Can you give me your basic cooking tips?

[Cloud44]

Early 40s and I’m embarrassed about how rubbish I am in the kitchen to be honest. This year I really want to eat healthier and cook meals from scratch more.
Can you tell me your favourite most basic recipes to help me get started? Meals that take less than 30 minutes after a day at work?

A bag of frozen casserole veg, some bacon offcuts, half a bag of mixed red lentils and split peas and a stock cube. cover with water and pressure cook for 30 minutes. Blitz and you have the best bacon and lentil soup ever. Leo's for a few fats in the fridge and freezes really well.

Cook spaghetti, fry bacon in garlic , whisk eggs and finely grated Parmesan and then add the soaking to the bacon in the pan. Pour on the egg cheese mix and stir briskly. Add black proper to taste. Sometimes I add garden peas or broccoli for colour and to increase veg intake. You could also add mushrooms/peppers/spinach

It's buttery and marmitey. Honestly it's delicious. Sometimes I make double so I can snack later 😳 if you like marmite you won't be disappointed.

If you're making soups or sauces, look up Yondu Vegetable Umami, it's magic stuff. Basically, as it says, it adds "umami" to everything - best described as "savouriness".

Just add a splash of that to any sauce or soup (although not fruity soups, like tomato), and it'll instantly improve it but you won't be able to say exactly why.

Also, generally speaking, butter is a better thickener for sauces than cornflour because it doesn't dilute the flavour (although obviously not if you're on any kind of controlled diet).

I tend to gravitate towards the oriental methods of seasoning - soy sauce instead of salt, honey instead of sugar etc. I can't really put my finger on why, but it always has tastier results for me even if I'm not cooking something specifically oriental.

Thsnk you @sashh and@TinPotAlley these are really helpful tips

I used to be a disaster in the kitchen - zero knowledge, confidence or ability in the kitchen. So these tips are from the perspective of someone who knows how intimidating the idea of cooking can be.

30-minute meals are mostly lies. If you're not an experienced cook you won't be doing the processes at top speed. And a lot of them are just taglines to sell a book, and conveniently omit time-consuming preparation like chopping a million vegetables. There's often hidden work in the ingredients list ("two onions, finely chopped") as well as the actual recipe.

Prepare everything beforehand. Start thinking about what you're going to cook in advance and leave yourself enough time to get the ingredients at your leisure rather than rushing out at the last minute. Before you start cooking, get all the pots, bowls and implements you're going to use out and clear enough space so you can use them properly. Then you can follow the recipe smoothly and avoid hurdles like "oh shit I don't have a pot big enough, wtf will I do".

Know your limits. Different people have different weaknesses in the kitchen. For me it's embarrassingly basic - I can't chop. No knife skills and I like having all my fingers. So any recipe that requires finely chopped ingredients is out. I choose recipes where I can get away with roughly hacked onions (which is actually most of them).

Cook with someone who's good at it, if you can. I've essentially become an adequate cook through hanging out with DP in the kitchen, doing things like weighing and washing up but also picking up his techniques and knowhow.

The more you cook the more you'll develop your own knowhow - once you've done a recipe a couple of times it's surprising how quickly you feel you can own it and tweak it.

For a cookbook that's both brilliantly written, easy to use and follow for those on a budget or with limited equipment, and full of varied recipes that are both interesting and without exception delicious, I can't recommend Ruby Tandoh's Flavour highly enough.

@Raincloudsonasunnyday

You’re in your 40s, and you’re asking MN for recipes for 30-min meals because you don’t know how to cook?
Make an omelette. Fry a piece of salmon and steam some broccoli. I mean, what do you want to know that you can’t google?

🙄 There's always one.
You know how the internet works right, and chat forums like MN? People like to ask for tried and tested recipes, get other people's opinions.
Sometimes you don't want to "just Google."

OP, this pasta is really easy and quick to make and yum - one of my favourites
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/111840/bacon-and-parmesan-penne-pasta/

you mentioned mastering some basics, like making an onion taste good.
Can you, or others suggest more basic skills to master and how?

