What is your favorite type of cuisine? Each of us has our favorite, but there are some of us who would prefer to dine on our favorite foods in a restaurant. However, even if you like to cook, chances are you also like to eat out from time to time. What you may not know is that restaurants are also a great repository of inspiration for your personal cuisine.
What restaurants do you like the most?
First, to start using your dining experience to enhance your cooking, you’ll want to look at your favorite restaurants. Develop a list of restaurants that you have loved in the past and ended up visiting frequently. Also, think about what you really enjoy about them. Is it your food? Or, perhaps, it is its atmosphere. What dishes did you find delicious? By simply determining why you like a restaurant, you can begin to use these same elements for your own kitchen and in your kitchen.
check the menu
Each cook has their own individual style. He can get an idea of the types of ingredients and condiments the chef prefers, while reading the menu. Anything you find fascinating or surprising, be sure to write it down and put it in writing. Then he can apply it to his own personal kitchen.
Take a steak you enjoyed at a restaurant, for example. As he perused the menu for an entrée, he noticed that the restaurant had listed a steak with roasted garlic, topped with roasted onions. It sounded delicious and you proceeded to order it. Once placed on his table, he smelled the wonderful aroma of cooked onions mixed with roasted garlic and tender meat juices. I could have pulled out a notepad and made some quick notes like the steak was a round steak, with about five pieces of minced fresh garlic on the meat, and had about a quarter sliced red onion spread on top.
Go to Chef Classes
You may be surprised at what you can learn from your favorite restaurants by asking if the chef teaches classes nearby. If the chef does, it’s a good idea to go ahead and take the class. This is a great way to learn first-hand, from a professional, and hopefully be able to prepare several of your favorite dishes from that restaurant in your own kitchen.
Experience different cuisines
An easy and good way to get into a different cuisine is to dine in the restaurant specialized in it. This is a key method to help you learn what food should taste like. If you try it at the restaurant first, you’ll have something to gauge how it’s supposed to taste. Then, if it’s to your liking, you can try cooking the dish at home. This puts you on the right track, verses trying to figure out how to cook it first, before trying it ready-made.
If you want to read more cooking tips, you can check out an online e-book that fully covers everything you ever wanted to know about cooking, but never dared to ask. This will walk you through an overview on how to be a better cook.