Matt Preston reveals his secrets to becoming a better cook

From risottos to pastries and curries, food guru Matt Preston shares his tips and tricks on how to make cooking at home even better.

It has always amazed me that you can give the same recipe and ingredients to half a dozen home cooks (me included) and end up with six very different results.

That’s the inevitable consequence of cooking a recipe in our own home and with our own ingredients, cookware and lived experiences.

While I can tell you to always follow the recipe, minimise ingredient substitutions and use the best-quality ingredients you can afford, I find it harder to isolate those extra touches that will make a finished dish a little bit tastier.

However, here are some steps that I think can make a big difference while making these different types of food.

Matt Preston shares some of his cooking tips.

Curries

Caramelise your onion well with your minced garlic and ginger for a true depth of Indian flavour. This will take more than 30 minutes, so be patient.

For a thicker sauce (without extra cooking), blitz some of it in a blender to add back in later.

Dips

Add ice cubes when processing Middle Eastern dips for a silkier finish.

Braises

For a point of difference, always contemplate unusual additions, such as a few drops of orange-blossom water or a dried lime to a lamb braise, or fresh bay leaves to a chicken casserole.

Don’t forget to add spices to your dishes.

Spices

Bloom spices in oil over a low heat to bring out their flavour. Use a nice gentle heat – that way you won’t risk burning them so easily and you’ll also get a better taste.

Mayonnaise

Add water to help the emulsification of the mayo, as an egg yolk alone may not be enough; egg whites, vinegars and citrus juice all contain water.

Vinaigrette

Add a little warm water to vinaigrettes to soften those that are too aggressively acidic.

Cakes

Just like meat for the barbecue, cake ingredients should also be brought to room temperature before using.

Batters

When it comes to beating together butter and sugar at the beginning of making a cake batter, go slower at the start and go for longer, too – basically until the mixture is very, very pale due to maximum air incorporation. I’m talking 10 to 15 minutes here.

Lamb

Marinate lamb in grated onion. It’s the Persian way and tenderises the meat perfectly. Also use grated onion when soaking chickpeas for hummus.

Pastry

Keep it cold, even if this means popping it back in the fridge (or even the freezer) for a while before you continue working on it.

Gnocchi

Be as gentle as possible pushing the dough together and rolling it out. It’s pressure and roughness that make gnocchi tough more than too much flour (although that doesn’t help). Same goes for meatballs and burgers, too.

Meatballs

Don’t overwork the mixture – this makes them dense.

Meatballs in pasta are delicious.

Stir-fries

Cut up your ingredients small before you start and drop them into a very hot wok in order of softness.

If you velvet your meat with bicarbonate of soda, the protein just needs to be rinsed and dried before stir-frying.

If you use egg white, corn starch and Chinese rice wine instead, it can be a little more fiddly but the results are worth it.

Salmon

Start cooking skin side down in a cold pan for crispy skin. Dry the skin well before you begin.

Steaks

Sear the fat-seamed side first to ensure it becomes rendered and crispy. Always start searing the next side on a new, hotter part of the grill. Rest well and season after cooking.

Stews

Always deglaze the pot after browning your flour-dusted meat for more flavour and a thicker gravy, and always add twice as much garlic as the recipe says.

Furthermore, always add your veg in two stages. A lot of the first batch will break down a bit to enrich the gravy, and then the second batch will retain some of its signature texture.

Nuts

Toast nuts on a tray in the oven rather than in a pan – there is generally less risk of burning them.

Preston shares his best tips on how to make risotto.

Risottos

Toast your rice for risotto. To do this, add it to your frying onion before pouring in liquids. Move it around in the pan until it starts to smell nutty, then deglaze the pan with wine or sherry.

Seasonings

Season with sour as well as salt – like a squeeze of lemon juice or a splash of vinegar. Put more salt into your pasta cooking water; dressings, too.

Salads

Limit ingredients so that you can highlight them.

Rather than putting the avocado, tomatoes, lettuce, bocconcini (or goat’s cheese), spring onions and cucumber in as one jumbled mess, make two salads: one will have the chunks of tomato, the sliced whites of the spring onions and the goat’s cheese, while the other will have all of the remaining green bits chopped up.

You can differentiate them further with a sweet dressing for one salad and more acidic dressing for the other.

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Originally published as Matt Preston reveals his secrets to becoming a better cook