I think that's a great idea.

A couple of others from me:

*Keep a bag of vegetable off-cuts in the freezer - carrot ends, onions, the root bit of celery, leek green bits etc - then when you've got a few bits, throw them into a pan of boiling water and simmer for an hour, or turn the heat off if you're conserving energy. Add herbs/peppercorns if you have them.

Strain into a clean jar and use your vegetable stock for pasta, rice dishes,

stews, soups etc. instead of water. You'll instantly add flavour and nutrition.

*Always throw the rind from parmesan into ragu/bolognese - it adds savoury depth and makes a brilliant cook's perk.

*Most dishes need a bit of acidity for balance. A squeeze of lemon or a sprinkle of vinegar really 'pulls the room together' and unites flavours, and just brings things alive.

I have a lot of student cookbooks I bought in later life and keep meaning to finally start on.

I did do a salmon out of a Pioneer Woman cookbook, it was with soy sauce and lime rice and was really nice. In the 30 min section there were a lot of wraps though.

30-minute meals are mostly lies. If you're not an experienced cook you won't be doing the processes at top speed.

Mine don't take long at all as they tend to involve a tin of pulses and stuff that just needs heating through really.

I have a book called something like 3 and 4 ingredient recipes. Another called 100 one pot dishes. Among others.

But these are the easiest recipes you can follow. If you dont like a thing in the recipe, swap it out for something similar. Eg I dont much eat pork but happy to swap for chicken thighs or beef sausages.

If I like a dish I make it a few times, then experiment a little. If I dont like it, I've lost 3 or 4 ingredients or one pan of food. Also if you like slow cooked food there are thousands of recipes online, on youtube, on pinterest etc.

Another way is Google the stuff you have in your fridge and cupboard
Like salmon, green lentils, onions. And almost always something will pop up with those ingredients. Or if it's close to some known recipe itll pop up and you might need to get some extra ingredient. Which you can always choose to not get if its esoteric or expensive.

BBC good food comes up a lot when I Google what I have in my cupboard. But other sites are available.

@whoami24601 try breadcrumbs (pre made paxo is fine) - game changer

Forgot, heres my quickest meal ever.
https://www.recipetineats.com/chorizo-chickpea-stew/

Can be broken down to three ingredients, chorizo, tin of tomatoes and tin of drained chickpeas. Anything else like garlic, paprika, harissa paste, parsley are optional.
You can take an hour to make this, by simmering, or if your ingredients are quality, 6 minutes.
it tastes better simmered a while, but its perfectly edible without.

Chop okra and fry in olive oil. Until not sticky set aside. Chopped onions and meat of choice smallish. Lightly brown in pressure cooker with a little oil. Add the okra, tomato puree, water, tinned chickpeas, salt, pepper, chilli flakes, veg stock cube, garlic and a dash of lemon. Cook for about 40 minutes until meat cooked ( 20 if chicken) should be like a soup/stew consistency. Serve with rice.

Rice. Cook a handful of rice in oil to brown them. Add more rice and salt and stir. Add cold water to cover and half a thumb soce of water above rice level. Cover and cook. When it starts to boil, turn to low and keep covered until water evaporated. Turn off sit to rest for 10 minutes and then fluff and serve.

A top tip, is to always use lids when cooking on the stove with pans, and hit a point where you have a simmer. No ridiculous clouds of steam leading to condensation and stinky houses. Also when boiling, you don't need to cover the food completely, have the waterline under the food a bit. Don't waste energy cooking water. For rice and grains, add water until it is about a fingernails worth over the rice. Bring to the boil with lid, then turn down to the gentlest simmer. With much white and light rice you can turn off and leave it at that point for another 10 or so minutes to finish cooking without lifting the lid. If whole grain, bring to the boil, then turn down to a very gentle simmer and watch for the point there is no (or very little) steam leaving the lid, and turn off. I don't really get why people bother with rice cookers or buy pre-cooked rice, because it seems to me the easiest thing in the world to cook. There might be better guides with volume ratios, but when you get into a groove it's very simple.

