How do I become good at cooking?

[Aspiringcook]

I can cook basic stuff but I always find that flavour is a bit meh. Never cook anything mind blowingly tasty. Is there any hope for me or do some people just “have it” and are naturally more skilled?
Any recipe booka to recommend? I particularly like vegetarian recipes although I do occasionally eat meat and fish.
I find that this (as well as living in a small home) sometimes stops me from wanting to host people as I get quite stressed if I have to cook for many.
Would love to improve as I genuinely enjoy food and pottering around the kitchen

I think the main thing is practice practice practice. There was some turning point for me when I used to like cooking and then all of a sudden went from okay to pretty good because I was just learning all the time. In theory depending on your schedule you have several opportunities to practice everyday.

Buy cookbooks, read cookbooks, watch TV cooking shows, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram - just watching people cook over and over you will pick up good technique and methods. Also cook with together with friends that are a really skilled and you will definitely get some good tips.

Then you'll get to a point where you don't need cookbooks as practical crutch and can freestyle and invent things by combining all those little nuggets of knowledge in your brain. (I still buy them and read them because there is an unlimited amount of techniques you can learn and ideas to have)

These are the best general cooking tips that I've learnt and come back to over and over

• Always brown meat in a hot pan before roasting. For example if you were cooking skin on chicken thighs I'd brush them all sides with olive and seasoning then cook in a hot pan. Searing them on both sides for 4-5 minutes without moving around the pan so a nice brown colour appears. That colour is the pure flavour you've just developed. Then just put in a baking dish and roast until cooked in the oven.
• A meat thermometer is your friend esp for steak and fish. You never need to cook it as long as you think so. Look up exact temps and work with them rather than numerical timing. Always insert the thermometer in the thickest part of the protein you are cooking for the most accurate reading.
• Let roasted meat rest in it's juices for 20-30 minutes out of getting out the other. Wrap in foil then wrap the foil in tea towels to keep warm (also makes timing easier for a roast etc!)
• Most sauce based dishes like Bolognese, Stews and particularly curries and daals do not taste good on the day they are made. Always so bland. I would cook these things, decant into some glass tupperwear and let them sit in the fridge for at least 2-3 days - the flavours will develop and that's where you get the rich flavour and taste.
• If you cook asian food a lot - cornstarch is your best friend. When you make sauces mix a cornstarch slurry into it (equal part cornstarch and cold water mixed together). It will thicken the sauce and give you that lovely silky texture you get at a chinese restaurant.
• Again for asian dishes - technique called velveting is amazing. Coat protein like Tofu, chicken, prawns, beef - whatever you are using - in cornstarch. I cut up the meat, say 2 chicken breasts, add to a tupperwear box with 2 tsp of cornstarch, salt, white pepper, chinese 5 spice. Close the lid and shake to coat. Fry on a hot wok or pan.
• If using tomato puree in a dish always make sure to fry with your aromatics (onion, garlic) at the start of a dish rather than just squeezing it directly into a sauce. The taste is raw and sharp if you miss this step so it adds depth and flavour and it also helps break down the paste and release the flavour and antioxidants.

Kitchen Sanctuary recipes are good. To be good at cooking - get a weighing scale, measuring spoons 2 tablespoons down to 1/8th teaspoon and a timer and use them. Also follow recipes to the letter until you know what you are doing however I still follow recipes with no shortcuts and no-one has died - yet 😂

Agreed re the Spicery link. Just add loads more salt and bouillon powder.

also don’t keep making new recipes. Just make the ones you like as many times as you can bear so you get better each time.

a one pot helps as you can ‘slow cook’ quickly .

