Practical Life & Self-Reliance · Foundation

Cooking Fundamentals

Recipes tell you what to do; this course is about why it works, so that you can cook the tenth dish without instructions and rescue the one that is going wrong. It covers knife work, how heat moves into food, the main dry and wet cooking methods, seasoning by taste, eggs, grains, stocks and sauces, bread, and the food-safety rules that actually matter, with the science kept to what changes what you do at the stove. It sits in the term on the body and the household because cooking for yourself is the most practical thing most people can learn in a month.

What you'll learn

• Hold and use a chef's knife safely with a pinch grip and the claw, and cut the basic shapes evenly enough to cook at one rate
• Explain how conduction, convection and radiation move heat into food and why temperature and rate differ, and use that to choose a method, a heat and a pan
• Season by tasting, using salt, acid, fat and umami to fix a dish that is flat, heavy or thin
• Keep food safe by time and temperature: cook, cool, store, thaw and reheat within US and UK guidance, and say where the two differ
• Sear, sauté, roast, grill, boil, simmer, poach, steam and braise, and say what each does to texture and flavour
• Cook eggs, rice, grains, beans and pasta, a stock, a pan sauce, an emulsion and a no-knead loaf, and rescue each when it goes wrong
• Cook from ratios and technique rather than recipes, and plan a week of meals from a short list of techniques with a storage plan that keeps it safe