I’ve noticed many beginner cooks think they suck at cooking because they make basic mistakes every good cook has made. Here is a brief list of mistakes every good cook has made over their journey.
- You will burn the bottom of a massive pot of chili or stew such that the entire batch tastes like a smoke stack and is completely ruined. You will learn walking away from the stove for a 20+ minutes has consequences, stirring often matters and temperature control (not too high is better than high).
- You will completely f*ck up proteins like fish and meat by overcooking them. You’ll slowly learn the art of temperature control and taking proteins off earlier than you think. You will become less scared of “cooking all the way through” for everything but say chicken and pork.
- You will learn that cooking with cheap ingredients is more fun because the risk is lower. I learned to sauté and fry using potatoes and cheap veg. When you get some feel shrimp and pork tenderloin ect. feels more approachable.
- You will have a whole slew of things stick to the pan and you will realize that you have to heat the pan, then add butter and oil. You will also realize that a decent cast iron or stainless steal taken care of will become your best friend and a totally torched, surface ruined pan is not, especially for eggs.
- You will focus too much on recipes and eventually learn that most recipes are just guides, unless you are baking which is more science.
- You will be hesitant to cook for others but will learn that when you cook a decent meal for someone their opinion of you will slightly improve and that nobody ever said “that *sshole made me dinner.
Ok fellow cooks, let’s all learn from our horrible failures! What is a mistake that you made and what did you learn from it?
PS: If you found this helpful, you may enjoy our online cooking course.
