Essential Skills for Healthy Living — Young Adult Edition: Home Kitchen Skills, part I
By: Viktor Tey
Tags: Homecooking, Cooking, Beginners Guide, Self Help, Life Skills

Preparing veggies

Generally veggies are simpler than meats: the internal structure of plants are more uniform than that of animals. You don’t have to deal with skin, bones, ligaments, or other complications.

In general, plant cells are hard. Cooking is just the process of adding heat, to make the plant soft enough to eat, and develop a better flavor. Many plants contain natural sugars due to photosynthesis, and this contributes to their flavor when they are heated.

But still, there are a few things you need to know. Since most veggies you can get from the supermarket (especially the ones I’ve listed above) are “domesticated”, accessing the nutrients should be easy. The inedible parts have been selectively bred out, or modified to be more human-friendly.

But you might still have to skin some (like carrots), and remove parts like the stem or the roots, etc. For the specific preparation of each vegetable, I would suggest searching for answers online, especially videos.

But don’t feel like you need to memorize each one! You really just need to know the one on your cutting board. Stick with the tier list above, and you should be fine.

Tools you might need: a small and firm utility knife(paring knife), and a vegetable peeler.

Remember, clean them vigorously! Commercially grown plants are generally covered in pesticides and fertilizer, and you don’t want any of that in your food. You can use a vegetable cleaning solution if you like, but overall water should do fine. You can also buy organic (pesticide-free), though that’s going to cost you 20–30% more or even higher depending on your local market prices.

The next step after removing the inedible parts and washing is to pre-cook them. We can pre-cook most vegetables by blanching (like boiling, but only for a minute or so), but before we do that we must cut them into pieces.

How small? Well, it depends on how you want to eat them. Generally, bite sized and consistent cuts will do fine.

Cut it into your preferred serving size, and then pop them into gently boiling water. The key difference between a full boil and a simmer should be obvious: a simmer has only small tiny bubbles.

You can salt the water first, or not. It is up to your preference. I prefer salting first as it is a habit I picked up from culinary school.

Generally, blanching should be pretty quick. Only blanch for about as long as it takes for the vegetable to become more colorful (the orange or green will become more intense), but not long enough to turn soft or yellowish.

This can be tricky, but generally I don’t blanch longer than 2–3 mins per serving of vegetable. But depending on the cut or the hardness of the vegetable, you may need to blanch longer or shorter times. Do experiment on your own, as each stove, climate, cut, or kitchen is different.

Don’t drink the blanching water! It might contain leached pesticides and chemicals from the plant especially if it’s not properly washed. Just dump it in the sink once it’s somewhat cooled. If you’re cooking organic, this will be irrelevant.

Another thing to consider for your blanching is whether you will be cooking the vegetable again (for example, in a stir fry). Blanching is generally used as a way to par-cook (half-cook) the vegetable. So if you’re not cooking the vegetable again, just cook it longer until it reaches the texture that you desire. If you’re not sure, just grab a piece and chew. If it tastes okay for you, stop the cooking.

Another option, after par-cooking you can also cool down your veggies and freeze them. This is so that next time, you can use your own frozen veggies for a faster preparation. This way, you can bulk-prepare multiple servings on your off day or weekend, so that you save time on your weekdays.

Next, let’s move on to the meats.

Preparing meats

If you’re really not in the budget to get finer cuts of meat, start with chicken. Generally, the quality of chicken does not vary as much as other meats like fish, lamb, beef, or pork.

Also, try not to eat too much processed meat (ham, spam, bacon, nuggets, sausage) because it contains a lot of sodium and questionable body parts. You’ll be eating livers and other unused organs that might contain high concentrations of minerals that you only need a small portion of. It’s fine to enjoy it from time to time.

So with chicken, the easiest parts to cook will be the drummets, thighs, and wings. Chicken breast is fine too but it can be hard to make it tasty. Generally, marinating chicken drummets, thighs, and wings is pretty simple. Just refer to the pantry tier list above (sauces, herbs, spices), and pick out 3–4 ingredients to use.

Make sure you have at least 1 sodium component (soy sauce, salt, fish sauce) and 1 sugar component (white/brown sugar, honey, or molasses), and pick one of the oils (sunflower or olive) too. It would be good to include an acidic component as well (white wine, vinegar, lemon juice). Both red and white wine are acidic, but I prefer white because it works with most proteins (meats).

Here are some sample marinades you can try: