10 Cooking Skills I Wish I Had Known (part 2) 

I love this channel because it teaches me HOW rather than just WHAT to cook.

My tip: use as much as possible of your produce. Got some potato peel? Turn them into chips. Got some scrap from your veggies? Make stock. You strained your tomato sauce so it would be super smooth? Dehydrate the skin and seeds that were left behind in your food mill. Once dehydrated turn it into powder to use in soups, spice mix etc. Same for leftover pulp you got from juicing, use that to make powders. You've got old apples not super appealing anymore? Chop them, put them in a jar filled with water to make vinegar. Nothing gets lost, everything can be transformed into valuable food so learn all the different ways good can be transformed.

Top skill in my book is to remember what you did (or better yet, write it down). I can't tell you how many times I was randomly experimenting and ended up with a great dish. Then week's later when my wife or kids ask me to make that dish again... for the life of me, I had no recollection of what I did.

My tips: Start by replacing cheap tools, cookware, & bakeware. This doesn't mean throw everything out, it means start small: get one good knife, get one good skillet, get one good saucepan, get one good sheet pan, get one good roasting pan. Do it one at a time so it's affordable. As you start to work with these good replacements, you're going to discover things you like and don't like. Use that knowledge to grow out your kitchen, again piece by piece. And don't be afraid of cast iron - get one good skillet or griddle and learn to care for it, season it, & cook with it... notice how it holds heat and how you can turn off the burner way in advance and still finish off your dish. Pay attention to your successes, correct your mistakes. Yes, there will be failures, but those are not failures, they're lessons - you are learning. Yesterday for the first time, I diced up an entire onion without tears. Was it a weak onion? No. I used a very very sharp Opinel knife that glided right through that onion effortlessly. It didn't crush or bruise the onion. I learned something new at age 62. 😁

It's frequently discussed...but mise en place. Read an entire recipe through from beginning to end before starting. Portion out the ingredients in containers/bowls ahead of time. Do your knife work ahead of time. Have a bowl for scraps/peels so you stay organized. In times of stress, you fall back on your level of preparation. Nothing ruins a dish faster than being flustered by the next step, not having the next ingredient that you need, completely forgetting an ingredient, etc. You should be basically ready to go, end-to-end, before you turn on a burner.

I think confidence with a chef knife has been my biggest quality of life improvement in the kitchen as it makes no task seem like a chore.

How to properly salt everything! Salting meat ahead of time, properly salting water for blanching green beans etc! By far the most important imo!

Best thing about this channel is it isn't like 99% of all cooking shows. Most cooking shows show you the textbook way to do things and follow the recipe exactly. Taa daa done! No explaining why, no what if, no instead of. You get that here. You get the recipe and the whys, and the hows, and then you get instead of, in addition to, and in a lot of cases beyond and way beyond. I've been cooking for many years but I've learned a lot in a short time, and you've changed how I think about cooking, and I think that was the best part. Keep up the great work!

Damn keep doing these cooking skill videos, I use it to figure out what to make for dinner. I'm lost without you!

Awesome tips! I'm so glad I watched this, cooking has always been a way for me to relax and I have neglected it lately due to studies, work, professional projects and etc. Watching this just made me want to go back to my kitchen and cook! My tips as a somewhat pro home cook: - Broths are a MAJOR game changer and it's often what separates great dishes from underwhelming ones. This ties in with the zero-waste mentality, because most of the peels from carrots, onions, garlic and etc. can be thrown into hot water to make a great veggie broth. You don't have to simmer it that long, just start by throwing some stuff into water and then proceed to your regular mise en place, and whatever's left, you can throw in there for more flavor. When you're done with that, you'll already have a liquid that's waaaaaay more tasty and aromatic than plain water. - Second, the way to keep yourself motivated in your early days is: don't think, just cook. Motivation is a fickle beast and the way to go about it is not waiting for it *before* you start doing something, but by *starting* regardless, and the motivation to finish will always come *during* the process. - Third, don't be too hard on yourself, because cooking involves a combination of knowledge, feeeling and most of all, experience. These are things that come with time but rest assured, they ALWAYS come if you keep your discipline, patience and humbleness. Look to other cooks and learn from *how* they go about food and how *you* think and feel about food. That's how get to dishes that are uniquely your own. Best of to you all home cooks out there. Cheers!

