Cooking basics (unfinished)

Cooking is an incredibly valuable tool if you want to improve your health and make your fat loss easier. It will save you money and allow you to eat meals that are tasty yet diet-friendly. Unfortunately, in today’s age, cooking is a dying skill. In the world of Uber Eats and prepackaged food, it’s common for people not to cook at all. If you belong to this group, learning the very basics of cooking will help you tremendously. If you already know very basic cooking, then skip this part entirely, you will learn nothing.

Here, I’ll give you a very basic guide to cooking. Ironically, I’m a terrible cook. Most of my meals are bland and boring. So why am I writing a guide on cooking? Because while my cooking is incredibly simple, it satisfies my needs. However, it’s not uncommon to have people who don’t know any cooking whatsoever. This guide is for those people. If you already know your way around basic meals, this guide isn’t for you, and if you want to improve your cooking, you need to read something by someone who actually knows how to cook (tip: not me).

Let’s start with equipment. In my experience the most useful and versatile is hands down a non stick frying pan. They are generally cheap and you can get one for 15-30$ online (e.g. Amazon) or any big supermarket near you. Unless you’re on a hard budget, don’t go as cheap as possible, it’s a good investment and you will make good use of it. There are other pieces of equipment that are highly useful, such as a grill pan, wok, blender, saucepans, baking sheets, air-fryers, and a million others. We will focus on the frying pan as I think it’s the easiest.

Our “snack meals” don’t generally require cooking, so we’re going to talk about main meals. Let’s start with the most basic main meal possible: chicken and veggies. First, you need to have the food you need. You can find chicken breast in the meat section of your supermarket. Keep it in the fridge and before cooking cut in half. For the veggies, you can buy them at the vegetable section of the supermarket and cut them. To make this even simpler, you can buy frozen veggies, which are already cut; you just need to cook them.

Put the non-stick frying pan on the stove-top. Turn the heat into medium heat and wait for the pan to get hot. For almost everything you’re cooking, you need a tiny bit of oil. But that amount is truly tiny if you have a decent pan, and remember that oil contains calories (that you need to track!). It depends a bit on the amount of food and surface of the pan, but ¼ to ½ of a tablespoon is enough. Make sure to spread the oil across the pan. You can use a paper towel to spread it evenly across the pan and remove any excess. If you have a olive oil calorie-free spray, you can use that (4-8 sprays).

After the pan is hot and coated with oil, drop your chicken into it. You can use a million spices, but let’s stick with the basics: salt and pepper. Put a bit of each across all the chicken. Now you just need to wait for that side to cook. Keep an eye on it. For those new to cooking, knowing when it’s cooked or not can be tricky. You can always flip the chicken to see how cooked it is if you’re unsure. And remember that if it turns out it’s not cooked enough, you can always leave it cooking for a while longer. And if it turns out you overdid it a little bit, you won’t taste as good, but you will have a better understanding of when to take it out next time.

After one side is cooking, turn it the other way. Spice it again, and wait just like the first time. After it’s done, your chicken is ready, and you can put it aside. Now it’s time for veggies. If you have them frozen, you don’t need to wait for them to defrost. Just put them in the pan after you have some oil. Now season it with spices, and mix it once in a while to cook evenly and avoid burning. Once it’s done, take it out.

Voila! You have a meal. The most basic meal in existence, but if you’re starting out, it’s an achievement nevertheless. You could also cook the chicken with the veggies if you cut them in pieces. This is the very basics only, although you can use a very similar if not the same method for other meals. However, there are some other nuances. For meat, you would be better off with a grill instead of the frying pan, there are other spices you use, for most people you will also need some carbs such as rice, pasta, etc.

If you want to do something you’re unsure how to do, luckily for you it is easily known in a few minutes on YouTube. Want to grill a steak properly and unsure how? YouTube “how to grill a steak”. You never made rice before? YouTube “how to make rice”. And so on and so forth. Overtime, you will know what to do, and you will also learn specific foods and methods of cooking you like best.

I also like to follow cooking YouTube channels. While you can discover the recipe you want by searching it, following someone in specific will introduce you to things you didn’t know about or thought about before. My favorites are Ethan Chlebowski and Felu. Some sample videos below: