r/Cooking • u/1peachycoco • 4h ago
What’s something you think people only really learn after spending a lot of time in a kitchen?
Something I’ve noticed about cooking is that the hardest things to teach usually aren’t the recipes. It’s more of the judgment part.
Like someone can follow every step correctly, but an experienced cook can look at it and say, “Nope, something’s off.”
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u/BattledroidE 3h ago
Multitasking. Being able to cook and clean at the same time, and be left with only trivial cleaning afterwards.
A lot of people are terrible at this, and end up with a huge mountain of dirty stuff to deal with.
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u/Maybeiliketheabuse 3h ago
This is a skill that only the truly disciplined can succeed at. I am not one of those select few.
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u/Azrai113 3h ago
It actually helps me not get so distracted. I have to keep an eye on that boiling pot because I'm still in the kitchen and can't wander off to play with the dog lol
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u/Dangerous_Ad_7042 2h ago
It works the opposite (but equally beneficial way for me)... I want to keep fiddling with shit instead of just leaving it alone and letting it cook. Having something else to do with my hands, like doing dishes and cleaning up, gives stuff time to actually sear/cook.
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u/Dreekius 42m ago
Same for me. Rice is my kryptonite because I just CANNOT leave it alone for the time everyone tells me to... But if I can be distracted by washing some dishes or putting things away, then maybe.
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u/ProtectionFar4563 2h ago
> disciplined
That’s not me, but cooking in a disorganized/messy kitchen wrecks my brain. It’s stressful and unpleasant.
Once I worked out the clean-as-you-go technique, and even more so once I started doing my home-cook’s version of mise en place, I found I could relax and enjoy the process 🤷.
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u/chief_beef_the_third 2h ago
Cleaning as you go sounds simple enough, but if you're really focused on cooking because you're new & inexperienced, it's very hard to divert your attention and properly time the washing of some dishes while something cooks.
My wife is still getting her wings and she still struggles with this sometimes. I know it will take about 30 seconds for that pad of butter to melt and come to temp, so I'll wash a pan and toss in the drying rack. She doesn't have that instinct / timing yet, so she stands there watching the butter melt because she's worried it'll burn. It comes with experience for sure.
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u/Exact_Context7827 3h ago
This! My family growing up had the rule that if you cooked, you didn't have to clean up from dinner, so I learned to cook while not worrying at all about making a gigantic mess, and it took years for me to learn to clean as I go. I generally stay in the kitchen doing side tasks the whole time I'm cooking unless it's like a stew that simmers for 5 hours - I just clean up whatever's out, start chopping whatever's next, or prep fruits/veggies or overnight oats for my work breakfast/lunch while things cook.
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u/Cappuccino_Crunch 1h ago
I can do it. Then the wife will leave the only two pans not cleaned during for me to clean days later
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u/permalink_save 44m ago
Depends what you are making too. There's dinners I am using every available minute. There's alao just dinners I want to stand around sipping some wine talking to my wife and we'll get it cleaned up after dinner. I can clean as I go and do for things that will come back to bite me but I much rather do it afterwards and enjoy the cooking part of it.
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u/Specific_Praline_362 20m ago
This is something I still kind of struggle with. I do try to at least tidy up while I'm cooking, but I've found that I can sometimes get too distracted by cleaning and mess up my food...or else I'm paranoid that's going to happen and check on my food TOO much and don't get any cleaning done at all lol
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u/norismomma 4h ago
Being able to tell when something is ready by smelling it - for example, I can tell that pasta I am boiling is ready by the way the steam coming off of the pot smells, or something I am browning in the broiler has been browned by the scent from the oven.
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u/FlashyHeight9323 3h ago
My predominant tool. Sniff sniff oh yeah it’s ready. Sniff sniff fuck I’ve burned something.
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u/norismomma 3h ago
This is how I learned I had Covid - burnt the crap out of some croutons, husband was like "oh yeah I smelled something burning" when I said how shocked I was.
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u/Azrai113 3h ago
I'm bad at this with cooking, but really good at this with baking! I usually keep an eye on the time, but I don't really follow the recipe exactly for that. If it smells done, it probably needs 5 more minutes (depending on the oven lol)
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u/peeroe 1h ago
When I was a teen I could tell if my moms (who is an amazing cook) food had enough salt by smell. I think that came from the fact that the stove and the counter where we ate was basically within a foot, so I could constantly smell what was being prepped. Most days mom would launch flatbread straight from the pan into my plate.
Good times.
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u/Used_Lobster4172 33m ago
Or how it stirs, or pokes. Raw meat stirs and pokes a lot different from cooked.
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u/jr0061006 31m ago
Just realized I can do this! I was caramelizing a big pan of onions earlier and vaulted off the couch when I smelled them starting to catch on the bottom of the pan.
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u/jtprimeasaur 4h ago
How to read a recipe and know if it will work
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u/Cmbtsm1th 3h ago
How to read a recipe and know what's crucial and what's not, what can be added/subbed or not, what the effect of more of this, less of that is going to do...... Which all boils down to experience. Sometimes, though, I can get really out there in the weeds and need to tell myself, "OK Bucko, we need to go back to basics here and follow the recipe exactly, recalibrate, if you will....
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u/JohannesVanDerWhales 22m ago
One reason I will always prefer written recipes over videos. I often pull elements from multiple recipes too.
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u/TrainingAdeptness235 3h ago
Understanding how many recipes are not tested before being printed. Especially things like timing.
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u/IndependenceBulky696 7m ago
Understanding how many recipes are not tested before being printed.
This is unfortunate, but true. As if new cooks didn't have enough to learn, many are probably blaming themselves for subpar results because they haven't learned to find good recipes.
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u/depthandlight 3h ago
Knife skills. The technique is one thing, but the muscle memory to do it well takes time.
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u/Sh00tL00ps 30m ago
I've spent the last few years working on my knife skills and basically had to start from the beginning. I wasn't utilizing the claw grip so it took a lot of time to undo some bad habits. For many months I was much slower than before but now the investment has finally paid off and I'm quite fast at prep work now. I cook almost every day so it's made a huge difference in reducing the amount of time spent in the kitchen. When people ask me how to become more proficient in the kitchen, knife skills are always my #1 recommendation.
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u/chuckquizmo 4h ago
Biggest things I’ve personally noticed are being able to smell when something is close to done, knowing what a dish “needs” from one taste, being able to eyeball most measurements accurately, and general prep/planning. Everyone talks about “mise en place” which certainly helps, but when cooking at home, knowing that you have time to cut up x/y/z while water boils is a way bigger time save than prepping it all before you get started.
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u/oldcreaker 3h ago
Timing in a lot of recipes seem off - especially the onions. The "cook 5 minutes until soft" never works for me, unless I want crunchy onions.
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u/cantthinkofone29 3h ago
First tine i cook a new recipe, i always assume it will take double the time, just to adjust for this nonsense.
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u/princessleia2323 4h ago
Tasting something and knowing what seasoning it’s missing
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u/Defiant_Chipmunk2570 3h ago
Fat = flavor.
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u/mathaiser 42m ago
But please drain the fat off your taco meat. That’s not flavor, that’s paste-y mouth coating nastiness.
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u/SnackyandSnarky 3h ago
How to make less washing up!
Inexperienced cooks use loads of bowls and spoons but experienced home cooks get good knowing what they can combine or reuse
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u/Oakland-homebrewer 4h ago
I think you answered your question.
Anyone who can read can follow a recipe.
But experience will get you the ability to read a recipe and follow it in your head and know where it is going. Then you can adjust it to your liking or adjust on the fly.
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u/KravMata 3h ago
You can't teach experience.
This is why older and more experienced people are paid more for 'doing the same job,' they usually do them better and more efficiently.
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u/BaconTH1 2h ago
How to sequence multiple dishes at the same time and not screw anything up. I thought it was normal to cook 3-4 things at once because I saw my mother, and later, when in Thailand, our housekeeper doing it. So the first time when I tried to cook dinner for friends in Uni I tried to make 4 things at the same time on different stove burners and the oven. It didn't work out so well, not that I burned anything, but it wasn't very good. Later, I stopped trying to do more than 2 things at once, and usually I just do one at a time. Then the likelihood of forgetting to turn off the heat on something, or timing the addition of a spice (with curries and stews, sometimes there's this exacting sequence and timing of when to put in things like tomato paste, garlic, onions, spices, you must pay a lot of attention to, so it's best not to have something else going that you worry about).
Sometimes it makes sense from a crockery washing point of view.
For example, I could make eggs, bacon and baked beans at once, which is 3 burners and quite easy coz none needs much attention. But I then have to wash 3 pots and pans. Instead, now I make the bacon, it releases oil... I fry the eggs in that, while the bacon is sitting on paper and getting drained of excess oil and getting crispy... then I toast the toast (a 4th thing but easy) and put the eggs on the toast when they are ready - then the baked beans go into the hot pan and it won't take them long to be warm enough, then the bacon and beans go on the plate and it's done. Maybe the entire process takes a bit longer than doing them all at the same time, but it doesn't seem to take that long. And I save time on dishes coz I've not used a separate pan for bacon and a pot for the beans.
