Learning to cook starts slowly, and then you gain momentum as you get better at the basic tasks, at multitasking, and you grow in confidence and experience. Then your knowledge and skill just increases exponentially. I think it’s great for kids to learn to cook before they leave home. I couldn’t cook very much at all at the beginning, and we mainly ate either frozen meals made for us by my mom, or pre-packaged meals from the supermarket with a few homemade things in the middle there. I felt very intimidated by cooking and by big chunks of meat; I wouldn’t know what to do with those. I was intimidated by cooking in the oven. These days we have so many amazing tools, many more than we had then, and it’s so great to know how to use those.
I think that for somebody starting out cooking, who’s going to be leaving home to start out on their own, or who are getting married, both ladies and gents, I think it’s so important to learn how to cook. I’m going to talk about in a couple of different episodes how to get started with learning to cook. We’re going to talk about what exactly are good things to learn first. To start with, learn some mains, sides, and sauces, or just a simple meal consisting of a main and a side and maybe a sauce to add interest.
Once you get the basics down, then you can start to use those in different ways to mix and match. Then you start to grow exponentially in your cooking skills. Let’s talk about what are good things to start with when you’re learning to cook.
One of the most useful things to learn to cook, I think, is chicken breasts. You can easily buy a pack of four chicken breasts at the supermarket, and then cook them in the oven or on the stove top. Let’s say you were going to cook the chicken breasts in the oven. The easiest and simplest way to do this is to put them in a casserole dish or a glass dish that is oven safe. You simply put the chicken breasts in. They should be spaced out a little bit, and have a little space around them so that they cook well and evenly, and the air can circulate.
Then you can put either a little bit of olive oil or a little bit of butter on each chicken breast. And then season them. You’ve always got to season. The more you season, the better. Obviously, you could overdo it, but it’s unlikely. I like to add lots of salt – we just add it to the top, you don’t need to flip the chicken breasts. We add a little bit of pepper, not too much. Add some herbs, if you like Italian herbs or Greek herbs, use them. We like to add oregano or thyme. Then you can add some smoked paprika, some onion powder, and any kind of spices that you enjoy. Perhaps you can use a little bit of chili powder, but go slow with that.
Then you put the oven on to 350 Fahrenheit, which is 180 Celsius, and you cook them for 20 to 25 minutes. You need to take them out and test if they’re ready by cutting them in half and looking. They need to be well cooked, but they still need to be tender, not overly dry or overdone. Then what I like to do once I take them out is to kind of mix them with the juices. The juices will be all around them from the oil and the chicken, so you can just gently use a spoon to pour that over the chicken breasts, or just mix them around with a spoon and they’ll be immersed in the liquid. This helps them to be nice and moist when you eat them.
Then you can either fridge them or serve them. These are so versatile. You can shred them a little bit and put them on top of a potato. You can slice them and put a sauce on. You can cut them up and use them in a chicken stir fry. You can just keep them whole and eat them however you like. These are great.
To cook them on the stovetop, it’s often best to cut them up, otherwise the middle won’t cook so well, and they’ll dry out on the outside. You can cut them up into cubes or slices. Then you put a little bit of coconut oil, as I like to use, or a bit of tallow – something in the pan to stop it from sticking. Then you put in the pieces of chicken.
You need to season them pretty soon, so you should add salt and pepper as soon as you put them in, and then start to toss them. You can add similar spices to the others, like smoked paprika and onion powder, but don’t add those too early, because they can burn in a pan. It’s best to start with just the salt and pepper, then cook them for a while, and then add the other spices like the onion powder and paprika, and things like thyme. Herbs as well do best a little bit later in the cooking process.
Alternatively, you can add something like soy sauce or tamari to give it an asian flavor, and add a little bit of honey – that always tastes good. You can add sesame seeds to it. A good sesame seed chicken is usually seasoned with a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of honey, and the sesame seeds. Sesame seeds you add near the end so they don’t burn but they roast a little bit.
If you want a barbecue flavor, then after you’ve added your seasonings you can add some tomato paste and a little bit of honey, and that gives you a nice barbecue flavor. Just go slow with the honey. If you’d rather mix up the sauce before adding it, you can whisk it in a bowl. Add about a tablespoon of honey, and two tablespoons of tomato paste, or even tomato puree. A tiny little cap full of balsamic vinegar or apple cider vinegar also adds flavor to that. You can test and try things. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little bit, especially as you start to get experience and see what flavors you enjoy.
