Meal Prep

Cooking is not about throwing in all of the ingredients together, mixing them and then hoping for a delicious meal to be made out of it. Cooking is an art consisting of various techniques of dealing with food, for instance, cutting, boiling, frying, grilling, etc. Then there are a lot of variables in that, like the order, the timing, and the heating, etc. Once you understand these basic techniques of cooking, you can proceed to other cooking processes.

How to Cut Food?

If you’re doing some serious cutting, use a sharp knife and a cutting board. Hold the knife by the handle near to the blade, lift it and place on the ingredient by pressing it down with your body, and then rock the knife so that the length of the blade slices into the ingredient.

How to Boil?

Boiling is quite a simple process, and all you need to do is add the ingredients into the boiling water pot and let it stay on the flame until cooked. For vegetables or pasta, you can check by taking a sample out if its properly boiled or not.

How to Sauté?

Sautéing is a cooking process for imparting flavor to food which involves cooking food in a pan (preferably non-stick), over high heat and in a thin layer of oil. It is perfect for cooking small chunks of veggies and tender meat. The oil is pre-heated to a high-temperature before adding food. It is important to keep it mixing to ensure that the food cooks evenly.

How to Fry?

It is quite similar to sautéing in this that the food is cooked in a hot pan and oil. However, it differs with respect to the types of food, amount of oil and the various types of frying.

• Deep Frying – food is completely immersed into the hot oil, and it does not need flipping or moving. It is used for cooking French fries, battered foods, fried fish, and donuts, etc.
• Pan frying – similar to sautéing, except that the food chunks are larger (not cut into pieces) in case of pan frying. It is typically used for frying chicken breast, steaks, fillet fish, and pork chops, etc.
• Shallow frying – Same as pan frying, except that the oil layer reaches halfway up the sides of the food. It is used for cooking battered shrimp, fried chicken, and eggplant parmigiana.
• Stir-frying – quite similar to sautéing, except that stir-frying is done in a wok and not a pan.