My Cooking Process
Like I say on my home page, I genuinely love cooking and look forward to it each night. A large contributor to my love of cooking after a long day at work is the process by which I choose what and how to go about making food.
First, I have a huge repertoire of recipes to choose from as inspiration and starting points. The internet is a vast and wonderful resource (I rely on Cooking Light [RIP], Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, and Food52 often), but good old-fashioned cookbooks are comforting and reliable. Honestly, I often choose what to cook based on pictures rather than words- if the image reflects a variety of colors, textures, and flavors, I’m more likely to use that as inspiration. This is also why I think the presentation of the food makes a huge difference to people’s willingness to try things.
Some people are overwhelmed by the number of recipes online, so it might be best to choose just 5 to 10 dishes that you find truly appealing and would like to master. With time, you’ll realize that the skills you need to cook those dishes translate in to most other things you attempt, and the online food world gets a lot smaller.
I usually plan out a weeks’ meals at once so I can use and re-use ingredients in various places, but that took a long time to master that process. More on that in the future!
Once I’ve chosen a recipe or idea, I read and re-read and re-read the ingredients and process to get an idea of what’s going to happen.
Sometimes I’ll even write it down in my own shorthand– one or two words per step. That way I know what is coming, when I’ll have down time, what I need to pay attention to carefully, and where I can wing-it. If you don’t have to keep checking a recipe while you’re cooking, everything goes a lot more smoothly. This is especially important if you are cooking multiple items (i.e. chicken, rice, and broccoli) so you know when to start each one so they are all hot and ready to eat at the same time.
Then I start boiling water and/or preheating the oven as needed, since these tend to take a long time. A benefit of reading tons of recipes over and over is that you realize before you need boiling water to start boiling it, rather than right when you’re ready to drop pasta in- many recipes forget to tell you to do this ahead of time.
In the vein of mise-en-place (touted everywhere as the key to cooking well), I gather all the ingredients I will be using- that way I can see if I’m missing anything, or if I have something extra to use up, and adapt before I begin. I actually try to check the day before so I can think about how to improvise during the day!
If there are large gaps in the cooking process (roasting time for large pieces of meat, resting time for doughs, etc.), which I’d know from my prep mentioned above, I’ll gather the things I need in the near future first, and get the rest out closer to when I need them.
I differ from traditional mise-en-place in that I do not wash/chop/prep everything ahead. Because I know what steps I’m taking next, I can use inactive time while things are cooking to do things like chop the next vegetable, combine spices, or make a dressing. As a beginning cook this may be tricky since you might not have an idea of how long it takes to, say, dice an onion, but I promise you’ll get there eventually! Ultimately, this saves lots of time and, more importantly, prevents me from getting bored (i.e. feel like I’m wasting time) while something is heating up.
At this time, I also take out all the kitchen equipment I’ll need- cutting boards, pots and pans, etc.- or make sure it’s in easy reach. If it’s a quick prep dish, I’ll also get out plates and utensils for serving, but usually that can be done later.
While I’m actually cooking, I like to “stack” jobs that can be done simultaneously cutting vegetables while oil heats up, microwaving butter while I mince garlic, doing the dishes while meat rests. I even try to clean and cut all my vegetables and move them to the pan/plate before moving on to the raw meat so I don’t have to worry as much about cross-contamination.
I’m not a fan of down time- though at first you may feel frantic with the constant motion, down time is what often makes cooking feel like a drag. Fun music and a good game plan help with this! Also, staying efficient means you get in and out of the kitchen quicker. However, try not to cram too much into a short period of time (i.e. don’t chop all your vegetables for a dish while garlic is browning, because you’ll end up with way-past-brown garlic), because then things spiral out of control, which is thrilling but not in a good away.
Maybe most importantly– TASTE your food as you go (assuming it’s not raw meat). Remember, recipes are based off of what someone else liked, and they don’t know how your tongue works.
One final tip- Julia Child always told cooks not to name their dish until it was completed. That way if your chocolate souffle comes out looking more like a brownie, no one will be the wiser.