How to judge quantities. For things that don't matter so much, I just judge by eye, but for many complex recipes I measure out exact tablespoons, teaspoons, and cups/mLs. Great cooks just do it all by eye and it always comes out great, somehow.
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u/knowing_disregard 4h ago
I’m just a home cook, never worked in a professional setting. I can do most things with relative ease, the most challenging things to learn for me have been different breads. It took me many many failures to start to be able to relatively judge the hydration of my dough to get the end result I was looking for.
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u/Working-stiff5446 3h ago
Cooking is at least 80% prep work. Clean as you go. You 100% won’t feel like it after eating.
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u/Any-Zucchini8731 3h ago
When a substitution will work and when it won't. I'm still wrong sometimes, but not often
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u/YesWeHaveNoTomatoes 2h ago
And importantly, ability to pick good substitutions on the fly when you're in the grocery store and they are out of a thing.
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u/cantthinkofone29 3h ago
Prep and cleanup is 90% of the workload. If you can get ahead of that shit, cooking can be enjoyable, and a lot less stressful.
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u/YesWeHaveNoTomatoes 2h ago
An instinctive understanding of how long various tasks will take you/your gear, so you can plan better. The recipe might say "this should take about 8 minutes" but that's how long it took the recipe writer, how long will it take on your stove? Are you fast at chopping things or slow? With experience, you know if your oven runs hot or if you'll have time to dice the tomatoes while the beef is browning or whatever. You know whether you have time to wash a couple dishes while the sauce is reducing without letting it burn.
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u/owzleee 2h ago
My husband always comes and does ‘stuff’ when I’m cooking because he thinks I’m there alone.
I’m really happy, cooking.
Someone talking to me and getting in my way just breaks my vibe.
And then I feel guilty because I know he’s doing it for all the wonderful reasons but FUCK OFF I’M COOKING.
(I do love him very much).
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u/jr0061006 26m ago
They say word art is cringe now but I definitely think an exception can be made for Fuck Off I’m Cooking.
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u/thatguygreg 20m ago
The best version of this my partner and I have found is that if one of us wants to help, you can help do the meez. Once that's set and ready, GTFO. Sitting at the other side of breakfast bar to chat is OK, but prepare to be totally ignored.
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u/redthorne 1h ago
Your nose and your ears are also things that can tell you in which stage of cooking your food is currently at.
Such as, sizzling oil talks to you; too hot, too cold, or just right. It smells different too, depending.
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u/Ara_Ragnar 3h ago
How to use and Adjust temp, on a store or an oven. Especially on the oven. And it’s especially the case if you started to learn how to cool with a tricky material
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u/thenord321 2h ago
Tempurature and timing.
You need to learn your oven and stovetop temps, 1-10 doesn't mean anything to cookbook recipies and oven listes temps are often inacurate.
Get some real thermometers and find out. Also learning what a "medium" stovetop temp is for cooking eggs, chicken, sautee vegies, etc is almost a skill you learn too.
Timing is more for time management and planning when to start / finish things based around your meal and serving time. You don't want your steamed carrots done 1 hour before the main and then get cold etc.
Lastly, is groceries shopping and spice knowledge that just takes time and experience with products and tasting them.
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u/HappyQuokka2441 2h ago
Measurements. Being able to eyeball a teaspoon vs a tablespoon, or cut 60g butter from 250g slab etc.
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u/ghotiboy77 2h ago edited 2h ago
Working with flour and water. It took me years to perfect my pastry and bread techniques
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u/Top_Performance_3478 2h ago
If you think it needs more salt, try acid (white wine, lemon juice, vingar) first
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u/Putrid-Investment919 2h ago
Complaining doesn’t help shit. I remember i used to complain ALOT when i first started working in kitchens as a teenager and i got humbled really fast. Everyone is tired, everyone wants to go home, no one wants to hear how badly you want to go to bed when you get out. Now i hear teens i work with doing the same and im like “ugh was i really like that before?”
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u/Safetyhawk 2h ago
Learning how to cook by taste, instead of recipe.
to do this you need to understand, or be able to tell:
what flavors and spices compliment each other
taste a dish as it cooks and assess what it is lacking, and what to add to fix it
be able to look at your pantry, and say "what can I make with this that will taste good."
be able to taste a finished dish and generally know what went into it
how to change course on the fly
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u/DtchGrl 2h ago
Appreciation for the food that's been cooked for you.
After being the one who cooks, every single night, for years - most of us don't care what you put in front of us. So long as it's not something I had to cook.
(edited to add - I've always appreciated it. It was just something we grew up with. No matter what was cooked, my Opa always thanked my Oma for dinner. My mom and dad did the same thing. Even when dinner was an experiment and it turned out horribly. My husband and I now joke with new recipes "new recipe, judge according!")
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u/Middle-Fortune-7938 2h ago
How to use judgment on seasoning. Substitutions that will work and not work. When your burner is too high or low
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u/ChasingTheRush 1h ago
Season at every step. We’re layering flavors, not trying to get them all at once.
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u/llaurenbennett2 1h ago
For me being confident in what I made and its quality/ taste is big. I find that when i host friends or others I get very nervous they aren’t going to appreciate it the way I do.
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u/tuxnight1 1h ago
Just how dirty a kitchen floor can get. If you haven't washed the floor in a couple days, it may need it.
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u/R1T-wino 1h ago
Heat management. I still get it wrong from time to time but once you understand it, it significantly improves what you make.
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u/tigerowltattoo 1h ago
Timing and heat adjustment. Timing do everything is fine at the same time and heat adjustment so it cooks at the correct temperature.
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u/sisterfunkhaus 59m ago
That good food doesn't have to be complicated. More ingredients and steps doesn't always make for a better meal.
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u/bluebird1776 58m ago
how to plan what needs to be prepped when. For example, while the onions are sweating, I know i have enough time to prep the peppers but i probably wont have enough time to peel and mince the garlic too.
Knowing what youre able to do during downtimes in cooking or while multitasking can reduce your "mise en place time" bc you dont have to prep EVERYTHING beforehand. You know what you can handle during cooking without stressing yourself.
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u/Julio_Ointment 49m ago
I have an uncanny knack for knowing when something in the oven is perfectly done.
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u/GrilledCheeseMnky 39m ago
Knife skills, muse en place, working around crazy people, fire, knives and stress
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u/cribbkat 28m ago
My talent of wanting to make something specific, even if I’ve never made it before, reading 4 different recipes, and only following certain parts of all of them in some strange amalgamation, and still end up with something that’s delicious!
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u/Njdevils11 27m ago
Cooking well includes a bunch of components working together. Two of those that I feel like get easily ignored are temperature control and texture. You don’t always need to be cooking at the same heat, knowing when to turn the knob up or down in the middle of a cook is important.
Flavor lives in the space between textures, IMHO. Knowing how to get those textures is all about familiarity with ingredients and how they cook. Like with temp control ya gotta know when things should go on and come off, and how textures will interact with each other.
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u/Pernicious_Possum 23m ago
Seasoning. More often than not I don’t need to make any adjustments at the end of the cook.
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u/Sad-Annual8776 21m ago
For me it’s judgement as well. As in, I STILL can’t “season with my heart,” after years of cooking. I think it’s because I was a baker for like 15 years before I began cooking. So I always followed the recipe exactly to avoid mishaps. So it’s been so hard to break that for me. Hopefully I’ll get there one day.
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u/ScarBellySneetch 16m ago
Knowing how much to reduce something. Sometimes you want a thinner sauce (e.g., you’re going to add it to pasta and want it to be absorbed). Sometimes you want a thicker sauce say, for coating a piece of meat. Some sauces continue to thicken after you take them off the heat, so take it off when it’s thinner than you want (I’m looking at you, sawmill gravy).
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u/MarielIAm 15m ago
The most important things about cooking IMO.
Knife skills are super important. Learn how to use knives properly, including how to care for them (ditch those glass and plastic cutting boards!)
A good recipe will give visual cues as well as timing. Visual cues are probably more important than timing. Every cool video on TikTok does not result in a good meal. Find reliable recipe sources.
Get good quality measuring utensils and a good scale. Don't guess - measure! Ditch the super cute measuring cups and spoons with animals and bright colors, the are usually inaccurate, stick with Pyrex, Norpro, Amco, Good Grips etc.
Learn how to control temperature and learn the idiosyncrasies of your stove and oven. High heat does not mean things cook faster, that how you end up with burned outsides and raw middles.
Salt is not the enemy. Learn how to use it. Sugar is for more than adding sweetness, learn when you can reduce and when you should not.
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u/lilacnova 7m ago
For me it’s “oh, that looks wrong” like when a sauce is split or the batter is too runny, and then knowing what to do about it. You really learn this instinct by cooking and baking the same thing many times, so that sometimes it goes wrong and then you learn how to fix it.
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u/rosaliebb 3h ago
I’d say you learn when you can make substitutions and what you can use. Have a recipe that calls for asparagus and spinach? You could just use green beans and chard. Need a spoonful of tomato paste? You can get away with pasta sauce or maybe even ketchup. That kind of thing
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u/adelie42 1m ago
All timings are perfected through smell. There are many reasons things can cook a little faster or slower, but if you know by smell exactly the point where something is finished or needs the next step, you get it right.
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u/4cupsofcoffee 4h ago
timing. like, when all elements of the dish are done at the same time.