Top Cooking Mistakes to Avoid
Mistakes can happen anywhere, and because there is often a lot happening when you are cooking, this is no exception. Here are a few cooking mistakes to avoid.
Over-seasoning your food
No one wants bland food, and that is why it is extremely important to correctly season your food, so as to enhance the flavors. However, everyone will have a preference on how seasoned they prefer their food, and some have it more seasoned than others. What you must remember is that it is a lot easier to add more seasoning than it is to remove or dilute it. This is important to remember not only for yourself but especially if you are cooking for others who may not enjoy the strength of flavors as much as you do. When it comes to herbs and spices it is a little more complex, but certainly, with salt make sure you are gradually adding it to your dish so as not to ruin it by adding too much.
Under and overcooking your food
With this mistake, you can reduce the enjoyment, or sometimes even ruin your whole dish by just under or overcooking one of the core parts of your meal. For example, it could be that you are making roasted garlic. If you undercook the garlic, it will retain its crunchy texture and spiciness, whereas if you overcook it you will dry it out and it will become chewy, losing all its flavor and nutrients. You can make this mistake with almost any food you are cooking with, so make sure you pay attention to cooking times, cooking methods, cooking temperatures, and your specific make or model if applicable as these can impact any of the above.
Not washing your food
Some people decide that washing their food is too much effort and not worth the time it takes. This is a mistake for several reasons. Not only are you not cleaning your food and removing any chemicals or creepy crawlies that have made it their home, but in certain instances such as with rice and lentils, you are also not removing excess starch from the outside of the grains. This added starch can cause a variety of issues when cooking and can sometimes impact the flavor or texture of the final product. Rinsing or washing your food only adds a short time to the whole process and is worth remembering to do if you can.
Leaving your food unattended while it cooks
Unless you have something in the oven, a slow cooker, or are allowing it to simmer away for a few hours, it is recommended that you never leave your food unattended. The reason for this is that it is easy to take longer than expected and it often doesn’t take long for your food to stick or burn. Even in the instances when you can leave your food cooking for a long period of time, make sure you set an alarm or reminder for when you need to come back so that it doesn’t burn.
So, next time you are cooking make sure to keep these in mind so that you do not fall victim to making the same mistakes.
