Simple food can be delicious, but sometimes you want a fancy, luxurious meal. For some people going to a restaurant is the answer for this, but sometimes (depending on your reasoning for wanting such a meal) making these meals at home is also an option, and the same amount of money can go much further. This actually is one of the reasons I like foraging, because I get some specialty "expensive" ingredients for free for my fancy dishes. Here are some tips that a reader sent on how you, too, can create fancy dinners at home.
With restaurants being closed for such a long time during the pandemic, many of us have had to resort to home cooking for special occasions. And even with things beginning to re-open, there is undeniably a certain satisfaction with creating a quality meal yourself. If you’re not an experienced chef, though, you might be wondering what you can do to truly boost your cooking up a notch. Believe it or not, there are in fact plenty of things you can do to make your dishes stand out when they need to, without needing to be a professional chef. Here are a few useful tips for when your cooking really needs to shine.
High-Quality Ingredients are Key
Most chefs will tell you that using premium-grade ingredients is crucial to creating a delicious meal. You can be the most technically gifted cook in the world, but if you are only using poor-tasting ingredients, no amount of culinary skill will be able to mask that. You may therefore be wondering how best to tell whether an ingredient is high-quality or not. Fortunately, price is not the only factor worth taking into consideration. Sensory qualities, such as colour, texture, and whether the product has any noticeable defects are all things you should pay close attention to when picking out meats, fruits, and vegetables. If you’re preparing a meal for a special occasion, your top priority should be ensuring that the meat, in particular, that you use is good quality. You may think that locality is the best way to ensure this, but it is not always the case. In fact, the best way to guarantee that your red meat is very high-quality is to buy steaks online from a reputable seller.
Always Use Fresh Produce where Possible
To make your luxury meal taste that much more special, you should also try to stick to using fresh ingredients. The most important reason for this is flavour, as the flavours of ingredients tend to diminish as they become less fresh. This also means that preserved ingredients often contain additives to recreate this flavour, making them taste more synthetic, and potentially also less healthy.
Follow Recipes as Closely as You Can
This is a great tip when cooking any meal, since the cooking process often involves your food undergoing several chemical reactions. It’s therefore always important to treat your cooking like a scientific process. However, it’s doubly important to follow recipes attentively when making a luxury meal for a special occasion. There are several reasons for this. First, these types of dishes tend to be more complex and particular than everyday ones, so there can be a lot more pitfalls to run into.
Secondly, if you’re cooking for guests, there might not necessarily be as much room for error like there would be if you were cooking for only yourself. And finally, it is likely you will have less practice cooking luxury meals. It is consequently good practice when cooking dishes you are less familiar with to follow the given recipe more diligently.