightly browned and tender, with a bit of bite. Add the ingredients in a single layer to a hot, oiled pan. If the pan is crowded, then the ingredients will steam and won’t brown, so cook in batches if needed. Give the ingredients a minute, or a few, to start to take on color, then stir or flip so every part of the ingredient gets a chance to brown in the hot fat. Pro tip: After you remove the ingredients, make a quick pan sauce by adding liquid - such as vinegar or broth - to deglaze, heating over medium heat and loosening the browned bits as the sauce thickens. The result is liquid gold to pour over your cooked ingredients.
To stir or not to stir
Some things need stirring; others do not. Rice needs to cook undisturbed in a covered pot, as the grains absorb the moisture, while spaghetti should be cooked without a lid and stirred occasionally to keep the strands separate. When searing proteins, let them sizzle in a hot pan for a few minutes before turning them over. When they are ready to turn, they should easily release from the pan without sticking. With soups and stews, be sure to stir every so often, using the spoon to scrape the bottom of the pot. If the ingredients are sticking to the bottom, it’s time to lower the heat to prevent burning. No matter what, stir with confidence, but not so aggressively that your ingredients are torn to bits, and not so lightly that the ingredients risk cooking unevenly.
Smoke vs steam
Make sure you know whether you’re looking at smoke or steam, as well as how to respond to it, or use it to your advantage. "Smoke means things are burning,” warns Clair, "while steam adds or subtracts moisture.” The presence of a little smoke coming off the pan is generally not a huge concern, but it does tell the cook that it’s time to turn the heat down just a bit to prevent burning. Steam can affect cooking in different ways. For instance, when making a tomato sauce, keeping the pan uncovered helps the sauce thicken and become more concentrated as the steam evaporates. But if you have a sauce that is too thick, covering it with the lid uses the moisture already present in the food, trapping it to create condensation and loosen things up.