The other thing that’s easy is some bolognese or ground beef. You can combine ground pork and ground beef, or you can just have ground beef. You probably don’t want to use the extra lean, because when there’s less fat, it’s not as tasty. The lean is good because then there’s not too much fat, but there is a little bit. First, you want to put that into your pot, and add a little bit of coconut oil, and stir it around a little bit as it browns to break up the lumps.
You’re going to start to season it while you’re doing that, so add salt and pepper, quite a bit. And then as soon as it’s getting done, you can add more seasonings like herbs again, and onion powder. Then you want to add some tomato paste and some tomato puree, perhaps a tin of tomato and onion. What you can also do is chop up an onion and brown that in the pan before you add the ground beef to it, so that you get the good onion flavor as well. Then you can add garlic, and as soon as it’s cooked, start tasting it to see what you think. It’s really important to taste your food because then you can adjust the seasonings to how you like it, and you get used to seeing what it needs to complete the dish. I find adding some fresh basil leaves near the end adds such great flavor, and makes it a good bolognese.
Now you have your bolognese sauce with ground beef, and you have your cooked chicken. From these, you can do so much.
By the way, if you don’t want to start with chicken breasts, buy a rotisserie chicken, and then just pull the meat off it yourself. You can use that in a similar way in lots of things like stir fry. Now you have your mains and you can start to think about sides and sauces.
The obvious things are sides of potato, like baked potato and roast potatoes, rice, noodles, and spaghetti or other pasta. When you’re learning to cook, start with one of those. I think that baked potatoes are probably the easiest. All you need to do is put washed potatoes with the skins on onto a baking tray, add a little bit of olive oil or butter on top, and lots of salt. Then you just put them in the oven at 400 Fahrenheit, 200 Celsius, and you bake them for about an hour to an hour and a half, depending on the size of the potatoes. It’s good to have evenly sized potatoes so that they cook at more or less the same time. Then you just take them out. They’ll be crispy and delicious. You can store them in the fridge. I wouldn’t put potatoes into the freezer once they’re cooked because they become quite watery, but the fridge works fine.
Now you’ve got your chicken, or your minced bolognese, and you’ve got your potatoes. Something else that’s great to do with your baked potatoes is when you take them out of the oven, grab a potato masher, and gently squish each potato until the skin has popped open and it’s squished down a bit. These are called crashed or smashed potatoes. Then add a bit of salt, a little bit of oregano, and some parmesan cheese, and pop them back in the oven for a few minutes to crisp up. Those are really great to have with mince instead of your baked potato.
Or, let’s say you want to do pasta. Let’s start with something easy like penne, the tubes of pasta. What you’re going to do is fill a pot about two thirds full of water, and you turn it on to start heating. When it’s almost at a boil, then you’re going to add a little bit of coconut oil with a spoon so that the pasta’s not going to stick together. Also add some salt. They say on Masterchef: “Salt like the ocean”, so quite a bit of salt. The water can come to the boil with the lid on, because it’s quicker, but then you should take it off once you’re ready to cook the pasta.
As soon as it’s boiling, you just dump the pasta into the boiling water, and you use something like a spaghetti spoon that I spoke about in episode 19 – you stir it up with something that will break up the pasta if there’s any clumping, and then you let it cook. It won’t take long, probably about 5 minutes, and then you need to be ready to taste it when it starts to look right, or a bit earlier if you’re unsure. Take a piece out and taste it. When it tastes almost ready, perhaps a little more al dente as they say, a little more chewy than you would like, then you should take it out because it will soften a little bit more. Then you can take a colander, put it in the sink, and drain the pasta into that. Then, put it straight back into the pot. You can leave a tiny bit of the pasta water in because it helps to soften it. Then when you’ve got your cooked pasta in the pot, you can add a little bit of olive oil, a little bit of salt, and perhaps a little bit of parmesan cheese, and that really adds flavor.
When you’re cooking, it’s so important to taste all the parts before you put them together. You’re going to taste your bolognese, making sure that it tastes good, and that it doesn’t need anything added. Perhaps you’ll add more salt or pepper if you want to. Don’t add things like spices and onion powder at the end, because those need to be cooked in with the meal, but things like salt are fine, and perhaps yogurt or cream, those work fine. As I mentioned, you can put in basil leaves. Then with your cooked pasta, you want to make sure that it tastes good as well. Adding the parmesan, the salt, and the olive oil really helps it to taste good.
Now you’ve got two different kinds of meat, and you’ve got two sides. Let’s talk about two sauces that you can easily add to those to make them a bit more interesting. Let’s say you choose your baked potato with some slices of chicken breast on top. A very easy and delicious sauce for that is a similar sauce to what you would find on a shrimp cocktail. It’s a pink sauce, and it works great on chicken and potato, and you serve it as a cold sauce.
