You can read recipes, but until you have some essential cooking skills, you won’t feel confident in trying them. In today’s video, Gordon Ramsey will teach you the five essential cooking skill you need in the kitchen.
- Chopping an onion
- Cooking rice
- Sharpening a knife
- Deboning a fish
- Cooking pasta
Chopping An Onion
I confess to being lazy. I buy frozen pre-chopped onion. Since i’m only cooking for two, I don’t need a whole medium onion because I’m halving the recipe. Most markets have diced onion in their produce department. I don’t use it up quickly enough unless I have three dishes in a row that require it. I will buy an onion and cut it in half like he showed with the root on. Then I take the skin off, and slice along the onion to create the strips.
My favorite thing to do with them is cook them with a bit of olive oil on medium low heat until they’re brown and caramelized. They go great with burgers.
Cooking Rice
I confess to rarely rinsing my rise. And I should because when I don’t, the rice is a bit more gummy. I cook in my Instant Pot. One thing to pass along is that their rice setting is the lower pressure setting. You can cook on high pressure, but you have to make sure you use a shorter time.
The Instant Pot is also my favorite way of making risotto.
Sharpening a Knife
Gordon is actually demonstrating honing the knife, not sharpening it. Honing is essential to keep the point of the blade straight. But sharpening is actually grinding it to a finer point. You should hone your knife frequently with the steel. And you should get your knives professionally sharpened regularly depending upon how often you use them. As Gordon said, a dull knife is dangerous. It could slip on the food and cut you.
Deboning a Fish
Watching him do this was cool. You definitely need to set aside time to debone with a pair of tweezers. I like having the skin on, but it is easier to pull out the pinbones from that side. Or you can cheat, like I do, and buy the fish already deboned.
Cooking Pasta
I was really happy when I learned to salt the water when cooking pasta. It really provides it with a better flavor. I don’t put oil in anymore. I never have problems with pasta sticking after it’s been sauced. And I’d rather use my oil on other things for my calories.
And I definitely prefer my pasta al dente. I’ll sometimes slightly undercook it, sauce it, and leave it in the pan on the stove so the sauce gets absorbed into the pasta.
What other skills do you want to learn?
