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Marie Rama
Bryan Miller
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Published:
March 4, 2020

Cooking Basics For Dummies

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Overview

Get started cooking now with Cooking Basics For Dummies, 5th Edition!

Are you looking to dig yourself out of microwave dinners and learn the ropes of home cooking? Cooking Basics For Dummies, 5th Editiontakes the intimidation out of cooking and helps you start cultivating your culinary prowess in no time. From learning fundamental cooking techniques like dicing, chopping, and saut?ing to creating delicious, easy-to-follow recipes, you'll discover how to cook up crowd-pleasing meals the whole family will enjoy—all without breaking a sweat!

Even if you've never cracked an egg, this friendly, practical guide gives you all the ingredients to become a superior home cook. In plain English, it explains step-by-step how to master popular cooking techniques, such as dicing vegetables, hard boiling an egg, making quick and delicious sauces, planning menus, stocking your pantry, and so much more.

  • Packed with more than 150 easy-to-follow recipes for every meal of the day, from mouth-watering mains to sumptuous sides to delectable desserts
  • Helps you master grilling, slow cooking, baking, roasting, pressure cooking, and more
  • Includes tips on adapting meals to meet the latest dietary trends, such as low-sugar, low-sodium, low-fat, plant-based, and vegetarian diets
  • Covers shopping at farmer's markets and buying organic foods

Cooking Basics For Dummies, 5th editionis for every beginner cook or polished chef looking for a refresher on breathing new life into home-cooked meals.


P.S. If you think this book seems familiar, you’re probably right. The Dummies team updated the cover and design to give the book a fresh feel, but the content is the same as the previous release of Cooking Basics For Dummies (9781118922316). The book you see here shouldn’t be considered a new or updated product. But if you’re in the mood to learn something new, check out some of our other books. We’re always writing about new topics!
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About The Author

Bryan Miller is a food and wine writer and a former restaurant critic for The New York Times. He has written and cowritten a number of books.

Marie Rama is a food writer, recipe developer, and coauthor of Grilling For Dummies.