Fresh herbs! Living in LA I can grow herbs year round and I have thyme, basil, parsley, oregano, rosemary and cilantro. Even if you grow herbs in a small window garden there is nothing like it. Cutting and using your own herbs raises the taste of your food 3 levels, even if you dont have the skills to match.

You touched on something with the zero waste point, in revitalizing leftovers by creating something new with them. Everybody hates eating certain leftovers when the texture isn't good anymore, or they just look unappetizing. Creating something new, using leftovers has been a good way to empty out the fridge and keep the eaters happy.

yes! use what ya got! i'm a HUGE fan of the 'fridge cleaner' meals. Tacos. Casseroles. Salads. Stirfries. Soups. so necessary.

That moment when you nail it on the first try, but then can't get the thought of "Did I REALLY nail it though?" out of your head for the next half hour.

you really know what you're talking about, I'm mexican and this looks STUNNING! great work

Just thought of this (keeping as a separate post as it's worth saying by itself) Spend time learning from the pro's. Be old Julia Child shows, such as the French Chef (she's what taught America how to cook the French way and demystified it at the same time), but also observe HOW they approach cooking, their philosophies etc. then mimic their techniques that you find interesting and see how they work for you. You may find your cooking style will evolve over time. I did that when much younger and ultimately, through Julia Child, the late Jeff Smith and others, my cooking style became what it is to this day, more of a pro way of doing things and also, observe your own mother when she cooks if possible (I did that too) but mostly, my cooking skills was through osmosis.

The one project I've been attempting is mastery of the homemade-dumpling. Its been a great project because it isolates very key things: Dough, filling, pleating, and cooking. It's been crazy how much I've learned through cooking just one item that has tons of variations. I'm on like attempt 8 so far... And I've messed up so many times. But through those mess ups, I've made exponential gains! I leveled up.

Game changing for me is having your own herbs in the balcony , thyme ,chive,rosemary, mint, basil,oregano, etc ! is easy and lovely to keep alive your plants and watch them grow as you use them!

I tried the salsa. I didn’t have two of the chiles, but it still came out amazing! Please make more sauce video recipes .

Could you make a video of basic pans/utensils and/or spices for beginners that they would need in the kitchen?

Cool, thanks for including my tip! Loved the video :) Another great lesson I learned: having a good stock of ingredients in the freezer at all times. Peas, brokkoli, cauliflower, cabbage, spinach, herbs....these come in really handy for improvised leftover meals & it often saves a lot of time. Oh, and you can eat certain vegetables out of season if you stock up when they're in season.

One of the biggest game changers I've often been doing when it comes to food is meal planning with creativity. So instead of either humming and hawing all afternoon about what to make for dinner or buying exact ingredients for exact dishes I make things like roast chicken, rice and salad then for the next day I meal plan chicken rice soup so I can use the LO chicken rice (that I made extra of) and stock from the chicken bones. Sometimes I'll get fancy for a few meals a week so I have a lot of random ingredients lying around and my creativity with LOs comes out in lunch the next day.. that's where I'll thrown all those little scraps together to make a taste bomb! Kabang! It definetly takes a little time to get the feel for what goes good with what though but super worth learning

The tortilla press is absurdly beautiful. Is that some of your dad’s handiwork?

I always learn something new while watching your videos. Love how you incorporate all these tips into one meal/recipe. Fun to watch along and educational

I think the weirdest skill I had to learn was to just sit back and have some fun. I was being way too hard on myself when I first started cooking and that resulted in some ugly dishes and foul moods. Just relaxing and having fun really allowed me to come into my own.

For six years I’m learning from this channel so much, thankful

I really like the last tip: Zero Waste. I am currently going through my pantry and writing down what I have left for the year - I leave to travel in two weeks - and I intend to use up some of my "expired" canned goods, bean collections, frozen vegetables, and sauces. I'm definitely gonna need to buy some food because I am low on certain vegetarian things (RICE) but I am determined to find a way to use the rest of the giant can of green beans I bought 2 years ago.

