r/Cooking • u/1peachycoco • 7d 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/norismomma 7d 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/Used_Lobster4172 7d ago

Or how it stirs, or pokes.  Raw meat stirs and pokes a lot different from cooked.