Cooking Tips For Kitchen Beginners

I'm Frank Proto. [energetic music]

I'm a professional chef and culinary instructor.

And today I'm gonna show you

my best cooking tips for beginners.

We'll be going over things to keep in mind

before, during, and after you turn on that stove.

This is Cooking Tips 101.

While we talk about my tips, I'm gonna prepare a carbonara.

Let's get started with the tips.

[gentle music]

The most important tip I have is before you do anything,

read the recipe.

With this simple tip

a lot of mistakes can be prevented and avoided.

So many times in my life

people have read the recipe, quote, unquote,

they start cooking and they miss something.

Save your pasta water.

They've thrown their pasta water out.

All right, give me a few minutes

so I can read my recipe, excuse me.

[chiming music]

Most recipes are written the same, exact way.

A title with the amount of servings,

a list of ingredients,

and then a list of instructions.

Usually in a recipe the first ingredient

is the first thing you'll use in the instructions.

The second ingredient

is the second thing you'll use in the instructions.

If a recipe's written well

the ingredients go along with the instructions,

Read through it all, and then start your recipe.

So after you read your recipe

the next thing you want to do

is do your mise en place.

Chef Frank, what is mise en place?

Mise en place means everything in its place.

It's a French term.

Gather your ingredients,

get them together before you start cooking.

That doesn't just mean your food, that means your equipment

and everything you need to execute this recipe.

So on the tray next to me, I have my mise en place.

You can see that I have my equipment around me as well.

Everything's within arms reach

so I don't have to run around the kitchen

like my hair's on fire.

[Frank chuckling] [crew laughing]

First thing I'm gonna do is grate my cheese.

I'm gonna put all this on the side.

And if there is an instruction

that you need to grate your cheese,

make sure that's part of your mise en place.

I'm gonna grate a fair amount of cheese for my carbonara.

Carbonara is basically bacon, eggs, and cheese,

so we grate a bunch.

Right, there's my Pecorino Romano.

I'm gonna do my Parmigiano.

I like to use a box grater on it's side like this,

I'm not doing it granny style.

I like to use my body weight 'cause it's considerable.

I always crack on a flat surface.

Ooh, look at how beautiful that egg is.

Eggs are cracked,

I'm just gonna give 'em a quick whisk.

Next thing I wanna do is cut our guanciale.

Guanciale is a cured pork jowl.

And that brings me to my next tip

is have sharp knives.

So it's a common misconception

that sharp knives are dangerous

when the fact is

that dull knives are even more dangerous than sharp knives.

You have to put more pressure on the knife

and you have a bigger tendency to slip and cut yourself.

If your knife isn't sharp

you can learn about sharpening your knives.

We did a video on this channel.

Try and find a knife that is comfortable in your hand.

It should be super sharp

so you don't really have to put a lot of pressure.

You see if I do a little sawing here

it's a nice smooth cut.

I am not having to struggle with this,

just whispers through.

If it isn't sharp, sometimes you'll do a lot of sawing.

You can ruin your ingredients

'cause you're crushing them or tearing them.

So having a sharp knife saves you time,

saves you ingredients,

and saves your fingers from getting cut.

Now that I have all my mise en place ready to go,

we can cook.

[gentle music]

So my next tip is keep an open mind.

We're using guanciale, it sounds weird,

maybe it looks a little weird and it's strange to you,

but at the end of the day

it's really just a type of bacon.

Push yourself, stretch yourself, try new things.

You'd be surprised

at how many times they're actually really delicious.

So I got a little oil in my pan.

Guanciale goes in.

And what we're gonna do with this is

we're gonna cook it lightly brown, but not crisp.

One of the other tips I give people is

be present, be in the moment,

and use all of your senses.

A lot of times you're gonna smell things that are burning

before they actually burn

and you might be able to catch it and save it.

A lot of times when you're listening

you can hear something is way too high

'cause it's really too loud and it shouldn't be that loud.

But listen to what's going on,

taste what's going on, smell what's going on.

So not only can I hear the guanciale sizzling away,

I can see that it's browning.

I'm gonna shut it off here

and wait until we're ready to use it.

Another tip for beginner cooks is comfort, right?

We wanna be comfortable when we're cooking.

That's one thing

we really don't talk about a lot is comfort.

I like to stand straight up.

I like for my shoulders to be loose.

I try not to tighten up too much.

If you've been hunching over the stove for hours,

and your feet hurt 'cause your shoes are uncomfortable,

or you're wearing that tight turtleneck in the kitchen,

at the end of the day

we want cooking to be enjoyable and fun.

And if you're not comfortable

it's just gonna make it a less enjoyable experience.

One of the other tips I like to talk about is

buy the best ingredients you can afford.

Buy the best cheese you can afford,

the best pork, the best pasta, the best eggs,

and the end product is always gonna be better.

Good ingredients equals good food.

So for the carbonara, I have my eggs beaten.

I'm gonna beat in some cheese.

Good quality eggs always have really bright orange yolks

and these eggs are wonderful.

And basically what I'm gonna do with this

is make kind of a paste out of my cheese and eggs.

I'm going to hit it with some salt and lots of black pepper.

Again, good quality black pepper

is always ground to order, right?

So grind your own pepper.

There is a point in almost every recipe

where everything collides at once.

It's the time when action is required.

If you're prepared, you have your mise en place,

you've read your recipe.

When this point comes, you're not gonna freak out.

You're gonna be chill.

Everything's gonna come together beautifully.

Okay, let's use our senses and see where our pasta is at.

I can see that my pasta is a little floppy, right?

And now I can taste.

My pasta is perfect, al dente.

Shut my water off and I am going to use my tongs.

And if I've read my recipe right,

I need to save some of that pasta water, right?

So instead of putting it down the drain with our colander

we're gonna gonna save that pasta water.

It's got salt and starch

that's gonna help our finished dish be delish.

Rhyming again, look at that.

I'm not too worried about

draining this pasta off too well, all right?

And then here is where everything comes together.

It's the moment of truth, the moment that you need

the most confidence you've had all day.

Adding the eggs.

This could be the time where everything goes wrong

or everything goes right.

Which leads me to my next tip,

cook with confidence.

You've prepared for this moment, you're ready.

So what I'm gonna do now is

I'm actually gonna shut my heat off.

I'm going to add my egg and cheese mixture.

I'm going to add a nice ladle of my pasta water.

And I'm gonna toss.

So we talk about cooking with confidence.

Give it a flip if you can,

make sure it goes all over, it splashes the dog.

[dog barks]

But we wanna stir with confidence.

So the worst thing that can happen is

that you don't eat this tonight.

You order a pizza, you order some Chinese food,

that's the worst that can happen.

[gentle music]

Carbonara's ready to go.

And that leads me to my next tip,

master the recipe,

or at least be confident with your skills enough

that you can start modifying.

If you haven't mastered the recipe,

take your time, get it down,

and then you can start to modify things to your preference.

If you start modifying things too early

and don't master the recipe or the technique,

things aren't gonna come out good.

Take your time, be patient with yourself.

Know your skill level.

Once you have that down, you're gonna be a better cook.

And you can make carbonara too.

The last tip I have, keep cooking.

You're not gonna get better at this

unless you cook all the time.

Cook with friends, cook with family.

Enjoy the meal you cook with the people you love.

The more you cook, the better you'll get.

Don't get discouraged from failure.

Have fun.

Enjoy what you're doing.

Food and cooking should be an enjoyable endeavor.

And those are my 10 cooking tips for beginners.

I hope this helps.

Good luck on your cooking journey.

Enjoy.

[mellow music]

Buon appetito.