Basic Cooking: Chopping and Slicing

toSo basic but it can confuse a lot of people. Such as "How should I cut this?" or "Is it safe to this very quickly?" or even "Which side is sharp side?" If you don't know which side is sharp you can either test it on some food or your finger or check into a mental clinic (I'm only joking about the second one!) Now, let's start with a basic exercise.

Peeling and chopping the onion
Now start by putting the onion on the chopping board. To peel it cut the ends off and get your finger under the skin. Peel the loosest layers as you would peel and orange or mandarin, but several times. Now to chop it cut it from the end up in fine, thin pieces. Now put the onion lying down and cut it across. Then turn the pieces again and cut across as you did with the last one. You can now collect the pieces and fry them, perhaps.

That was fun! Some things need to be chopped into bigger pieces, like potatoes...

Chopping a potato unpeeled
Get a potato onto a chopping board. Cut it in half then the cut the halves in half. Congratulations! You just made chopped potato! You can fry it with the onions if you want or chop it into smaller pieces by chopping them in half again or as many times as you want.

See how good and useful those methods are?

Basic Cooking: Measuring

Measuring. You have to think twice to think people are that dumb, don't you? For this exercise to learn about food measurements you'll just need a measuring cup. You can also have measuring cups of 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4.

Measuring dry things
In one of my recipes in my cooking blog, Dish It, it says one cup of peas and one cup of lentils. To measure this you get the packet of beans or peas or lentils or anything else and scoop some out with the cup. You then level it out by running your hand across the top till it is level. You can also pour the food into the cup which is better n half the cases. And so there you have it. Simple as anything!

This is quite a useful thing to know. Of course this is probably the simplest.

Basic Cooking: Frying and Boiling

So you don't know how to boil, eh? Want to make a dish that involves frying, eh? Well your in luck! Here it is! How to fry and boil!

Boiling
Depending on how much stuff you're boiling, you'll need to put some water in a pot.
Now put the pot on the stove and put the stove on. Wait till the water looks like it is bubbling. You're water is now boiling! Of course you add the food as the water starts to boil.

Frying
Get a frying pan and put it on the stove. Add a small amount of oil and spread them oil out by tilting the pan from side to side. Put the pan back on the stove and turn the stove on. After a while it should start to sizzle. It is now frying! Now add your food unless you are some crazy person who doesn't cook stuff but only experiments.

I hope this can help you cooking dummies out there!