So, what you do is you take some mayonnaise – about half a cup of mayonnaise, you add a squirt of lemon juice, a couple of squirts of ketchup or tomato sauce, and a little bit of salt, and you mix those together. Then adjust it to what you like. Perhaps you like it a little bit more tomatoey, perhaps more mayonnaise. That makes a great pink sauce, and it’s easy. Stick that on your chicken, on top of your potato dish.
Then, if you want a hot sauce, perhaps you take your pasta, and you take your chicken, and you shred it up and mix it with the pasta. Now you want a sauce on top. In future episodes, we’ll learn about a cheese sauce which is a little more complex. But a very easy sauce to make is a cream sauce. For this you can take perhaps the scrapings of your chicken, and, if there is, any liquid left after cooking it. But if you don’t have that then don’t worry. Then, put those into a saucepan and add a container of cream. It doesn’t really matter what size, just whatever you have. Then you cook it slightly. You don’t want it to boil, because it can make the cream less digestible, but it can simmer. And then you add salt, and you just let it simmer for a little bit until it’s a little bit thicker. Then you simply pour that over your chicken.
To make it a little bit more interesting, you can make a mushroom cream sauce. You start by slicing some mushrooms, and adding salt, a little onion powder, and a tiny bit of nutmeg to bring out the flavor in the mushrooms. Then you put some coconut oil in a pan, and you cook up the mushrooms a little bit. When they’re starting to cook, put a lid over the pan so that it can cook them without them burning. Then, when they’re mostly cooked, you take the lid off and you pour your cream over the mushrooms. Then you just give it a minute or two to simmer. As I said before, you can add a little bit of salt if necessary. Taste it to see if it’s good.
It’s lovely to pour over your chicken and your potatoes, or even over your pasta – you can have a simple pasta with the mushroom sauce. And then obviously you can do pasta with bolognese as well, and just put some grated cheese on top, and you have a great meal.
These meals are very simple, but nutritious, easy, and a great way to learn to cook from scratch without having to buy pre-made meals from the supermarket. Next time we’ll talk about other things you can make when you’re learning to cook that are a little bit more advanced – things like chicken curry, chicken stir fry with noodles, and omelets. All these things are relatively easy, and you’ll already be on your way to being a competent cook.
Happy cooking, and thanks for joining me. I’ll see you next time.
RECIPES:
Flavorful Chicken Breasts in the Oven
Ingredients:
- 1 pack of 4 chicken breasts
- Olive oil or butter
- Salt and pepper
- Dried herbs of your choice (oregano or thyme are great)
- Spices of your choice (paprika, onion powder, and chili powder work well)
Instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Put the chicken breasts into a casserole dish, or an oven-safe glass dish. Make sure they’re not too crowded, so they can cook more evenly.
- Add a little butter or a drizzle of olive oil on top of each, then sprinkle on some salt. You’ll need more than you think, so don’t be too sparing. Next, grind a little pepper over the chicken, and add a sprinkle of whatever herbs or spices you chose to use.
- Put the chicken into a hot oven and bake it for 20 – 30 minutes, or until it’s cooked through. To check if it’s done, cut a piece in half and look at the center. If it’s completely white and opaque, with no see-through pink, it’s cooked enough.
- When you take the chicken out of the oven, use a spoon to drizzle the juices from the dish back over the chicken pieces. This helps to make them more moist and flavoured.
- Eat immediately or store in the fridge. These are good either hot or cold.
Pan-fried Chicken
Ingredients:
- 1 pack of 4 chicken breasts
- Coconut oil or tallow for the pan
- Salt and pepper
- For the Asian flavor:
- 2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 tsp sesame seeds
- For the barbeque flavor:
- 2 tbsp tomato paste or puree
- 1 tbsp honey
- ½ tsp balsamic or apple cider vinegar
Instructions:
- Cut the chicken into smaller pieces, like slices or chunks. This will help it cook faster and more evenly. Be careful when working with raw chicken, and wash your hands well afterwards.
- Heat up a pan on the stove and add some coconut oil or tallow, to keep the chicken from sticking. Add the chicken to the pan, being careful of the hot oil. Add some salt and a little pepper, and mix it around with a spoon or egg lifter. Once the outside of the pieces is mostly cooked and white, you can add more flavor.
- If you’re doing the Asian version, add the soy sauce and the honey, and mix the chicken well to make sure every piece is flavored. Let it cook a bit longer, until the pieces are cooked through to the middle. You can check by cutting one in half and looking at the center. If it’s completely white and opaque, with no see-through pink, it’s cooked enough. Sprinkle the sesame seeds over the chicken, and cook it for a minute longer, just until the seeds start to get toasty, then take it off the heat.
