Do your New Year's resolutions include mastering a new project in the kitchen? Here are five cooking skills that might be on your list — along with the tutorials and recipes to get you started.
• Start canning: It's never too late to master the art of putting up preserves, pickles and produce to enjoy throughout the year.
• Improve your knife skills: Better knife skills mean faster, safer cooking. These ten tutorials cover the basics. Don't forget to use a sharp knife!
• Make bread from scratch (even on a busy weeknight): From 15-minute biscuits to no-knead bread started the night before, there is a homemade bread to fit every schedule.
• Stock up on homemade condiments: From-scratch mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup and hot sauce are simple to make and taste much better than their store-bought counterparts.
• Play around with fermentation: There is magic in the way fermentation transforms milk to yogurt, cabbage to kimchi, and grains to beer. Why not give it a try this year?
What new kitchen skills are you hoping to master in the coming year?
Related: Home Ec: What Cooking Skills Should Everyone Know?
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Canning is something ,whic even i plan to learn
Funny--I managed to learn all of these things last year! Particularly the canning and homemade bread. All wonderfully simple and useful things to learn!
Bread baking, cheese making, beer brewing, condiments, and canning will be my five focuses this year.
Making bread is something I do almost thrice a week, and also make mayo, but canning ans knife skill well that i still have to master.
I'd make more bread and condiments, but fresh mayo only lasts a week and homemade bread gets stale almost instantly. Unless you're feeding a crowd, how do you manage to use these things up in time? You can't make a single tablespoon of mayo, and there's only so much you can do with rock-hard bread.
Canning and condiments! Especially mayo and mustard. Helpful now that I got a little two cup food processor for Christmas. Those razor sharp knives I got won't hurt either (though some better knife skills might help).
I already bake bread somewhat frequently, but am on the hunt for a good whole grain sandwich bread so I can stop buying store-bought.
@engineergirl - Almost all forms of home-baked bread will keep for a long time in the fridge or indefinitely in the freezer. And if you've got stale bread? Make french toast, panade (or add stale bread to soups), bread pudding, bread salad, strata, croutons, melba toasts, or breadcrumbs. Day-old and stale bread is one of my favorite things to have around!
Can't help you with the mayo, only to say that either you should up your mayo consumption, or share with friends. :D
Learn more cooking techniques (likely French, Italian, and Indian) that can be applied to varying sets of available ingredients.
Learn more one-pot, slow-cooked dishes.
Learn how to make a stellar risotto and master the 5 mother sauces.
I keep my homemade bread in those clear produce bags you get at the grocery store and just leave it out on the counter. Lasts for at least a week that way.
I've always wanted to make beer. I will make it happen this year. :)
Bread? Check. Canning? On a regular basis. Knife skills? Can always stand to improve my technique (and sharpen my knives). Condiments? I'm content with what I choose to make vs. buy. Fermentation? I'm with verily - this is the year for beer!
1. Clean out my 1-gallon kimchee jars and break my SCOBY out of the fridge to make some long-overdue Kombucha!
2. Get my knives professionally sharpened, then sharpen my knife skills.
And if it isn't already 2013 by the time I accomplish those two, I'd love to learn canning or try out some whole wheat bread recipes.