What cooking knowledge is essential before learning to cook? I guarantee you won’t regret it after reading it. I cook a lot at home recently, so I know a little bit about it. It only involves family common sense and does not talk about professional cooking skills. Say as much as you think of, and I'll make up for the rest later.
Cut pork: The cutting method of pork shreds is opposite to that of beef, because the meat of pork is delicate and has few tendons. If it is cut crosswise, it will become messy and shredded after frying, and it will not be shredded pork. Therefore, the pork should be cut diagonally so that it won’t bite your teeth and won’t fall apart. Cutting beef: Beef has a lot of tendons, and they are mixed along the meat fiber lines. If you don't carefully observe the cuts, many tendons will remain intact in the shredded meat. Vegetables fried with such shredded meat will be difficult to chew and look "old", so the shredded beef should be cut crosswise.
When blanching vegetables, add some salt and oil to the water to make the color of the vegetables more vivid and maintain the nutrition of the vegetables.
Knowledge of seasonings, generally speaking: salt, soy sauce, light soy sauce, chicken essence, steamed fish soy sauce, sugar, oil consumption, etc. If you want to learn to cook well, you must also know the seasonings. You must have a certain understanding of taste, otherwise if you fry vegetables and add soy sauce, oil-consuming condiments, etc., the food you make will definitely not taste good!
Try to buy as few semi-finished ingredients as possible. Most of the semi-finished dishes in supermarkets and vegetable markets contain a lot of soda powder, meat tenderizer, MSG and salt. Firstly, they are not delicious, secondly, unhealthy and thirdly, uneconomical.
Chopping boards must be divided into raw and cooked foods, otherwise there will be a risk of bacterial cross-infection. If possible, it is best to separate meat, fish, vegetables, and cooked foods.
The oil temperature should not be too high when cooking. 80% heat is best. Because when the oil temperature reaches above 200°C, a harmful gas called "acrolein" will be produced, which is the main component of oil smoke. It will also cause the oil to produce a large amount of peroxides that are easily carcinogenic. Don't rush to wash the pot after cooking. Let it cool for a while before washing. Otherwise, if the hot pot suddenly encounters cold, the non-stick coating will soon be damaged.
Before putting the tofu in the pot, soak it in boiling water for more than 10 minutes to remove the brine smell. The tofu made in this way has a good texture and is delicious and sweet.
Brown sugar stored for a long time will harden and form lumps. Don’t worry. Sprinkle some water on it, cover it with a wet paper towel, and microwave it for 30 seconds. It will soften.
Put the pork on the chopping board, cut the meat at an angle of 45 degrees, be careful not to cut the meat, then turn it over and cut again at an angle. After cutting the front and back at 45 degrees, then cut the knife straight at 90 degrees and cut both sides. This cutting method allows you to chop the pork without any effort and cut it directly into mince.
When making soup, if you mainly eat meat, add boiling water to make the meat more tender. If you mainly drink soup, add cold water so that the soup is more flavorful (but don't add water halfway through).
When frying vegetables, you must order boiling water. If the water is cold, the color of the vegetables will turn black and it will not look good.