Kitchen skills & techniques

Six practical questions

Small skills. Better meals.

What kitchen skill should a beginner learn first?

Start with safe knife handling and basic preparation. A stable chopping board, a sharp knife used correctly and ingredients cut into similar-sized pieces make cooking more predictable. Your next job is learning to control heat. The illustrated Kitchen Skills library here has practical techniques you can read and practise.

Practise slowly on a stable board with the food resting on a flat side and fingers kept clear of the blade. Do not catch a falling knife. If you’re new to knife work, ask someone experienced to show you the grip and the first few cuts. Build confidence with simple cuts before chasing speed.

How do I stop food sticking to the pan?

Give the pan time to heat, use the right amount of fat and avoid moving food too soon. Some ingredients release naturally once they have browned. In Che’s eggplant recipe, the cut side cooks against the skillet until it colours and releases. The exact approach changes with the pan and food, so use the recipe instructions rather than a single rule for everything.

If you need to release food, use a tool suited to the pan rather than scraping a non-stick surface with metal. Check whether the food is wet, the pan crowded or the heat too low before adding more oil. Clean a pan thoroughly after gluten-containing cooking; browning residue is not a useful flavour base for a coeliac meal.

Why should ingredients be prepared before cooking?

When a dish cooks quickly, stopping halfway to peel garlic or measure a sauce can mean something burns. Chop, weigh and check ingredients before you heat the pan. It is especially useful for stir-fries, dumplings and sauces, where timing matters more than lengthy cooking.

Read the whole method, separate raw and ready-to-eat ingredients, and put checked sauces in small containers before cooking. Keep raw-meat tools apart from garnish tools. Preparation should reduce time at unsafe temperatures, not mean leaving everything on the bench all afternoon. Return perishable ingredients to the fridge until they are needed.

What is the point of resting dough?

Resting allows moisture to distribute more evenly and can make gluten-free dough easier to shape. It is not the same as kneading wheat dough to develop gluten. Che’s gyoza wrapper recipe chills the dough before rolling, while his pizza recipe includes longer resting and refrigeration. Use the rest period written for that particular dough.

Cover dough so the surface does not dry while it rests, and refrigerate it when the recipe calls for chilling. A rest can hydrate starches and binders but cannot repair a missing ingredient or make wheat dough gluten-free. Check the specified time and consistency before adding more flour or rolling the dough thinner.

How should I check food temperature accurately?

Use a suitable food probe rather than judging safety from colour or steam alone. Clean and sanitise it appropriately before and after use, then place the sensing area in the thickest relevant part without touching bone or the pan. Check more than one place in a large or uneven portion.

Follow the food-specific cooking guidance and the thermometer manufacturer’s instructions, including calibration checks. An infrared surface reading is not a substitute for a core reading. Keep the probe used on raw food from contaminating cooked food, and record times and temperatures when cooling or reheating needs monitoring.

When is rice bran oil a useful choice?

I like rice bran oil for suitable cooking applications because its relatively mild flavour can work well when I do not want the oil to dominate the dish. Choose a product and method suited to the temperature involved; it is not automatically the best choice for every dressing, pan or fryer.

Follow the oil and equipment instructions, avoid smoking it and monitor temperature between batches. Replace deteriorating oil rather than adding fresh oil indefinitely. For coeliac cooking, clean suitable equipment and dedicated oil matter separately: changing the appearance or quality of shared fryer oil does not establish freedom from gluten.