The 7 Secrets That Will Level Up Your Cooking Game
“No one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.” -Julia Child
Who Am I?
I’m Naresa, a mom of 3 who loves cooking and serving delicious food to my family. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved being in the kitchen, trying new recipes, and waiting for my family’s reaction to my food, haha! Over the last 25 years growing up, I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes and successes.
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How I got here
My passion for cooking is what led me to finally – after much thought – create a blog dedicated to my own recipes. Although this is a new blog, I have learned so much through the years of cooking, and I want to share it all with you! To start, I’ll share a few easy tips that will help take your cooking up a notch.
My Best 7 Tips
Okay, with that out of the way, I’m super excited to share the top 7 secrets I discovered on
my OWN cooking journey. Let’s start with #1
Secret #1: Don’t be shy to season your food.
Although this may seem obvious, many people are afraid of using enough salt in their food. Do not be afraid of salt, and don’t be afraid to season your food. The right amount of salt brings out the beautiful flavours in your food.
Instead of using just salt and pepper to season your food, try using other spices/herbs/liquids to enhance the flavour of your food. If you’re not sure where to start, click here for a helpful guide to get you started!
A simple example is using dill and lemon juice, along with a few other seasonings, to season a fillet of salmon–minimal but really brings out the flavours in this dish!
Tip: experiment with different seasonings to flavour your food.
Secret #2: Keep your knives sharp.
Dull knives need more force to slice through ingredients, which means there’s more of a chance of the knife slipping and slicing a finger.
For the sake of your fingers and for being able to easily slice food, keeping your knives nice and sharp is essential.
It’s really important to learn how to hone and sharpen your knives, in order to keep them in good condition. There are tons of videos that you can watch to learn and practice!
Tip: create a routine/schedule for honing and sharpening your knives to keep them in good shape.
Secret #3: Reserve your pasta water.
You know that pasta water that you drain down the sink? Yes, that one. Well instead of discarding that, reserve about a cup to add to whatever pasta dish you’re making.
The starch from the pasta has now made the water starchy. Once you add the reserved pasta water to your pasta dish while cooking, it helps thicken the sauce and adds to the richness and creaminess. Once the pasta is added in, it helps the sauce stick better to the pasta.
Tip: if you forget to save pasta water, mix together 1/4 tsp corn starch and 1 cup of hot water and add this mixture to your sauce.
Secret #4: Clean as you go!
This secret is pretty simple and straight-forward; clean your counters, wash the dishes, and put away items you’re finished with WHILE you are cooking, as much as possible that is.
This will save you a ton of cleaning at the end of your cooking session, and you won’t feel as overwhelmed.
I’m not saying to wash EVERY dish and clean EVERY counter, sometimes it’s not possible. But, simply doing a few things here and there can save you a lot of time at the end of it all.
Tip: wash a few dishes, here and there, throughout your cooking session so it’s not unmanageable in the end.
Secret #5: Toast spices to bring out flavour.
This secret has to be one of my favourites. I love spices…like really, really love. They just make everything better. However, if you just throw whole spices into whatever you’re cooking, you are missing out on A LOT of flavour.
Take the extra 4-5 minutes to toast your whole spices, then grind them up. Toasting whole spices allows the release of oils, which really enhances the flavour, thus enhancing the flavour of the food. You wont regret it!
Oh, and also, whole spices keep their flavour longer and stronger than ground spices. So that’s another bonus!
There are different ways to toast whole spices: dry toasting on a pan, toasting in oil on a pan, toasting in the oven, etc.
Secret #6: Heat your pan/oil well.
Here’s another important one that many don’t pay much attention to. Your pan should be nice and hot before adding in your fat. Once your oil is nice and hot, it is time to add in your ingredients.
If you add your food to fat that isn’t hot enough, the food will actually soak up a lot of the oil and won’t brown/crisp up as you’d like.
We can compare this to an oven which you’d preheat before baking anything.
Tip: your pan is hot enough when you place a few drops of water on the surface and they roll around in a glob, rather than fizzle.
Secret #7: Make your own stock!
Truthfully, I’ve only made stock a handful of times, but I was so impressed with the results, so I had to include this as a secret.
Not only does this allow you to control and choose what goes in (or doesn’t go in), but it tastes so much more flavourful. Stocks also usually have high sodium content, so you can really control that part when you make it yourself.
Another great thing about this is most likely, it’s really not going to cost anything extra. You might be using vegetables that you already have on hand and maybe leftover bones. Saves money and reduces wastage–win-win!
Tip: use your homemade stock to create other delicious dishes, like chicken noodle soup!
You Can Do This
I really hope you’ve found this helpful and will use some of these tips to level up your cooking game.
Follow along my journey and look out for some mouth-watering recipes coming your way.
See you around!
