I’ve been cooking since I was about 8 years old. That’s a looooong time, friends and neighbors!! As such, I often take for granted the things I know to do from sheer habit. I started thinking about this last night, so I figured I’d pass along some of my cooking wisdom to those of you who might not know some of this stuff.

The number ONE thing that I see across the board with most home cooks (and some restaurant ones, too) is not seasoning the food. By “seasoning” I mean standard salt and pepper. I can’t state boldly enough how important salt is to cooking pretty much everything – yes, even baked goods. It’s a common misconception that leaving out salt in the cooking step can be fixed with a salt shaker on the table. I’m here to tell you it can NOT. If you want to taste the difference, here’s how:

Go buy a can of NO SALT green beans and a can of regular green beans and taste them side by side. Then try adding table salt to the unsalted ones. You’ll see that it’s just not the same.

Cooking pasta, potatoes and especially meats without proper salting with leave you with bland tasting food. If you make baked goods without salt, they’ll taste flat. Watch a few episodes of Anne Burrell’s Secrets of a Restaurant Chef. She uses a LOT of salt, granted, but I’ll bet her food is amazing. Don’t serve bland food!! Season as you go and taste often. You’ll see a big difference in your dishes.

While we’re talking about salt, you should also explore the different salts available. I use kosher salt almost exclusively, but every now and then I try other things like sea salt or exotic salt. The thing to know is that ALL salt tastes different. Table salt has iodine in it (“iodized salt”) and has a MUCH different taste than kosher or sea salt. I strongly suggest using kosher salt for cooking. It is a much more neutral salt than table salt. Try the two side by side and you’ll taste what I mean. Most recipes call for kosher salt – even if it’s not specified – and could taste overly salty if you use table salt.

The next biggest mistake I see quite often is misuse or lack of use of herbs and spices.

Herbs are the leaves of plants and can be used dry or fresh. Spices are generally the seeds or roots of plants, typically used dry.

By misuse I mean bad combinations of herbs/spices or overspicing to compensate for lack of proper seasoning. There are classic herb/spice combos for a reason: they work! Dill and oregano? I don’t think so. If you aren’t sure about your herb/spice use, use recipes until you get the hang of it. Nick overused black pepper when he was learning to cook. Why? Because that’s the only spice he was familiar with. Now he knows how to modulate his pepper use and even use other spices for flavour. I’ve had spicy food that needed salt. You can’t really substitute anything for salt. Seasoning is not the same as flavouring, remember.

There are some rules to using dried vs fresh herbs. Generally, you use dried herbs at the beginning of cooking to bring out the flavour and you use fresh herbs at the end of cooking so as not to destroy their flavour. Dried herbs tend to have more concentrated flavour than fresh, but fresh gives a fresh finish that you just can’t get with dried. It’s a flavour building technique to use dried herbs/spices early on and then use the same herb FRESH as a finisher. Try it with cilantro or parsley. Layers of flavour means a delicious and well rounded dish. Continue reading “Common Cooking Mistakes”