How to learn to cook well: the sixth sense of a dish

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

While cooking, we are used to trusting the five senses, but there is one more - the sixth “sense of the dish”, which unites all five and ensures a conscious cooking process. How to develop a sixth sense of a dish and cook better every time - read in this post.

Here's a great kitchen tip: When you roast the nuts in the oven, leave one of them on the cutting board, and you will never forget about the toasting nuts, which means you will not burn them.

As you cook the other components of the dish, this nut will get in the way on the cutting board all the time, you just have to remember why you put it here.

This is one example where your sight helps you, not the sense of smell, because when the smell of nuts reaches the sense of smell, it will most likely be too late.

Taste may seem to be the most important thing in cooking. There is even a kind of mantra among cooks: "Always try what you cook." But we taste food not only to determine the taste, but also to appreciate the overall result.

Each of us prepares food with all five senses. All of them are essential, and here's why.

Not only taste, but also the rest of the senses

It would seem, why use hearing during cooking? In fact, it matters a lot. For example, by the increased hiss from the pan, you can understand that the ghee from the bacon has heated up to a high temperature and there is not much left until cooked.

Smell is also an important part of the process, not just as a signal that a dish is ready (or spoiled), but also as an indicator of where you are in the process.

For example, if you are finishing cooking additional ribs that are being fried in the oven, and you don't smell the delicious smell of fried meat, it's time to check the oven. Maybe you forgot to turn it on. If, on the contrary, you smell the fried meat too early, you need to turn down the heat so that the meat does not burn.

Feeling is also very important, and it is worth paying attention to, because in the struggle for sterility and the absence of any bacteria, some people are afraid to touch food.

We touch the dough to see how much it has risen; we intuitively press on the steak to see how well it is cooked inside; we touch the top of the crème brulee to see how smooth and brittle it is, not soft and sticky. So do not be afraid to touch your food - this is the only way you can understand how well the dish is cooked before you start eating it.

Vision, of course, is also very important. You can tell by the color that you have overcooked pine nuts, or you see that the fried chicken looks just great and it's time to get it out of the oven. You can see how the vegetable oil behaves when you pour it into the pan, and from this determine how well the pan is heated and whether you can already start frying.

However, this is not all. It turns out that it is important not only to evaluate a dish for its appearance, taste, smell and consistency while cooking, but also to imagine the dish before you start cooking.

Introducing the finished dish

Presenting your food is of the utmost importance. What you expect to see in the end is an important part of the process.

For example, when you prepare a sauce, you have to imagine in advance how thick it will end up. You must see this in your imagination. Then, when you add all the components of the sauce and stir it, a picture of the finished product should be in your head so that you gradually bring it closer to what is being embodied in reality.

You need to imagine what color your ideal fried chicken will be, what the ratio of broth to other ingredients will be in the soup, and how much fat will be in the bacon.

But there is one aspect that can get in the way of presenting the perfect dish and bringing it to life. It is your environment that can greatly influence the way you cook and the result.

Michael Rahlman, author of books on the art of cooking, told a story that perfectly illustrates this fact.

Michael went to cook school and worked at the grill station in the school's restaurant courtyard. A student named Chen was cooking saute right in front of Michael, and his grill station was literally littered with all sorts of rubbish: pieces of food, bits of burnt paper towels, sprinkled with salt and pepper.

Dan Tergen, a chef-instructor, saw this mess and, despite the lack of time, decided to interfere with Chen's work because the student clearly needed a lesson.

“When I drown myself in waste, when I really start drowning in cooking waste, I stop,” Tergen said. - I say: 'Wait a second!' - and start to wash my station."

Then the chef took out a bucket of sanitary liquid, which every grill station must have, and began to clean Chen's station with exaggerated slow movements. When the student's workplace was clean again, free of stains and debris, Tergen straightened up and said:

When you work in the trash, the clutter starts to grow. And if you look inside your head, it will be the same.

This is actually the case. What your eyes see in your surroundings influences how the food is prepared in your imagination. Clutter confuses you.

If there is something on the kitchen table or cutting board that is not relevant to the preparation of the dish, such as pieces of bread, sprinkled salt, crumbs, or worse, car keys or glasses, remove them before you start cooking.

Remember that all of your five senses - taste, touch, hearing, sight, and smell - merge into one more important sense.

Sense of food - the sixth sense of a good cook

It can't be written down in a recipe, and Google won't help you find the feel of a bolognese sauce, but it does go a long way in cooking well. Unfortunately, people often lack this feeling at home.

The sense of the dish is the combination of all the other senses. It forces you to clean up the kitchen counter before you start cooking, add more salt or lemon juice if you are trying a soup and clearly needs a boost in flavor.

This feeling includes the experiences that we continue to accumulate throughout our lives. When you first cook a steak, you still cannot tell if it is ready inside or not by simply pushing it down.

But when you fry it, cut it and see that it is ready inside, it is important not only to learn, but also to remember the feeling of a fried steak. Next time you don't have to cut it - you can squeeze the steak in the pan, remember this feeling and understand how ready it is.

The moment you remember how your cooked (or undercooked) steak feels like, you get a sense of that dish.

Chef Judy Rogers of Café Zuni prepares a delicious roast lamb leg. And she does this not because she is a great cook, but because she has roasted thousands of lamb legs and paid attention to each one, remembered all deviations during cooking and added them to her cooking experience. And it is this ability that makes people great cooks.

All our senses merge together to form the most important component - awareness. Stay focused. Use all your senses.

Enjoy the feeling of the texture of homemade pasta, the sight of fried chicken, the aromas of the cuisine, the taste of raw tomatoes, slightly salty and still keeping the warmth of the sun from the garden, the sounds of butter sizzling in a pan.

And never forget what gives the feeling of the dish you are preparing. Our world gets better when we cook for the people we love. Well-prepared food provides health - ours, our family members, our environment.

This is exactly the feeling that cooking gives you and that will help you cook consciously and really well.