If food is your love language, you might be wondering how to make the amazing dishes you crave from your favorite restaurants. Perhaps you’re hoping to learn the secrets to a perfect sauce or how to craft divine Parisian macarons. Maybe you wish you could make delicious cakes and cookies in your kitchen at home; or you’re hoping to create pasta from scratch. How can you cook like a chef at home? The recipes will only take you so far. If you truly want to cook like a five-star chef at home, you need to enhance your skills. Take your skills beyond home-cooking and become a chef!
Watch Popular Cooking Shows
Gordon Ramsay, Alton Brown, and Anne Burrell and many other celebrity chefs make a living teaching other people how to cook on television. Alton Brown explains in detail how and why certain things happen in the kitchen. He would certainly provide a basic understanding for someone interested in becoming a chef. Gordon Ramsay’s claim to fame, besides his trademark attitude, is that he can teach anyone to cook like a proper chef. Surely, a person could learn a thing or two from his fiery kitchen antics. Anne Burrell’s claim to fame is that she has saved many of America’s worst cooks and turned them into proficient chefs by enhancing their skills. It could be helpful to watch her teach others how to make a mouth-watering sauce or properly fry chicken, but if that’s not what you’re looking for, you could always take a class from a culinary school.
Join a Meal Box Subscription
Another option is to join a boxed subscription service that provides monthly recipes and ingredients. After all, practice makes perfect. Subscription services like Home Chef offer recipes, ingredients, tips, and techniques to help subscribers create chef-created meals from home. However, if you really want to learn how to cook like a chef, you’re probably going to want to learn more than a few tricks and tips. A subscription might be a good option if you only want to learn a few good recipes for special occasions. Also, a subscription box might make serving a home-cooked meal easier on weeknights.
Get Julia Child’s Book
Hey, it worked for Julie Powell. In the book and subsequent movie, Julie Powell spent a year cooking recipes from Julia Child’s famous book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She learned how to cook like a chef, so it could work for you too. However, the plot involves many setbacks, failed recipes, money wasted on expensive ingredients and inedible dishes. In the end, I’m not sure that she mastered French cooking or even basic cooking for that matter. In summary, it sounds like a lot of fun, but it’s not a culinary school.
Take Cooking Classes
Another great option for learning how to cook like a chef is to take a class. There are many course options. Public libraries, YouTube, and some community events provide opportunities for members to learn some cooking skills. There’s just no substitute for a good culinary education. These days, many culinary schools have options for home cooks. There are course pathways to teach you how to cook like and become a chef. One school, Culinary Lab School in California, even sets students up with apprenticeships that provide first hand experiences. They help prepare students for a career as a professional chef, and provide hands on learning to show students how a chef really cooks. In the end, the best way to cook like professionals is to become a chef!
If you want to learn how to cook like a chef, you might learn a few tricks of the trade from celebrity chefs. Perhaps you will highlight a few great tips from recipe subscription cards, or obtain a well loved copy of Julia Child’s famous book that will catapult you to chef status in about a year. You may learn something that will influence your cooking for a time, but if you truly want to cook like a chef, there is no substitute for cooking classes. Involve your kids or go to your kids cooking classes. There are currently so many options for enhancing your skills through classes. Invest in yourself by taking courses at a culinary school.