ON THIS WEEK’S special episodes of Dinner SOS, test kitchen director and host Chris Morocco is joined by his Bon Appétit colleagues to answer listener questions that cover the fundamentals of cooking, all to help level you up as a home cook!
Sometimes, moving forward means taking things back to the beginning. With that in mind, welcome to Back to Basics week! Every day this week, we will tackle a different fundamental culinary skill or idea to help you feel like a more confident and empowered home cook, and maybe even leave you with a new favorite idea or technique to try!
Scores of readers wrote in about the basic challenges they struggle to overcome in the kitchen. Based on their feedback, Chris and his colleagues start with how to really read a recipe and what basic equipment one needs to set up for success. They then dive into animal proteins and how to make perfection attainable when dealing with everything from chicken breasts to properly cooked steaks and seafood. Next, they tackle the world of grains! More questions came in about how to cook a great pot of rice than any other topic. Whether that is in a pot, a rice cooker, thrown into soup or any other way people can dream up—they’ve got you covered. Then they talk about the element that pulls everything on your plate together—the sauce. Last but certainly not least, they talk about the importance of the cooking mindset. They cover how to use it to get started in the kitchen and how to course-correct when things don’t exactly go according to plan.
Listen now to hear a week of episodes dedicated to your questions about the basics of cooking.
