15 More Mistakes Most Beginner Cooks Make

welcome back to another episode of one dish breakdowns and on this series we are going in deep on these recipes so a lot of other TV shows cooking channels recipes whatever they are they don't give you all of the knowledge you could be getting out of a single dish and that's what this is all about we are going to break down every single element of these dishes and all of the mistakes that a lot of people are making out there I've been cooking for a while I've been teaching people how to cook and I see a ton of mistakes and it's not your fault believe me cooking is difficult but we are trying to break down those fears on the brothers green so today we have a very special one we've got a rice bowl and a rice bowl is classic because there's so many varieties you can choose when it comes to a rice bowl so many different cuisines but the idea is you have a base of rice and then you top it with a ton of good stuff we're gonna do a vegetarian rice bowl today we're gonna top it with an egg but you can do meat you can do tofu you can do whatever you want but when you learn these basics you're gonna be cooking well that is what's awesome about this series we are choosing very realistic dishes for cooking for your life so you can eat healthy and you can be feeling good so let's get into it tip number one is great when you are planning your meal so a lot of times I'll look in my fridge I've got a ton of ingredients and I'm a little confused what am I gonna make so maybe the idea pops in my head of a rice bowl but how do i structure that how do I create a meal that makes sense so picking a cuisine is tip number one which will really help just give you a little structure in the kitchen so you can have a cohesive meal that's gonna taste right all of those elements are going to work together I bought a few eggplants and I knew that would be the star of the show today so I figured I would structure my meal around Mediterranean cuisine so we are gonna go with that tip number two is work with a sharp knife I can't tell you how many times someone comes over they pick up a knife up this rack they slice a vegetable and they start freaking out they're like oh my god I gotta up my knife game because the truth is most people are working with really dull knives which is one very unsafe to just boring it sucks to cut with dull knives because so much of cooking is cutting things so what I suggest doing instead of going out and getting a new knife just get yourself a honing blade because the truth is all knives when they come packaged when you get them for the first time they're sharp you don't need like a really expensive knife you just need to maintain your knives so a honing blade is great it's not actually gonna sharpen your knife but it's gonna maintain that edge it's gonna realign the edge so it continues to cut well it continues to be sharp there's a lot of techniques to actually use this thing you'll see chefs on TV and they're like going crazy with it and it might look a little intimidating I suggest just putting it on a towel so it's stable finding that angle that works for you and just pulling just like that just pulling it straight through the knife and keeping that same angle on both sides keep doing that a few times maybe five to ten times and believe me that is all you really need to maintain a sharp edge on your knife it's gonna make all the difference and now that we have a sharp knife we can start cutting our food which brings me to number three which is cut your food evenly especially when you are roasting which we are about to do so what I like to do is cut it right down the middle and then I can cut off the uneven part right there maybe make a few slices and this is where you have to think say you have a big chunk right there maybe we'll cut that down into three pieces and if we have a smaller slice we can cut that into two pieces so all of those pieces will be around the same size number four is always salt your eggplant at least if you cut it up into chunks like this something I never really did before it is revolutionary when you are roasting or cooking eggplant because it draws out a lot of the moisture they say there's some bitterness and the seeds that it draws out but for me it just will completely alter the texture you're gonna end up with a much better texture and it's not gonna absorb so much oil I feel like a lot of people do not like eggplant because of this reason because they're not salting it they go to cook it they put a bunch of oil in the pan they throw the eggplant in there and it just sucks up all the oil and you just end up adding so much oil so by salting it it won't absorb all of that oil and you will get a nice even roast or cook so now that we have our chopped up eggplant I'm just gonna add a bunch of salt and I would say think about twice the amount of salt you would normally add and a lot of that salt is actually going to pull out so don't worry about over salting we're gonna give that eggplant a few hours to sweat a little bit you can leave it overnight but I would say two hours is fine which is great because we've got other things to do so let's get to the rice part of this dish making rice is one of those things that you could struggle with your entire life but once you get a few of these key tips down you are gonna be making perfect rice every time other than like forgetting about the rice and burning them that happens to everyone we are using long grain white rice for this dish which I highly suggest because it's super versatile it cooks quick it tastes good so I suggest just having some of that lying around I love brown rice but the stuff takes like 45 minutes to cook so when I'm ready to whip up a quick meal it's always white rice that brings us to tip number five which is always wash your white rice brown rice you don't really have to worry about it there's not much starch but white rice has a lot of extra starch so if you don't get rid of the starch it's going to be very starchy when it comes out and you're not gonna get those individual grains that fluffiness you won so take your rice run it under water and what I like to do is just kind of ruffle it around a little bit with my hand release a lot of that starch then just pour it off and just keep repeating that process until you get clear liquid one thing I never did but I just learned from my friend Derek is that you can save that rice water that rice water is very versatile because it's just starchy water so you can use that to thicken soups sometimes they serve that in Thai cuisine as a drink just rice water which is really tasty very unique so you don't have to throw away that initial starchy water number six is probably the one people freak out the most about and that's how much water in your rice I see a lot of recipes out there they do the two parts water to one part rice I think that's a little bit much in the water department but I have a trick that seems to work every single time so just pour your rice right into the pot you're using a saucepan like this works great because you've got the high sides start pouring the water over the rice and take your hand and place it right on top of the rice and once the water line reaches that middle phalanges the top of your middle phalanges right there that is good to go cut it off and you are gonna have the perfect amount of water number seven is season your rice you have so much opportunity right in this moment to season the water because the water is going to be absorbed by the rice which means flavorful rice so screw plain white rice start adding some aromatics and spices I added a few slices of ginger I smashed a clove of garlic and added that right in there sprinkled in a little bit of chili flake some cumin seeds and then most importantly I added in the salt because your rice definitely needs that salt so bring that rice to a boil turn the heat on high and once it comes to a boil turn it down to the lowest your stove will go cap it and then set your timer for 15 minutes after 15 minutes I open up that cap to a glorious sight and I just fluff it up a little bit because there's a lot of steam trapped on the bottom and you don't want the bottom of the rice to overcook then I'll take a little bit of parsley keeping up with that Mediterranean vibe sprinkle that in I love the color and then also the flavor and just fluff that a little bit and then put the cap back on but take it off the heat just let it steam a bit in its own residual heat and you will have the most perfect rice look at those individual grains tell me that is not glorious alright the eggplant hit the sauna it's been sweating out for about two hours look at those beads of water coming off that thing that is a great sign and then if you look in the bowl you see all that excess water down there and you could pour that into a stock too you don't have to get rid of that either a lot of recipes at this point will tell you to wash the eggplant to get that excess salt off but I don't like adding too much extra moisture so I find that it's fine as long as you don't add too much salt some of it gets actually pulled out in that salting process as well but give your colander just a shake real quick to get off all of them extra water all right we're gonna roast this eggplant so I'm going to transfer it to a bowl and that brings me to tip number eight which is make sure you add enough oil to your eggplant so it coats evenly and this goes for all vegetable roasting I see this mistake a lot people don't use enough oil and then things stick to the pan or they burn you want to get a nice even coating around every single vegetable so you see I'll give it a little shake a little stir just like that and then when you pick up an individual vegetable whatever it is just make sure it's nicely coated all around it's glimmering in oil alright number nine is spread out your vegetables evenly on the tray when you are roasting them which is very important sometimes I'll get lazy and I'll pile them on there say I have too many vegetables you're never gonna get a good roast you need an even coating because if some of those vegetables are like stacked on top of the other they're gonna cook but they aren't going to Brown and that's the reason we're roasting these things we want to get that delicious flavor that browning on the outside so spread them out don't over pack them make sure they've got their space to hang out and number ten is when you're roasting you gotta roast that you can't wimp out on me a lot of times people throw their oven on 350 because the Food Network always says 350 but you are not going to get a good roast you want to cook on high heat you want to brown those vegetables and get that flavor so I would suggest hitting it more towards the 400 to 500 I like that beautiful level at 450 that