Experiment, plain and simple

I would add, eat around widely-other cuisines, friends who can cook, good restaurants. The more experience of food you have, the more you learn what you like & what you don’t. Good quality ingredients really help but are not essential as you get more skilled. Cooking classes and courses are great too as you can usually taste as you go along. Suggest people get them as presents for you.
another suggestion is to take one ingredient like say, tamarind, and see what you can do with it ( or anchovies, or Parmesan, or shallots etc etc)Some food writers suggest eg an Italian week or a Korean week , where you buy all the ingredients and try out lots of different dishes within the same tradition. Ultimately though, good food is good food! Don’t turn into one of those who thinks food is just fuel.

If you like Italian food, find copies of Marcella Hazan's books. Most of the recipes are straightforward plus it's basically a peasant cuisine so requires relatively few tools and inexpensive ingredients which makes it a good starting point for inexperienced cooks.

I would second several of the food writers mentioned earlier especially Diana Henry and St Delia. The Reader's Digest Cookery Year is a great compendium of useful information and techniques. Nigel Slater is good to read as well as cook, and Niki Segnit's Flavour Thesaurus and Lateral Cooking are both interesting explorations into which flavour combinations succeed, and how techniques can be built into layers. If you have an Oxfam bookshop locally, keep an eye on the cookbook section. I often find something new for me or foodie DS and we take them back if they fail to deliver.

If you’re going to compare your results to restaurants and takeaways you might end up always feeling that you’re falling short, as at home there’s a lot of steps you’ll be skipping and generally end up with healthier food as well.

If your issue is feeling “meh” about it, maybe focus on expanding your seasoning options?

I would also have a bit of a browse and then pick a channel/ig/etc that actually appeals to you in the sense that you see yourself realistically cooking that way. A lot of content is so elaborate that most of us won’t actually feel like reproducing it in our own kitchens, and sometimes it’s simply not as appetising as it looks.

I feel the same, raised a family but never been able to call myself a good cook
The thing would absolutely love most would be to make a good curry sauce .. that I could then adapt to meat veggies or lentils .. not too spicy but flavourful , have tried many recipes and they are just never ever as good as I’ve tasted before .

I did a curry course at one of the UK's top cooking schools, and what I learned that weekend is to cook longer and slower. You start with several onions, not one, You let them go transparent and golden slowly, probably taking 45 minutes to get there. Then you saute the spices you're using over a bit more heat. Then add the tinned tomatoes and raw meat. And then you ignore it for an hour or two, but you push it around to stop it sticking and burning. That's all you need to do. When you want to eat it, you add the live ingredients that freshen it. It's mostly frozen spinach for me, plus fresh coriander leaves and stalks, maybe mint. I do usually finish my curries with a blast of garam masala, and I have two versions, one from the supermarket and one I assemble at home in batches from Madhur Jeffry. Dan Toombs The Curry Guy cookbook is great advice for authentic tasting curry spice mix recipes.

I was given a cookery course for my 50th birthday with Atul Kochar. He has a book of “simple” Indian cooking (30 minute curries) which basically involves you preparing and freezing a number of bases and pastes. When you come to do the recipes you add ice cube blocks of these and they provide an amazing depth and quality of flavour.
It’s something to do on a rainy Sunday when there’s nothing else going on, as that part of the process takes quite a while. If you can be bothered to do this, it’s really worth it as the curries are delicious and not as hit and miss as bbc etc

Madhur jaffrey, old school, but brilliant recipes I had a VHS of her series, maybe there's something of hers on you tube, try a Gousto sub for a bit, they are great for introducing you to new ingredients and step by step cooking.

I was about to say this too. Fantastic recipes, fully tested – you can't fail to rustle up a great dinner with Nagi Maehashi / recipetin eats. She has also published a couple of books, if you prefer doing it that way.

Another recommendation is Felicity Cloake's 'how to cook the perfect' series in the Guardian, which you can find online (and also I think in books).