Another tip for more or less everything you cook: use flaky sea salt and whole peppercorns in a grinder. Both enhance the flavour of food profoundly.

'Maldon sea salt' is a middle class cliche, but honestly, it's excellent. Freshly ground pepper is a gamechanger. Buy both in quantity (Ocado do a bucket of MSS for about a fiver) - it's the easiest tweak with most reward.

I was going to suggest this too. The recipes tend to be things with solid, recognisable ingredients rather than quail's liver and pomegranate in saffron or something that you'll buy once for one recipe and never use again!

The way to cook good food is to follow recipes every single time and not try to cook from memory! Perfection takes effort but then it is perfect. I like Jamie Olivers chicken and chorizo paella and Nigella Lawsons Chicken and chorizo bake. Both super easy and very tasty.

Get a chopper if you don’t own one

I use mine all the time for onions. Will put oil on to heat and get started on removing papery onion sheath, cutting onion in half then each half in thirds, into chopper and blitz for about 10 secs.
Oil will be hot in this time, just tip the onions in. Game changer - I used to wear swimming googles to chop onions to avoid streaming tears 😭

This is the one I own
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/review/vonshef-mini-chopper

Also use it to mix flour and butter for short crust pastry - another game changer to get that coarse sand texture without using hands to rub the flour/butter since the cooler the pastry is kept the better. Literally blitz them in seconds.

Always taste everything you cook, a bit of extra seasoning makes a world of difference. Mary Berry mediteranian chicken tray bake is delicious, a bit more than half an hour so a good one for weekends

@Arwe thank you! This is exactly the stuff I don't know, but can add to what I do.

Couple more; Frozen chopped onion should be your best friend and a whole chicken that comes in a cooking bag. Both game changers

Mostly placemarking but I also learned what feels like a vast amount from a few weeks of hello fresh. And I was quite confident cooking before they. Even just lightly frying the garlic then tipping in a drop of water then a stuck cube before it burns and this is the base of all the pasta sauces so then you add cream or tomatoes or whatever. Lightbulb moment really.
The dishes the dds liked most is pasta with cream and spinach and pesto and the stove top macaroni cheese which are very basic level cooking but so lovely to eat.

I've also learnt to make a coconut dal which dp thinks is incredible anc again is very easy.

I've learnt to make chips in the oven with just sliced up potatoes which I was surprised how much the dds like them so I shan't bother with oven chips again!

My best ever tip is a drop of vinegar in the water when you poach an egg. I just don't think it's possible without it!!

Easy pasta

Dried pasta
Boiling water
Cream cheese

Boil the pasta for about 10 mins. Turn off the heat but leave the pasta in the water.

Heat a frying pan and dollop some cream cheese in and heat. You want about 2 desert spoons per serving.

Add a spoonful of the water you are cooking the pasta in.

Drain the pasta and add it to the frying pan to coat the pasta.

OK so that is the very basic recipe, next time you might fry some mushrooms before putting the cream cheese in the pan, you might add some seasoning or herbs, you might finish it with some grated parmesan.

Tonight's meal wasn't fancy, but it tasted good and was relatively quick and hassle free.

I cut 1 potato per person into chips, removing the skin, although sometimes I'll leave it on. . I sliced a red pepper into strips and I then seasoned them all in salt and pepper and added them to a tray of hot oil along with some cloves of garlic. Roasted at 180°C until golden around 40 mins. Served with a fried egg. No hassle and not much washing up.

I just batch cooked soup. Tons of veg boiled in stock for 20mins, I added borlotti beans for protein, liquidised with a stick blender. Et voila.

What does a drop of vinegar do when poaching an egg? I've always boiled water, swirled it with a fork and cooked for exactly 2 mins 15 secs and it's usually ok. Wondering if vinegar will improve it further.