is going to give you a great roast so what I'll do is I'll take my tray I'll throw it in a preheated oven that's a bonus tip right there remember to pre-heat your oven because if it's not preheated your vegetables are gonna spend the whole time in a preheating oven and you're not gonna get that roast what I found is I give it about 12 to 13 minutes on one side at 450 degrees then it comes out and you've got this nice browning on one side so after 13 minutes just give it a little toss you can see nicely Brown put it in for another 5 minutes and that will finish it off and you will have the most delicious tender eggplant because you've followed all of those tips the eggplants not going to be sticking to the pan because you old it right it is going to be nice and gooey because you salted it perfectly roasted eggplant so number 11 is gonna be using your brain a little bit getting creative with your ingredients this is the stuff that recipes aren't going to tell you it's about thinking about what you have and maybe going outside of the box a little bit so what I did was I had all this eggplant and I figured you know what I don't need all of this roasted eggplant why don't I make a sauce out of it since we're going with that Mediterranean vibe I figured I would make sort of like a baba ghanoush tahini style sauce so I took some of the eggplant I put it in a blender I added some garlic and normally I would add tahini which brings me to tip number 12 which is don't freak out if you don't have the right ingredient for that dish something I see all the time it really pisses me off when I'm at someone's house and they don't have an ingredient they're like oh my god we got to go to the store to get that ingredient no just use what you have get creative with the ingredients that you actually have so ID peanut butter my pantry and yes that's not a sesame seed paste that's not tahini but you know what it's similar it will probably work and maybe it will have its own unique flavor so I added a scoop of that into this sauce then I added some lemon juice of course salt and pepper and then I added a little bit of water to thin it out and blended that thing up into a creamy sauce and you got yourself just a delicious creamy sauce whatever you want to call it that is going to be a great topping for this bowl so let's get to cooking this egg and there.good jillion different ways to cook eggs my brother put out an entire book on just eggs but I can tell you my favorite way and my go-to way to cook eggs is to get those things crispy so tip number 13 is when you're cooking your egg get it crispy but do not overcook it so what I like to do is get a pan on medium heat let that preheat a little bit add some butter to the pan and just crack in your eggs and just let them sit there give them some time don't be scared if you're using a nonstick pan you should be just fine let it get nice and brown and crispy on that side and a lot of people start freaking out at this point cuz they don't think their eggs are properly cooked so what I like to do to avoid all of that is I'll get them super crispy on that one side then I'll flip them over for like two seconds maybe maybe five seconds five to 10 seconds I'll flip it over just to finish it off on that side so you're gonna have the crispy egg and it won't be overcooked it will just be cooked through but it's still gonna be runny alright we've got our egg we've got our eggplant we've got our rice cooked and tip number 14 when you are bringing this bowl together is grain bowl this rice bowl is bootable whatever you want to call it is balancing flavors balancing textures balancing colors and temperatures that's the fun of this stuff it's adding whatever you want so I had some kale that I actually blanched in there i marinated the kale with some balsamic vinegar a little bit of sesame seeds that's a nice little side a little freshness you're adding to this bowl I also had some sauerkraut that I figured would be great I love adding the tangy nests of like a pickle or sauerkraut that really will help balance out those flavors hit it with that crispy egg that of course is still runny on the inside top it with that beautiful creamy eggplant and peanut butter sauce hate it with some garnishes whatever you have I had some scallions and of course sesame seeds the scallywag sesame combo and enjoy [Music] delicious stuff this is you know generally how I eat a bunch of different sides some type of grain always gonna work for me it's always gonna hit the spot and that brings me to my last tip number 15 just get in the kitchen don't be scared to make mistakes don't be scared to screw up that's how you learn when it comes to cooking it's all about persevering learning from your mistakes and just having a good time so hope you enjoyed another episode breaking down the basics [Music]

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 1,265,665

Keywords: mike greenfield, mastering rice, how to roast in the oven, learn how to cook, easy veggie recipes, enzyme tire spunk, master cooking!, buddha bowl recipe, roasted eggplant, rice bowl, the perfect rice, salt eggplant, perfect rice everytime, intro to cooking, brothers green eats, basic cooking skills, idiots guide to cooking, cooking tips, beginners cooking, how to use oven, 15 mistakes, how to make rice

Id: 6bN_crxaVsg

Length: 16min 46sec (1006 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 07 2017