Novice cooks often encounter some basic questions, such as the first cooking or first stir-fried vegetables, the order of the pot, when is the next dish and other issues, we are here to answer.

Frequently Asked Questions for Novice Cooks

1. Substitution of ingredients: milk is almost the same as cream? No cornstarch with too much white flour instead? Add less flour if you are afraid of gaining weight?

Cooks often consider substituting other ingredients with similar taste or properties for the sake of "slimming" or "low sugar", but usually every ingredient has its own significance in the cuisine, and every recipe is the essence of the chef's careful writing. The most important thing to remember is that you can't be sure that you're going to be able to make the right choice.

2. The recipes seem to be very quick and easy to follow, but why am I still fumbling around and forgetting things?

The recipe explains how to make the food, but it doesn't explain how to prepare the ingredients in advance. Some cooking methods need time to wait, so you can start first, and some ingredients are suitable to be processed before putting them into the pot.

Cooking steps

Here are some simple tips to make your cooking more organized:

1. Cook rice first when you are preparing a home-cooked meal

After cooking, you should smother the rice in an electric pot for a while to make it softer and more flavorful, and it will take you at least half an hour to do the whole process. The first thing you can do is to cook the rice and then prepare the food to avoid the dilemma.

2. Need to cook for a long time first pot

In the case of braised beef brisket, for example, the beef stir-fried to the top of the color, you can and other ingredients together with the stew, after a long time cooking flavor, waiting time to prepare for the next dish, but also to facilitate the last at the same time on the table.

3. The order of the pot has a doorway

Cold dishes produced quickly, and not afraid of cold, you can be the first to prepare, or general home cooking egg and bean dishes, not afraid to run with the time flavor deformation, cold and then heated is relatively unaffected by the taste. Similarly, crispy fried or part of the baked dishes must be eaten while hot to delicious, suitable for cooking at the end of the pot, directly on the table.

4. Continuous cooking in the same pot, heavy flavors last

If there is no confusion between the various types of dishes, conflicting flavors, or sticking to the pot, you can skip the step of washing the pot and then warming it up, and wipe it with a little bit of paper towel before you can use the same pot for continuous cooking. The first thing you need to do is to put the heavier dishes at the end of the process to avoid mixing up the flavors.

5. Prepare your ingredients and tools beforehand

Meat dishes are the worst when you forget to ice the food, and forcing the water to defrost affects the taste of the ingredients and is unhealthy, so you need to allow time to wait. In addition, the oven is almost always necessary for baking, so it's important to preheat the oven, or to pre-process many of the ingredients. For example, the cream needs to be softened at room temperature, the water needs to be soaked in for the giardiniera, and the dough needs to be left to rise, etc. If you want to start cooking, make an inventory of all of your ingredients, and determine what needs to be prepped before you start to cook, so you can use the most efficient method to serve up the good stuff.