Seasoning - salt and pepper yes but also spices and aromatics to suit your taste buds

I also agree with time - rushing or not giving enough time to cook out the flavours as well

quality of ingredients - I can still remember meals poor quality chicken has ruined!

decent cookware

figuring out what works for you/your family. Recipes are personal - take lasagna so many different ways to make it

I would disagree with the pp who says never compare your cooking to a chef. That has to be your start point. Chefs use every trick to make food delicious, mostly a lot of fat and salt which isn't healthy as we all understand. You can if you think about it, and you have time (YOU MAY NOT) but you can always produce healthy non UPF meals for your family, IF you have time. If you don't have time then I think the best option is to buy a slow cooker, put in your protein, an onion chopped, a chopped carrot or two, and a chopped stick of celery or three, may be some garlic and some liquid, ideally a flavoursome liquid but water will do, and turn it on to cook for 8 hours so it is ready when you come home to eat. Taste it then, add salt first, taste again, season again. Thicken the gravy if needed with a cornflower slurry, or a beurre manie (butter mashed into flour to a smooth paste, which doesn't go lumpy).

Try gousto for a few weeks, recipes straightforward but tasty and you’ll end up feeling like a pro. It’s really good for finding recipes from different cuisines. Here’s a discount 65% off your first box, then 25% off all other boxes in your first two months: RACHE42058946
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I’m quite a decent cook, but SPICERY is amazing! I use a spice pack each weekend, have done for years, and always get compliments.

@Hobnobswantshernameback
Not what was mentioned in the thread but i make a nice vege curry. I don't use a recipe and I use a lot of different spices, and go easy on ones I'm not keen on (I find cloves and cumin overpowering). Recipes usually only use a few spices.

The onions need to be cooked slowly, then I add the spices, which I've ground, then garlic, ginger and chilli, then mushrooms, then tomatoes. I sometimes cheat and add curry sauce too, because I usually make a huge batch.
The veg was boiled separately, and the drained veg are added last and mixed in and cooked gently for a bit.

If you google the curry secret pdf it should be the first result a book by Kris Dhillon

It won't let me link it as when you click its a pdf but honestly the curry base sauce is amazing

My husband is Indian (I’m not) and basically the Good Food and other British recipe places under-measure the spices. I also find the origin of the spices make a difference. The spices I buy from Asian stores or brands (from Amazon) tend to have more of an omph that the ones from Tesco. Other than that agree with everything everyone has said, trial and error and ingredients and then a bit of alchemy - so learning tricks like a dash of sugar to your tinned tomatoes for Italian dishes, lemon and oregano a plenty for Greek and bolognese is raised by a dash of balsamic vinegar, chili con carne by a square of dark chocolate. What I struggle with still is keeping to the cooking times for meat and fish and my largest fault is therefore overcooking. I’m working on that.

My husband was not a cook. All fell to me. When I was incapacitated for a bit I ordered Hello Fresh/Gousto so the kids didn’t have spaghetti bolognese every night. It really transformed his attitude to cooking and gave him confidence. You wouldn’t want it long term but it’s an easy foolproof way to start. He now cooks almost everything (except roast dinner) in our house.

I just search youtube for recipes every time I have to make a big meal or bring a dish to a potluck. You can't go wrong with youtube!

good fresh ingredients! i have been cooking for myself since i left home at 16, i now cook daily for a family of 7 and honestly i don’t really bother with herbs and spices much, just let the food speak for itself, i like my roast potatoes to taste like potatoes not garlic/ rosemary etc but thats just my preference, but i do add some bits here n there for example when i make a cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese i will add half a teaspoon of mustard or a dab of tomato purée in a cottage pie just to elevate it a bit but otherwise just simple good fresh ingredients xx

Agree about Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Bible - made the grape chutney tonight. But, recently, have been making loads from the Mowgli cookbook. Easy to follow and all have been tasty. Dishoom's biryani is foolproof as well and tastes fabulous.

Read SALT, FAT, ACID, HEAT. It teaches you WHY things are done during cooking like adding salt to pasta water or caramelising onions first - the scientific reasoning behind flavour can make you a better cook.

Get a good cook book and follow the recipe to the letter.