Learning basics of roux/sauce-making was a big part of what took me from beginner to intermediate home cook. Feel like I’m not groping around in the dark in my own kitchen, anymore. Have learned much from watching you and yer bro these past few years. Thx. : )

I am impreeeessed, I’m Mexican and these is a real taco and real salsa, just like my grandmother and mother would do, it made my mouth water!!! Me and my husband love your videos, we learn so much 💚🤍❤️

At 11:01 you write 450 degrees F and in the parenthesis you state 150 degrees C. 450F is more like 230C . Please re-check.

I love that you make a single dish to teach. Not only do we learn some new skills, but we also get to add a recipe to our repertoire

The best video I've seen yet. Another aspect, although it may also be Quality, is respect for the ingredients, the LOCAL farmers that produced them, the people that made them get to your table and the unusable remains, which are not trash... The entire supply chain !! Well done. Thanks.😊

Sauté the onion till it’s became brown or caramelised always became a good soup without using any chicken stock when you have limited ingredients

For me I guess some would be: 1. Try and understand recipes, maybe search for similar ones, get a feel for what it‘s about and from there, go wherever it takes you and do not be afraid of going off trail if you feel like you need or want to do so. 2. Everyday is different and so are your ingredients, so try and get feel for them. Weather, soil, seeds and so so much more will make this years‘ veggies taste different than last years‘ and that‘s wonderful - that‘s nature! So taste your ingredients before using them to see and understand what they will need to shine. 3.Use your senses, don‘t blindly trust expiration dates. Smell&taste things (as long as they‘re not moldy of course), you‘ll be training your senses. 4. This may not go for people in certain climates, but use whatever the season offers. You don‘t need to have that fresh strawberries, tomatoes, etc. in the winter. There literally are veggies for every season of the year and once you learn how to use them, you‘ll be amazed by how your body will start to crave certain produce at certain times and your culinary horizon will be broadened like never before. 5. Don‘t be afraid to fail but also don‘t be afraid to ask. Bakers, Chefs, Bartenders, Farmers,... - all of them will most likely love to answer your questions. 6. Please - and I can‘t stress this enough thinking about all the times I had to put up with this in other people‘s kitchens - sharpen your knifes. It makes everything easier and more importantly, it‘s just so satisfying to see your knife glide through those onions like nothing. 7. Massimo Bottura signed me his book, saying „cooking is an act of love“ and this is the most important lesson. Love what you‘re doing, cuz it simply is great. Food is such an integral part of life and preparing and sharing it with people is just pure magic. So whatever it is you‘re making, the simplest pasta dish or a multi-course dinner, put some love into it, share it with people and it‘ll make all the difference.

A dull knife is a dangerous knife. Keeping your knives sharp allows you to use them in safe ways.

Pickled onions have changed a lot of foods for me recently lol. They are so simple too, 15-20 min of prep and just a couple hours in your fridge.

These are the types of videos we need. Thank you for this, and thanks to the contributors!

I have been learning a lot over last several months of this pandemic, and your videos have a immensely. For no professional cooks, your vids are amazing.

My favorite thing is the way you communicate with familiarity. I feel like you're a friend, a real person I know. Learning more about spices (grinding/toasting) is awesome. Learning about tools and cookware is good too. Please do more with vegetables, less or no meat.

Been watching you and your brother from the start and I’ve loved every single video, episode, food hack, and lesson. I love what you’ve done with the channel and I’ve learned so much. Thank you so much

He literally made 2 more incredible dishes with just that no-waste mentality.

We went on birthright together! Glad to see you still cooking! I’m a chef now!

Most important thing I've learned is the actual chemistry in food. Learning what different common ingrediens do on a chemical level. How different techniques change the flavors and understanding the results. Quite hard, but it change the entire perspective on cooking.

Oh man, number 10 has transformed my life, 0 waste is amazing, making a beef and brocc stirfry using only the florets? Now you have a brocc stem in the freezer for the next time you make a meat sauce for your spag to go with that rind of parmesan, the leftover green parts of the springonion that you used for garnish, oh, and lets not forget about the half a lime that you dumped in the freezer after making a few too many gin and tonics, it'll be awesome in tomorrows curry!