- If you’re doing the barbeque version, add the tomato paste, honey, and vinegar, and mix well. Stir the chicken often as it cooks, so the tomato doesn’t catch and burn. When the chicken is cooked through, take it off the heat.
- Eat immediately with potatoes, rice or pasta, or whatever you prefer, or store in the fridge.
Ground Beef with Bolognese sauce
- 500g lean ground beef (or you can do half beef, half pork)
- Coconut oil or tallow
- Salt and pepper
- Dried or fresh herbs (oregano, basil and parsley work well)
- Half an onion
- 1 tsp crushed garlic
- 1 tin of tomato puree or crushed tomato (this can also be tomato with onion or tomato and vegetables, if you like)
Instructions:
- Peel the papery outer layers off the onion, then chop it finely.
- Heat up a pot on the stove, and add a little coconut oil or tallow. Put the onion into the pot, and stir it until it starts to brown and look see-through. Add the ground beef, and use a fork to start breaking up the beef as it browns.
- Add salt and pepper, and keep breaking up the beef until it’s all browned and has no big lumps.
- Add some herbs (chop them up if they’re fresh) and the crushed garlic.
- Next, add the tomato pureeand mix well.
- Turn the heat down, and leave the bolognese to simmer gently for about an hour. It shouldn’t boil, otherwise the meat can get tough.
- Serve with pasta or potatoes, or whatever you like.
Oven Baked Potatoes
Ingredients:
- 1 bag of potatoes
- Salt
- Olive oil or butter
Instructions:
- Heat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
- Wash the potatoes, then line a baking tray with baking paper. Spread the potatoes out on the tray. Drizzle olive oil over them, and/or put a bit of butter on top of each potato. Sprinkle salt generously over them.
- Bake the potatoes in the hot oven for 60 to 90 minutes, depending on the size. To check if they’re cooked enough, stick a fork into the biggest one. If it goes in easily, and the inside doesn’t feel hard anymore, they’re done.
- Eat immediately or store in the fridge.
How to Cook Pasta
Ingredients:
- One bag of spaghetti, penne, macaroni or your favorite pasta shape
- Coconut oil
- Salt
- Olive oil
- Finely grated parmesan or other hard cheese
Instructions:
- Fill a large pot about two thirds full with water. Put it on the stove on high heat, and sprinkle quite a lot of salt into the water. Also add a teaspoon of coconut oil, to keep the pasta from sticking together.
- Put a lid on, and let it heat up until the water is boiling.
- Take the lid off and dump the pasta in, being careful not to splash boiling water. Use a spaghetti spoon to stir the pasta to break up any clumps.
- Let it cook for about 5 minutes, then scoop out one piece of pasta to taste. Make sure it’s not too hot, then taste if it’s cooked enough. If it’s still too hard, let the pasta cook for a few more minutes, then taste again. If it’s soft enough, you can go to step #5
- Place a colander in the sink and pour the pasta into it, then pour it straight back into the pot. You can even leave a tiny bit of the pasta water in, to help it soften even more.
- Drizzle some olive oil over the pasta, and add some salt and grated hard cheese for flavor. Eat while it’s hot!
Pink Sauce (A cold sauce that goes great with chicken or shrimp cocktail)
Ingredients:
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- Ketchup/tomato sauce
- Salt
- Lemon juice
Instructions:
- Put half a cup of mayonnaise into a bowl, and add a generous squirt of ketchup.
- Next, add a sprinkle of salt and a drizzle of lemon juice.
- Mix well, until the mayo and ketchup are smoothly combined. Use immediately or store in the fridge.
Cream Sauce
Ingredients:
- Scrapings or juice left over from cooking meat, if you have
- A container of cream
- Salt
- For the mushroom variant:
- Button mushrooms
- Coconut oil
- Onion powder
- Nutmeg
Instructions:
- (If you’re not using mushrooms, you can skip to step 4.) If you’re doing the mushroom version, wash and slice the mushrooms. There’s no need to peel or destalk them.
- Add them to a hot pan with a little coconut oil, and sprinkle salt, onion powder and a tiny bit of nutmeg over them.
- Put a lid on the pan, to help the mushrooms cook without burning. When they’re mostly soft, take the lid off.
- Add your meat scrapings and cream to the pan, with a little salt.
- Let it simmer for about 2 minutes, while stirring, until the sauce becomes a bit thicker (don’t let it boil too much).
- Pour it over chicken or steak just before you eat!
