Cooking question - How to Cook like a Chef?

They all pretty much went to a culinary arts school which can be expensive. I plan to enroll at Le Cordon Bleu after medical school which will be $52,000 to earn the Culinary Diplome and will take 9 months. But a homecook can still learn to cook gourmet meals without getting a heart attack from a tuition bill. It just takes determination, experience, and willingness to learn from your mistakes. I would invest in a well stocked kitchen before you decide to do anything. Essentials that the average person tend to live without in their kitchen are dutch ovens (many dont buy this pot because it tends to be expensive), double broilers, mortar & pestle, and electric mixers (trust me, you will want this). You should have these on hand. I also recommend you get a Microplane zester grater which really makes zesting easier and makes grating cheese a breeze. Other than that, learn from the next best thing to a culinary arts teacher. The books they study from. You should buy the book, "On Cooking" which is a popular requirement for students.

http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Textbook-Culinary-Fu...

or "The Professional Chef"

http://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-I...

I would also recommend supplementing your studies with

Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making

http://www.amazon.com/Sauces-Classical-Contemporar...

Larousse Gastronomique (if you can read French, the French version is MUCH better. I feel this is a MUST read)

http://www.amazon.com/Larousse-Gastronomique-Prosp...

I actually never read this book, but any knife skill book will do

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Knife-Skills-Essen...

Le Cordon Bleu's Complete Cooking Techniques

http://www.amazon.com/Cordon-Bleus-Complete-Cookin...

and my favorite:

The Flavor Bible

http://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creat...

This book will be key in helping you to develop your own recipes.

Other than that, it just takes practice and a few guinea pigs willing to try your food. I will warn you, cooking in the walls of your own kitchen can still drain your wallet.

Know your foods, your seasonings, your proteins and the terminology. Take a look at a recipe. Analyze it. Could you make it better? How could you change it? Could you add additional items or subtract to make it more palatable? Could you change the seasonings or sauce to improve it? Know what herbs go best with certain meats. How does vinegar affect a vegetable and a protein? How does raw onion compare to sauteed onion?

A lot of chefs start at the bottom and that is the hard way. But no one just walks into a chef's job. The ACF is good, (I am a member and there are students but they are in culinary schools) but maybe not for you at this point. There are a lot of junior colleges and vo-tech schools that offer classes and that might be the best way to start.

In the mean time, experiment. What makes a good beginning chef is to look at a recipe and say, "I can do better." Use it as a guideline but only as a starter. Good luck. Lots of work ahead!

Most community colleges offer basic cooking classes, although these will focus on specific recipes as opposed to general techniques.

Otherwise, it's really just a matter of learning some techniques and practicing them.

Honestly the only difference between "fine dining" and "home cooking" is that fine dining seems to enjoy using little squirty-bottles to drizzle sauces on your plate and stacking your food in pointless little stacks, whereas home cooking doesn't bother with such frivolity.

Of course the other way to go is...get a job in a restaurant. With no experience they won't put you on the line at first, but just about everyone who works in a restaurant has to work their way up. Most places will give you a free meal after your shift as well, which is a pretty good benefit for a student and all.

I think everyone gets that way eventlualy about cooking. Consider it as opposed to other jobs. If your a hair dresser, you do not do 8 hours at work with hair to come home and have to cut your familys hair every night. The same goes for an accountant, or almost any other profession. Being a cook is not as you say, throwing things in a pot and hoping for the best. You have to know how things work together, compliment or contrast each other. I have had times when I go to a friends house and say I feel like cooking. They have told me, good luck finding anything in there. 30 minutes later I walk out, and they are amazed that what I am serving came out of their kitchen. It is an art and a passion. BUT... then you turn around and come home and you have to have meals for the family. People expect it all to be good, and we expect it to be good as well. On my off times I tend to be roughest on myself. I have made a dish that I would rather not serve that other people just rave about, saying it is the best I have ever made. Who knows.... Enough rambling... I really am trying to offer some help. When I get that way, I usually find if I go back to the basics I get the passion back. Those dishes that I learned from Mom, or my Honey (grandmother). They remind me of the love and passion that these strong women put into their food, and it helps me get back the passion for my cooking. Good Luck and Good Cooking!

It only takes practice making first simple dishes, then more complicated ones. Lots of practice so they come out the same every time.

To cook like a chef one must follow exactly and blindly each and every step and measure exactly every time. No substitutions allowed and not even a smidgeon of difference in how it is cooked yesterday, today or tomorrow.

To be a good cook also takes practice, but takes some experimentation as well. To find the good measure of any thing is to be known as a good cook.

Read lots of cookbooks for pleasure! Learn how to combine foods and make pretty plates that taste good as well.

I have eaten in some very upscale restaurants that charged a banker's salary that looked good but tasted horrid and wasn't even enough on the plate to notice that there was food there or not. I have also eaten in some "hole-in-the-wall" places that charged minimally and the food looked good, tasted excellent and was enough to fill a person.

Fine Dining is NOT gourmet cookery exactly. It is pretty food, excellently seasoned food, sometimes very simple food, and good company.

Just find some cookbooks and read them, Fix really nice good food and serve it to good people. It doesn't have to be really expensive foods either. But do ask your guests for positive criticism on your plate looks, taste, table settings, and you will improve daily in your abilities.

Hiya Reenie!

The only way I know of becoming someone who can cook food that just about all who try's it enjoys it is by many years of practice. I have had food prepared by chefs that really sucked, and the same food prepared by someone who has been cooking for years and really liked what I ate. Trial and error is your best teacher, because if you have to eat what you make, you make sure you do not mess it up. Here is a recipe web site that has tons of old school comfort food type recipes that I have found to be really tasty dishes. http://www.recipesource.com/ - I hope this helped, good luck.

I started off cooking things that I liked to eat. So you may want to do this and than do variations of this. If you use canned or frozen, you can look up recipes for working with fresh ingredients.

One of the best cookbooks ever is THE BETTY CROCKER COOKBOOK. This book is very specific and simple to follow. It gives you a lot of information about different kinds of foods, how to store them, substitutions, shelf life and recipes with pictures demonstrating how to cook and/or bake, step by step.

Cooking academies are very expensive and crank out good prep and sous chefs.

Be a very good businessperson. Watching the inventory and the money is what matters as well as knowing your craft. Keep things clean, well stocked and at hand. Start at the bottom, don't spend a lot of money and make sure your manager know you are intersted in cooking/returanting as a career.

Dear,

Take a look at this site it might help you

http://artofculinary.net/

Good Luck

i'm assuming you are from the states, so stop, give up now, go back to eating burgers....

or buy julia childs french cookbook and read it, actually read it.