My biggest game changer was learning how to let food just sit instead of constantly stirring or flipping. Also learning how to gradually bring food up from low to high versus throwing scrambled eggs in a piping hot skillet

I've been fasting for over 36 hours now. I've been binge watching your channel and other cooking and eating stuff... Why do I do this :D

Oh also! The cooking times of different ingredients. Timing is everything. When to add in garlic helped me learn this.

Awesome, wonderful information thank you for sharing 🙏

Best cooking show on RU-vid, great video, great recipes, great presentation. Thanks Mike.

Your videos are astounding in brevity and important points. I stepped up my home cooking game and hardly ever use a recipe except for ratios although I read them for one thing...flavor combinations and it gets to a very basic in many recipes. Like celery onion carrot or pepper. Or soy sesame mirin garlic ginger and sweet. Thanks for your great information and I find watching videos of cooking a first rate education.

I absolutely LOVE this channel. So many good tips and tricks. Very motivating!! Thank You!

forget giveaways, let me spend a day in your kitchen.

Freeze your fresh ingredients if you know you aren't going to use them up quickly. Ex. Herbs, peeled ginger, peeled garlic, prepped fruits. I now chop up my fresh Cilantro. Basil, dill, etc. And put in storage bag and freeze until i need it for a recipe. I love this so much!

Learning how to salt the pasta water properly. The water should taste salty like the ocean then add the pasta.

If you ever gonna be in Poland, I invite you for a shot of homemade plum brandy and best-simplest sandwich nobody else think of

Your videos are so well thought out, cant wait to try this recipe

Great video. Informative. Thanks!

Awesome video, love these steps as they reminded me of myself. One big one for me was “season as you go”. Rather than putting all your seasoning at the end, add enough seasoning for what is in the pot/pan. I.e. making a potato hash, you first cook potatoes, so add salt/pepper, then you add peppers and onions to the pan once the potatoes are mostly cooked, then you season more for the onions and peppers. Big game changer for me!

Love this, especially the idea to use what you have. The most important thing I've learned is to always have basic ingredients stocked in your fridge or pantry, e.g. flour, sugar, rice, pastas, beans, salt, oils, spices, eggs, cheese, onions, garlic, misc. veggies & fruit, etc. This frees you from having to shop and plan around specific recipes for every meal and gives you the flexibility to be creative with the things you already have.

My first steps for loving the kitchen. Getting a big cutting board. Number, making dough. Not bread, my wife likes pasta. I made pasta by hand to help for quitting smoking because it took so long. (Learned not to fold the dough a lot. It takes way longer.) and what I’m learning now is stocks. That is my number 3 for personally starting. Chicken noodle soup is amazing

Great list and great job putting this together. I'd have added that when I started, I was viewing everything in terms of recreating a dish rather than making a meal. I think I was conditioned from cooking channels and recipe books to recreate a single dish. After spending some time with Asian cuisines, I started thinking of my cooking in terms of creating a meal of a few simple dishes that go together. Now I apply that meal making ideology to all my cooking. Love this skill based format. Keep it up!

Understanding what every ingredient and step in your recipe does. Food is, literally and figuratively, a matter of personal taste. Knowing how each ingredient or step contributes to the end result will give you more control over your cooking to tailor it to your specific taste, and give you more clarity about what is essential to the dish and what can be riffed upon.

you should make a video on your kitchen setup and design, I love it!

Such great tips! Well explained. Thanks!

One simple, but great personal tip is to preheat your pan, oven or whatever you’re using.

Love your videos. Keep them coming!!!!

Wow, impressive!! Thank you great content!!

Yes!! Love this!!

Brilliant! Love this channel!

Wow, you're the first (not mexican) cook that I've seen that can make a good tortilla, you really understand our food, we normally don't put lime or lemon to the salsa but it looks like a good twist, and your tortilla soup, another interesting way to cook it. Congrats.

Finding your channel has made me a better cook.

so glad i found your channel your content is pretty much exactly what i was looking for. thanks for what you are putting out to the world :)

I have to say just one thing. This video is very very useful. I am talking to my friends about that and teaching them about this things. Now you helped me showing them. Thenk you. 😊

👍Loves it!!!👍 👏🏼Thank you for sharing 👏🏼

I love the zero waste mentality, and that has made home cooking more fulfilling. Unfortunately, I've suffered a pretty catastrophic disability, and my wife has taken over the cooking. What I've noticed, is that she often finds herself in the predicament of wanting to make due with what we have at the end of the week, but being out of a key ingredient. Would you be interested in talking about substitutions? For insurance, if you're making a dish that traditionally has onions, but you're out of onions, what are some strategies for picking a good substitute?

Cook with the seasons. At least mostly. Saves money and it’s inspiring because you see those goods fresh and they complement the season. Yes, clean as you go. I lay out everything, like for a cookie recipe or any project, then as I use that item I put it away. So the surface is clearing as I cook.

You're the only RU-vid channel that didn't ask me to turn on notifications but I already did it because I am absolutely mesmerized. I'm really deep into cooking already and my goal is to have my kitchen and pantry as functional as yours so my wife and I already have started investing in our life... Our life is our kitchen so you know haha

Love this channel! I consider myself a pro home cook but this channel helped me to take my experimentation with food to the next level, my taste buds thank you!

Really enjoy watching you videos keep it up!

I love your spatula I've spent a long time looking for the perfect spatula that's the right length, strength, and thickness. Yours looks ideal.

When I had the luxury in my 30s of staying home and running my household, I enjoyed preparing a menu for the entire week; first I listed about 3 - 4 main meals, then made a list of all the ingredients I'd need to make them from scratch. With that list of ingredients finished, I then chose the other meals while considering what I'd estimate having leftover from the ingredients on my main list. In other words, making good use of my money and food was brutally intentional from start to finish, as I have seen you talk about several times. I also stayed on a budget. So first: the budget, then begin the menu *taking into consideration whatever leftovers I had from the days' prior meals, too*, then building ingredients list, then cross-indexing other meals I could make with some of those ingredients. These days I have more financial freedom to build an intentional pantry and it's a joy to do so. I even have several kinds of dried Mexican chilis in my pantry, and am curious to get and keep on hand some Chinese chilis.

Thank you , I learned some new things.

This is one of your best videos to date. Thank you for sharing. This is very very impressive.

I now have two fine Misen knives in my knife arsenal. They are great!! Waiting now for the pan I want to come back into stock. Thanks for your recommendation. I am learning so much from your videos.

Thank you for your videos. You’ve taught me to rethink food combinations, cooking techniques and find joy in the kitchen. COVID-19 2020 was a good year to discover you.

Last comment - I really like the "no waste" mentality or the "cook what ya got" mentality. It's amazing all of the iconic cultural dishes that have come into being based on this philosophy.

Fantastic video. Master storyline, editing and presentation right there.

I love love LOVE watching your videos. They are sooo informative and realistic and always fresh and delicious.. It's really been a game changer for me.. All the way down in South Africa. I've even made my own sour dough starter and sour dough bread just from watching your channel. You're awesome.

Great content! Thank you for encouraging and giving confidence rather than cooking something so extraordinary that I get shy about going into the kitchen. 🙏🦄🤞

I wish I could just call you up with a list of all the ingredients I need to use up and have you concoct an incredible meal recipe! Love this channel.

I love zero waste in the kitchen! Like the tortilla soup, you can also toast left over corn tortillas, and during blending add one to home made enchilada sauce or chili relleno sauce. Adds so much flavor. My friend grandmother taught me that one.

Really well made video. Great job!

Love these skill based videos! I also loved the whole chicken series, since watching that I only buy one large piece of meat at the beginning of the week and use it in different ways. I'd love to see you expand on that, maybe do a whole pork belly, whole salmon or a beef sub primal cut! 🤞☺️

Thanks for the shout out! That tortilla press is a thing of beauty!

I learned the importance of knowing at which step in the cooking process salt should be added! Game changer

Your studio kitchen is the kitchen that I want

My diet really affects my mental health. Lately I've been really depressed because I've only been eating takeout. You've motivated me to get back into the kitchen. For the first time in months, I made fresh tortillas and through together some easy chicken tacos. Thank you.

I work in a kitchen for a living and I wasn't really enjoying cooking at home, but finding this channel has helped me get back into my kitchen and enjoy it again. I literally made homemade granola because of one of your videos I watched.

Amazing, amazing video. This might be the most quality cooking content i've ever seen on youtube

I totally agree with the last comment, now I'm impatiently waiting for a new video!!