One of the most important things to regard and concern yourself when it comes to cooking is the safety and sanitation. Accordingly, learning this discipline prevents any foodborne illnesses that may put you and your family at risk.

You may have heard some of the elderly tell you that you should reheat tamales before refrigerating or the usual store your mushroom and store peppers, chilli, or even bisquits in a paperbag before refrigerating (check out this Food Storing Guide for Refrigerator Hacks). Apparently, these scenarios are just specific examples of the main principles of food safety.

These are the key principles you should keep in mind:

Knife Skills and Basic Knife Cuts

Knife skills do not necessarily mean the techniques that “those” prominent chefs and cooks utilize on a daily basis. These basic knife cuts are actually the ones that everyone uses on a day-to-day case for a much efficient and convenient food preparation.

As per Cooking NY Times, knowing how to hold a knife properly caters a lot of benefits to your kitchen tasks. Whether you are dealing with pulled pork or beets or even cooked canned corns, when you know how your hands should work when cutting, your cooking sessions will be easy for you.

The first thing you need to understand is your hands. You must determine which hand is your cutting hand and supporting hand. Normally, right-handed people have a right cutting hand and same applies to the left-handed ones. Also, make sure you pick a good chef knife for your small hands or big hands.

Now, the palm of your cutting hand should be placed on the hand chokes up on the handle. Consequently, your thumb and index fingers must hold the top of the blade. As for your supporting hand, the ideal position is known as the bear claw with your fingertips curled on the subject ingredient and your knuckles pressing it down. 

Heat Transfer

The heat application is done in three ways – conduction, convection, and radiation.Conduction is the process of heat being transferred directly to the subjected item. Convection is where the heat is spread by air or liquid. As for radiation, heat is produced when the energy is transferred by the waves to the food. One great example of this is the microwave.

Cooking Methods

There are actually two basic cooking methods in general – moist heat and dry heat. Moist heat is the method wherein the heat is conducted to the food by water. The processes under this method are poach, simmer, boil, blanch, steam, and braise.

On the other hand, dry heat is the method wherein heat is conducted by hot air or metal omitting the moisture in totality. The processes under the dry heat method are roast, bake, smoke, barbeque, broil, and grill.

Read more: 5 Basic Cooking Methods

Measurements

Measurement is very much important and essential in cooking. This is one good reason why measurement conversion is a must-possessed knowledge.

While other may opt to have calculators and conversion tools in their kitchen, it is necessary for you to understand the whole concept of this matter.

For instance, 1 American tablespoon in equivalent to 16 ml while a UK tablespoon is equal to 15 ml. Such conversions are very much useful on a daily basis of cooking activity.

Stocks & Sauces

Prepared stocks and sauces are the very foundation of every cooking session according to the Culinary Cook. It is important for you to note that these all play a huge and essential role as stocks and sauces are the very things that develop the rich flavors.

In actuality, you may have probably done a lot of stocks on a casual basis. When you make a soup or a water-based dish and added it with seasonings and flavors, you have already made a stock. By and large, there are quite a lot of prepared stocks and sauces that you could do.

The very basic and most common of all is the stock produced from any chicken base.

How To Chop

Place the palm of your dominant hand on the hand chokes up on the handle. Remember that your thumb and index fingers must hold the top of the blade to manage and control the slicing and chopping as well as the sharpness and force.

As for the helping hand, position the fingers into a claw-like with your knuckles pushing inner downward the food or ingredient you are about to chop.

Once the food or ingredient is already settled and not sliding, slice it using the knife and start chopping. You may try chopping some steam potatoes for practice purposes.

How To Boil Rice, Egg, Veggies

When you are boiling rice or eggs and veggies, it is important for you to note that cleaning it first with tap water is essential to remove all the dirt and dust. Once done, place the subjected food in clean and fresh water placed on pot.

Note that the subjected food must be immersed fully and wholly in the water. Set the temperature to 100 to 150 degree Celcius as this is the boiling point of water. It would only take a few minutes for the water to boil. When it is already boiling, leave the subjected food for 1 to 3 minutes to be fully cooked.

When cooking rice, you may refer to this page: How to Cook Rice Perfectly by Fine Cooking and if you love to practice now, please watch this video on "How To Cook The Perfect Rice" by Gordon Ramsay. As for when cooking or boiling eggs and vegetables, here is a very efficient site to check: How To Make a Soft-Boiled Egg by The Kitchn. 

How To Cook Perfect Steak

Heat your frying pan to medium to high temperature before you put your steak in it. While waiting for the pan to be fully heated, brush the steak with thin streaks of oil instead of oiling the pan. This will prevent the steak to stick into the pan.

Note that the slices must not exceed 2 to 3 cm of thickness as it is harder to cook thicker slices for it will end up burning outer surface and uncooked inner portions.

Cook the slices of steak for 2 to 3 minutes each side or portion for a rare selection. If opting for a medium rare, cook the slices for 4 minutes on each side or section. As for a well-done classification of steak, make sure to cook each section of each slice for 5 to 6 minutes.

Once done, place the cooked steaks into a plate covered with foil and leave it for 3 to 5 minutes. For further details and other techniques of cooking steaks, you may access this site: "How to Cook Perfect Steak" by Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay's ULTIMATE COOKERY COURSE: How to Cook the Perfect Steak

How To Cook Pasta

The very first step in cooking pasta according to Greatist is to boil mineral or fresh water in a pot. Add a few drops of oil and a few sprinkles of table salt. The oil will prevent the pasta from sticking to the pan and with each other while the salt adds and enhances the flavor.

Once the water is already boiling, add thoroughly the pasta and stir it for a few minutes. Every now and then, check for the pasta whether it is already “well-done” or ready for consumption.

Drain the pasta and add the sauce of your preference.

How To Roast – Stuff

There is a huge difference between roasting and baking as per the Kitchn. Although you could roast anything in the oven likely the same process as to baking, note that the temperature is set to a much higher value when you are to roast food.

Before you set your oven to 400 degree Fahrenheit, make sure that you brush olive oil and other necessary condiments and seasonings to the food you are about to roast. Once done with the seasoning and flavoring, you may now insert the food and set the oven to the recommended temperature.

How To Make Dough

There are quite a lot of ways on how to make dough. Nevertheless, the very first thing you need to do is to combine flour, yeast, salt, and sugar into a large bowl. Stir the mixture until all is well mixed and combined.Now, bring together the mixture into the middle of the bowl using your hands and punch down the center with yout fist. You may add flour and stir again if the mixture is not sticky enough.

As mentioned, there are actually a lot of ways in producing dough. Hence, here are some of the most useful tools and references you could check:

How To Make Sauce

Sauces play a huge role in different dishes and meals. They actually enhance, develop, and bringforth extra taste and flavor to dishes and even to the simplest of all meals. If you are as well looking forward for a paleo diet, learning how to make sauce can be beneficial.

Apparently, it is very much easy to make sauce. While there are quite a lot of sauces to choose from that you could produce in any time of the day or the week, it will be largely dependent on your preferences and food of choice for a certain meal.

Keep in mind that the specific sauce of your choice to make all-inclusively varies on the seasonings, condiments, and prepares stocks you use.

Hence, here are some of the good references you could check in making your own preferred sauce:

As a beginner, one of the most useful tools you could ever utilize when it comes to learning and experiencing cooking is cookbooks. Not only that you could learn different rich and healthy recipes but you could also learn a lot of different techniques and hacks.

For instance, sage substitute tips and Dijon mustard substitutes are actually taught in The Spruce alongside other techniques such as substitutes for tarragon and substitutes for ricotta cheese.

Correspondingly, here are the top 10 best beginner cookbooks that could help you effectively and efficiently in your basic cooking needs:

1. Good and Cheap by Leanne Brown
2. A Modern Way To Cook by Anna Jones
3. The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater
4. The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis
5. Art of the Pie by Kate McDermott
6. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
7. Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi
8. The Forest Feast by Erin Gleeson
9. How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
10. Big Bad Breakfast by John Currence

Gordon Ramsay

His specialty largely focuses on wide range of gourmets

Gordon James Ramsay, OBE is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur, and television personality. Born in Scotland, Ramsay grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon. His restaurants have been awarded 16 Michelin stars in total. (Wikipedia​)

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James Trevor Oliver

He's a british celebrity chef. #1 bestseller cookbook in the UK

James Trevor Oliver, MBE is a British celebrity chef and restaurateur. He is most known for his typically English cuisine that has garnered him numerous television shows and restaurants. (Wikipedia)

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