There’s an old Japanese saying, “Master one big skill and you can master 1000 little skills”. The same goes for cooking if you know the basics, the process, and the fundamentals, you can do a lot of little tasks.

When it comes to technique, there’s a wide range of stuff that is essential for everyday cooking. Cuts, temperature, sanitation, stocks, soups, sauce, meats, fish, poultry, and so much more. As a home cook, you don’t have to know every single technique by heart because I know it’s too much to handle. But over time, you should briefly know the basics for every, or at least, most fundamentals. A dice onion cooks way differently than an onion that has just been cut in half because of its size. Pork cooks differently than chicken because of its temperature. Raw meat should never be on top of cooked or fresh produce because of cross-contamination. Those are just some of the basics of cooking that are fundamental. And once you know how to do these simple tasks, you can easily do a thousand other things. 

As a cook, technique plays a major role in the kitchen; way more important than creativity. I’m sorry to say to you all creative cooks out there, but it’s the bitter truth. Technique is basically a currency in the kitchen. It can propel your career much farther than creativity will. Because creativity, fads, and trends come and go so quickly, it’s really hard to keep track of what’s hot or not. Techniques evolve much slower. A slow cooked chicken from the 1900s cooks the same today. It still revolves around chicken, spices, an oven, and heat. Boiling water in the 1800s is the same today. You get my point. 

When you talk about creativity as a typical line cook, the truth is that you don’t really need creativity because you’ll be replicating your chef’s dish every time for service, banquet, and catering. The last thing you want to do as a cook is to make something completely different or “better than the chef’s dish”. That is the one culinary sin that you should never commit. Never, ever change the chef’s dish without the chef’s permission. They spent so long brainstorming about the dish, creating the dish, and preparing the food cost, the last thing they wanted is someone that is straight out of culinary school, or a cocky line cook re-creating a “better version of their dish”. That is the biggest middle finger you can do to a head chef. If you think there’s an alternative way you think the dish should be, always have that conversation with the chef. The worst thing that they can say is “No. Get back on your station”. The best-case scenario is that they think about it and maybe try out your way. So to all my fellow cooks in the food industry, NEVER change the chef’s dish without their permission.

I know I bashed creativity too much. Creativity is step two of cooking. Once you know the basics, the fundamentals, and how to make it taste good, then work on creativity. It’s not that important and you can easily learn. The technique is either you have it or not. And that can be the pinnacle of having a bad dish or a great dish.

One last thing to close this off, I was watching an interview of Marco Pierre White. For those who don’t know him, he is the literal godfather of the food industry. You may know him as Gordon  Ramsay’s chef. Probably the only person that made him cry. He said at a press that it’s not about reinventing, it’s about refining. Knowing the skills and fundamentals is the key to success