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CHEAT SHEET

To save money and boost your health, you may be doing more home cooking than ever before. You can use simple tips and tricks to cook healthy meals, bake yummy desserts, throw a fabulous party, and save time in the kitchen. With a bit of planning, some expert advice, and fresh ingredients, you’ll be cooking delicious meals in no time — even if you consider yourself a kitchen novice.
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Cooking, like medieval poetry, is suffused with myths, muddled logic, and inaccuracies. And they’re passed down from generation to generation — and sometimes cookbook to cookbook — and taken for granted. The following list explores ten common cooking myths and gives you the real story behind them. Marinating meat tenderizes it.
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Listen to the article:Download audioHosting Thanksgiving this year? Guess what? It’s actually possible to host a fantastic Thanksgiving meal and not get completely stressed out! ©Krakenimages / Unsplash.comTry these Thanksgiving hosting tips, which come from several excellent articles on Dummies.com. And, have a happy, fun, yet peaceful, holiday.
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A kitchen fire can start any number of ways: You set a roll of paper towels on the stovetop; you forget to watch the pot; you put that gold-rimmed bowl in the microwave. When you have a flare-up in the kitchen, you need to act fast to keep the fire from getting out of control. But how you act depends on what kind of fire you have and where it is.
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Observations and interviews with many chefs revealed a consensus among them about how to progress as a cook. The ten points in this list reflect their thoughts. Know the basic techniques. Cooking is so much more fun — and successful — when you approach it with confidence. Chefs say that confidence arises from knowing your techniques so well that they’re second nature.
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Most home cooks can get along with three versatile knives: a 10- to 12-inch chef’s knife, an 8- to 10-inch serrated (bread) knife, and a small paring knife.A chef’s knife can be used for all sorts of chopping, slicing, dicing, and mincing.This knife is really the workhorse of the kitchen, so investing in a quality chef’s knife always pays off.
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The following list of different kinds of pots and pans isn’t exhaustive, but it will get you started. These are the pots and pans you’ll use the most.Skillets and sauté pansYou’ll probably use this skillet all the time, so get a good, heavy-duty one. You may wonder, as you browse through your options, why some skillets have rounded, curved sides and some have straight sides.
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If you really want to go to town with this pots-and-pans thing, you could probably buy a hundred different ones, each with its own specialized function. But is your kitchen really that big? You can do just about any cooking chore with some basic pots and pans However, if you want to take it to the next level, you may consider acquiring some of these additional handy pans.
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Smoked shoulder of pork is an inexpensive and versatile cut of meat. You may be familiar with pork roast and pork tenderloin but not this delicious cut. Pork shoulder (also called pork "butt" even though it is far from the hog's butt — probably a practical joke) is the upper part of a hog's shoulder. Its firm, rosy, and well-marbled meat is used in pâtés and sausages.
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Fresh corn on the cob is around for a few weeks each summer, and then it disappears. So when it’s available, make the most of this delicious vegetable. It’s not so hard to cook the perfect ear of corn if you follow a few simple tips: Buy corn still in its husk, if possible, rather than the plastic-wrapped, fully shucked kind you often see in the store.
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Chicken noodle soup is a year-round favorite meal for most people. Sure, the cans of chicken noodle soup are easy to prepare, and you can often get a good deal on them throughout the winter. But nothing beats homemade chicken noodle soup, and it's not as hard to make as you might think. Toss some veggies and chicken into a pot with chicken broth, let it cook for a bit, add the noodles, and you're about finished.
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Who doesn’t like chili? It’s a perfect dish to have in the fridge when ravenous teenagers come home from school, and it’s so easy to make. You can make a big batch and freeze it, and it’s good for six months. Be creative and make chili with lamb (cumin is a natural spice here), ground turkey, or ground pork. Sample the chili from time to time while it’s cooking, and go lightly on the salt because it intensifies during cooking.
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Thin cuts of meat, 1 to 1-1/4 inches thick, are best grilled or pan-seared on top of the stove. If you try to sauté thick meat, there’s a good chance you’ll burn the surface before the center is cooked. So thicker steaks and pork chops benefit from a combination of pan-searing and roasting, called pan-roasting.
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To save money and boost your health, you may be doing more home cooking than ever before. You can use simple tips and tricks to cook healthy meals, bake yummy desserts, throw a fabulous party, and save time in the kitchen. With a bit of planning, some expert advice, and fresh ingredients, you’ll be cooking delicious meals in no time — even if you consider yourself a kitchen novice.
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Smoothies look great in a margarita glass and are just thick enough to hold that little paper umbrella. Smoothies can also be a meal in themselves. Thick and nutritious, smoothies use the whole fruit, not just the juice, so you get all the benefits of the fiber as well as the vitamins. They’re filling and a great way to cool off in the middle of a hot summer day.
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Appetizers that require marinating are a good way to start a meal. Their acidic freshness primes the palate for what's to follow. This spectacular recipe, Salmon Marinated in Ginger and Cilantro, can be prepared several hours in advance and has a tangy, herbaceous flavor that teases the palate without filling the stomach.
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All sorts of seasonal vegetables benefit from boiling and steaming. When it comes to choosing between the two techniques, remember that steaming is more gentle and better retains the texture and color of vegetables. Boiling is a more aggressive process and tends to break down the texture of vegetables, which is desirable if you’re making purees or mashed potatoes.
