Save
Cooking is all about trial and error. Professional chefs learn kitchen rules of thumb the hard way: whether being shouted at, burnt, cut or reduced to sweat-drenched wrecks drowning in tickets, they learn never to make the same mistake twice and all that suffering makes them better chefs in the long run, hopefully.
The chefs of Reddit were aksed to share some of the unwritten rules they’ve learnt over years in hot, frenetic kitchens. See their cooking commandments below, which can be applied to both professional and home kitchens:
Chefs share 17 cooking commandments
Monkeysplish
Wear shoes. Dropping a chef knife blade down or a boiling pot of noodles on your bare feet is no good.
Dinosauremergency
Clean up as you go.
Trebuchetfight
Stoves come equipped with low and medium settings for a reason.
Astramancer_
Use weight whenever possible. One cup of flour is not always the same as one cup of flour, but 300g of flour is always 300g of flour.
Sweat_tears_ocean
Seafood. When you think it’s done you overcooked it.
StraightoutaBrompton
Great cooking is a three-legged stool: part quality ingredients, part recipe, part technique. If you can accomplish all three your dish will be successful.
SCVtrpt7
Taste. Your. Food.
AllDirectionBlind
Don't be afraid of fat/sugar/salt, etc. because they're "unhealthy." That's the flavour. Unless you have a dietary restriction, just don't overeat and you'll be fine.
Pistolpeteza
A dull blade is more dangerous than a sharp blade.
12 things amateur cooks get wrong
Izzviogs
Master cooking eggs. If you can master cooking eggs, you can cook anything. They're versatile, complicated, and a great way to practice your technique.
Phillipjeremypatrick
Cooking is 90% prep, 10% execution. By time you're ready to start cooking, pretty much everything should be laid out for you in the order and fashion that you want to use it.
IHaveACatDog
You can always add ingredients, but you can rarely ever take them away.
Grass_type
More cooking etiquette than cooking, but: always trial recipes before cooking them for others. You never know what kinks you'll need to work out.
NurseMiserable
Just add more butter.
Vintner42
Continue to learn; don't be afraid to make a mistake.
Squirrelmonkie
The only thing that should be cooked well done is chicken.
Lefty_Lucy
Never fry naked.