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Chopping food means to use your chef’s knife to cut it into pieces. Those pieces don’t have to be exactly uniform, but the recipe will often tell you whether you need to chop something finely, coarsely, or somewhere in between. Another word for chopping something very finely is mincing. You’re most often asked to chop or mince veggies or herbs.
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Both braising and stewing involve long, slow cooking in liquid. The major difference is that in braising, foods lie in a few inches of liquid, not quite submerged, so they stew and steam at the same time. Stewing involves submerging ingredients in a liquid and simmering the mixture for a long time. Braising involves larger cuts of meat, whereas cut-up meat is stewed.
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To reduce fat, calories, and carbs, try these alternatives when cooking your favorite dishes. You can create healthier meals without sacrificing flavor just by trying these simple substitutions. Bon appétit! Substitute lowfat or nonfat dairy products for full-fat dairy products. For example, use 2 percent or skim milk rather than whole milk or cream, lowfat or nonfat cottage cheese and yogurt rather than the full-fat versions made with whole milk, or lowfat or nonfat cheese for regular cheese.
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With their nearly impervious skins and odd shapes, winter squash, such as butternut squash, is difficult to cut open. Use a Chinese cleaver and a mallet or hammer rather than a chef’s knife, which can slip. The squash will be fresher and cheaper if you cut and peel it yourself. But for convenience’s sake, many markets now sell precut butternut squash.
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Hone your knife skills and learn how to separate a whole chicken into eight pieces so you can leave the expensive, precut chicken pieces at the grocery store. Master the simple steps needed to cut a whole chicken into thighs, drumsticks, wings, and breasts. You’ll feel like a real kitchen pro!
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Barbecued chicken has a smoky, sweet, tangy flavor that can come from a broiler but it tastes even better off the grill. Just be sure the chicken is cooked all the way. Prick the chicken with a fork. If the juices run clear, the chicken is done, but to be really accurate, use a meat thermometer. The internal temperature of chicken parts on the bone should be 165 degrees F.
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Grilling seafood can impart great taste. Note, though, that shrimp require minimal cooking time. It takes only a few minutes before they turn pink and succulent. Be sure not to overcook them, or they could become rubbery. To prepare shrimp for grilling, you may want to remove the bitter black vein that runs along the outside.
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Charcoal imparts a pleasing texture and a smoky essence to vegetables. Moreover, preparation of vegetables for grilling is easy and quick. Here are some examples: Corn: Pull back the husks to remove the silk, but leave the husks attached to the base of the ear. Wrap the husks back around the corn and tie at the top with string or a strip of husk.
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If you want the perfect hamburger — juicy and meaty, moist and not fatty — you have to start with the right meat. The best all-around meat for hamburgers is ground chuck, which has about 15 to 20 percent fat, just enough to keep it moist. (Supermarkets usually list the percentage of fat on the label.) Also look for coarsely ground meat, which yields a looser patty.
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Steak on the grill may be one of summer’s nicest luxuries, as long as you cook the steak the right way! A dry, tough steak is disappointing, so don’t overcook. Medium or medium rare yields a more tender steak than well-done. You can also add flavor with a good marinade. Check out this recipe for The Perfect Steak.
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A recipe that calls for you to prepare vegetables (or meat) might ask for you to julienne or cube them. Don’t let the French accent scare you: Julienned vegetables are as simple as they are attractive, and if you can julienne vegetables, cubing is a breeze. Julienning vegetables To julienne a vegetable, first trim the vegetable, like a radish or carrot, so it’s flat on all sides.
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Some chefs prevent burning when sautéing by using clarified butter. Quite simply, clarified butter is unsalted butter that slowly melts, causing water to evaporate and its milk solids, which burn over high heat, to sink to the bottom. If you want to try your hand at making clarified butter, follow these steps: Put two or more sticks of unsalted butter in a saucepan over low heat.
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Ideal latkes (potato pancakes) are lacy and crisp — and this recipe delivers. Delicious potato latkes are a Hanukkah tradition in many Jewish families, but they're always a hit at any kind of party, at dinners, or as a savory snack. Serve them with applesauce, sour cream, or yogurt. ©Stepanek Photography / Adobe Stock In kosher kitchens, sour cream is not served with latkes if they accompany meat or poultry dishes, but you may find applesauce on the table.
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If beef isn’t your thing, and you’re wondering whether stew has any place on your menu at all, be sure to try this Mediterranean Seafood Stew recipe. It just may change how you think about stew forever! Before you make it, you’ll need to know how to devein shrimp; the figure shows you the easy steps to take using a tool called a deveiner.
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Sometimes, two different techniques are used to cook greens like kale. In this recipe for Sautéed and Braised Kale with Rosemary and Garlic, you lightly sauté the trimmed kale in some rosemary-flavored oil and garlic until the kale is wilted. Then you add a little chicken broth and lemon juice to the pot. You don’t add enough liquid to boil or overwhelm the kale; just enough to gently braise, break down, and tenderize the leave’s tough fibers.
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Vegetable purées are simply cooked vegetables (usually boiled or steamed but sometimes roasted) that are mashed, blended, or processed to a thick consistency. Starchy root vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes, rutabagas, parsnips, and carrots generally make the best purées, but broccoli, cauliflower, and roasted red peppers are also wonderful, especially when mixed with a dense root vegetable.
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General Cooking & Baking

How to Marinate
How to Marinate
A common misperception is that marinades tenderize meat. They don’t. A marinade barely penetrates the outer 1⁄8 inch of the surface of meat, poultry, or game. What a marinade can do is add flavor to the surface. Most marinades involve an acidic ingredient (vinegar, lemon, or some kinds of wine), oil, herbs, and perhaps a base flavor ingredient (beef or chicken stock, for example).
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If you’re in the market for a grill, your choices range from a small hibachi to a “grilling unit” that’s roughly the size of a Fiat and sports everything from gas burners and cutting boards to rotisseries and satellite TV (just kidding). High-end grills can run into the thousands of dollars. Are the pricey models worth it?
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Poaching seafood is a fabulous way to preserve its flavor and texture, especially with firm-textured fish like salmon, tuna, halibut, cod, and swordfish. The only drawback is that it takes on no flavors while cooking, as it does when seasoned and sautéed. Therefore, poached seafood usually calls for a sauce of some sort.
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General Cooking & Baking

How to Sauté Beef
How to Sauté Beef
When sautéing beef, you want to choose thin cuts to allow the meat to cook through over the high heat. Thicker cuts may not cook all the way through, leaving the middle pink (or red). To create a good sear, let the steaks cook without moving them around in the hot pan, unless it’s to turn them over. Don’t crowd meat in a pan when cooking on the stovetop; instead leave 1/4 to 1/2 inch between each piece in the pan.
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Sautéing is a great way to impart flavor to poultry. It stays juicy with a flavorful outside, especially with the addition of different herbs and spices. Sautéing is particularly good with the chicken or turkey’s skin left on. You can also make a delicious sauce with the leftover oil (or butter) and herbs in the pan by adding wine, juice, or chicken broth to the pan after cooking the poultry and reducing the liquid to concentrate the flavor.
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Rich fish — those with a high fat content, such as salmon, tuna, and bluefish — are exceptionally good when sautéed. And you can enhance them with countless sauces that you can make in 15 minutes or less. Because these fish have relatively high fat content, they also stand up to spicy sauces. The recipe for Tuna Steaks with Ginger-Chili Glaze is a perfect example.
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Vegetables are excellent when blanched or steamed until about 90 percent done and then transferred to a skillet to be finished by sautéing in butter and maybe fresh herbs. Many classic recipes for potatoes call for sautéing; thinly sliced raw potatoes are delicious when cooked this way. In the Sautéed Skillet Potatoes recipe, you cut the potatoes into fine cubes and toss them in a hot pan until crispy.
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Recipes that feature fruits and vegetables often ask for you to slice or pare them. For example, to create a the all-American apple pie, you need to first pare and then slice the apples. Slicing fruits and vegetables Slicing is the most common — and most important — knife task. There are really only two things to keep in mind: If you’re slicing a hard, round vegetable, like an onion or a winter squash, trim one side flat first so it doesn’t roll around on the cutting board.
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Something about a muffin says “comfort,” and muffins have become one of the most popular breakfast offerings in coffee shops and cafés, maybe because they go so well with an espresso or a latte, or maybe because they are so cute and tidy. But you don’t have to pay $3 for a muffin. You can bake them at home for a fraction of the price, and yours will be even better because you can put anything you like in your own muffins.
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Sometimes a recipe calls for parboiling vegetables. Certain dense vegetables, such as carrots, potatoes, and turnips, may be parboiled (cooked briefly in boiling water) to soften them slightly before another method finishes cooking them. This technique guarantees that all the ingredients in the dish finish cooking at the same time.
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It’s one thing to cook a recipe. It’s quite another thing to plan a whole meal or a whole week’s worth of meals! Menu planning may sound intimidating to the cook-in-training, but it’s actually fun and a great way to experiment with new recipes and techniques. There’s no right or wrong way to plan a menu. Some people like to scan cookbooks or cooking websites for ideas, make a list of meals for the week, and then make their complete shopping list.
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When you look at the amount of black pepper in this recipe for Steak au Poivre, you may think a fire extinguisher nearby would be a good idea. Surprisingly, the finished steak isn’t a tongue scorcher. Maybe it has something to do with protein in the meat. A superior steak au poivre requires a very hot pan. The best skillet to use is a cast iron skillet, which takes 3 or 4 minutes to reach the smoking point.
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Refrigeration extends the life of most fresh foods. Items that you want to keep very cold — milk, juice, stocks, beer, leftovers, and seafood, for example — should be placed in the back. And what about those crisper drawers? When closed, they create higher humidity, which is good for vegetables, especially lettuce and fresh herbs.
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The tables here give approximate cooking times and temperatures for roasting beef, poultry, pork, and lamb. You want to remove a meat roast when its internal temperature is 5 to 10 degrees F less than final internal temperature, and then let it rest for about 15 minutes. During the resting time, the roast cooks 5 to 10 degrees F more.
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Holiday meal planning often includes a main course of roasted turkey, a Thanksgiving favorite baked to a golden bronze and served up with richly flavored and piping hot stuffing. Cooking and carving your turkey can be simple tasks, with these easy-to-follow instructions. ©Africa Studio / Adobe StockIn this recipe, the stuffing is baked separately, not in the turkey.
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If you’re eager to jump in and start cooking, try your hand at this quick and easy recipe for scrambled eggs, which you can enjoy for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Eggs are a healthy and nutritious protein source, and cooking them is easy. If you know how to cook scrambled eggs, then you know how to cook. At least, a little.
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Family hungry and nothing to cook? Make sure that never happens again. If you always keep these staples in your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer, you’ll never again be stuck with no option but takeout.You can certainly add to these lists, but these essentials can always help you make a good meal. For items you use regularly (such as bread, eggs, and milk), plan to restock about once a week.
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Thanksgiving really lends itself to inexpensive decorating, which is nice because we all know what a chunk the upcoming holidays can take out of the old budget. It's also a wonderful holiday to share decorating with kids. Nature provides the most wonderful decorating materials for free. A quick trip to the backyard, a farmers market, or the park can sometimes give you everything you need to decorate gracefully and sufficiently.
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Save time when cooking with these handy tips. Serving up a meal is a snap with these timesaving hints. You'll cook more efficiently and enjoy more time with family and friends at the table! Have all ingredients prepared, measured, and set out within reach before you start cooking. Precook pieces of chicken or meat in your microwave before finishing them on the grill.
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Preparing, understanding, and completing a recipe require looking ahead and thoroughly reading the recipe before you start cooking or baking. Save yourself from a cooking catastrophe by following these valuable tips on how to read a recipe. Read through the recipe at least twice to make sure that you understand the directions.
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When you sauté something, even in a nonstick pan, you need to use some kind of fat. But which one — butter or oil? Each is best suited for different kinds of sautéing: When cooking over very high heat, use oil, which is less likely to burn. When sautéing with medium-high heat, you may opt for butter, which adds a nice flavor.
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