Nisha Katona, creator of ice-cream, soups and bakes brand Get Me A Cookie, has told us how modern British women are taking cooking to the next level. Here’s what she had to say:
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from your food travels?
Cutting, or altering for that matter, with the help of the knife is just as important as using the kitchen and oven, and the bits and pieces you can find all over the place will end up in your meal. Getting, or finding, a meat scraper is a great luxury in the kitchen. Cooking with a pot scraper will add a lot of tenderness to meat and produce a lighter, more elegant stew.
How do you spice up cooking?
Cut food into chunks and see how they react to browning and it is eye-opening to see how that makes the sauce fuller, more rich and tasty. When you put meat, vegetables or pasta through a meat scraper you see that the meat becomes juicier, raked and more beautiful, but the sections of bread are not that full, and the noodles aren’t very cooked yet. Sometimes it just takes the time to get it right, the cooking of a decent marinara sauce and moussaka and it’s exciting to see the differences between different cooks! The big difference between a delicious moussaka and a seemingly average one is that one chef sat down for an hour and watched the moussaka cook while another, like perhaps the woman who was at the gym the previous day, spent an hour chopping onions.
What’s the most common cooking mistake women make?
Ummm…definitely marinating! I like marinating my meats. I like it so much when I get home from work, and after my workouts, and I have prepared a bit of meat, I choose to sauté a little bit, or put it in my salad. On the other hand, I think a lot of home cooks don’t realise how marinating can change a chicken or turkey breast, for example. It adds flavour, a little salt, a bit of garlic, you can go right into a marinade and it just makes it taste great.
What’s the best and worst cooking advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I’ve ever been given was a couple of years ago. It came from a guy who put himself forward to tell me how well he cooked. He told me to never cook if I’m feeling too tired, or my kids aren’t home from school, or I’m not in a great mood. Just because you’re cooking, doesn’t mean you should feel like doing it.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learnt from your cooking trips?
Cutting, or altering for that matter, with the help of the knife is just as important as using the kitchen and oven, and the bits and pieces you can find all over the place will end up in your meal. Getting, or finding, a meat scraper is a great luxury in the kitchen. Cooking with a pot scraper will add a lot of tenderness to meat and produce a lighter, more elegant stew.
What’s the most common cooking mistake women make?
Ummm…definitely marinating! I like marinating my meats. I like it so much when I get home from work, and after my workouts, and I have prepared a bit of meat, I choose to sauté a little bit, or put it in my salad. On the other hand, I think a lot of home cooks don’t realise how marinating can change a chicken or turkey breast, for example. It adds flavour, a little salt, a bit of garlic, you can go right into a marinade and it just makes it taste great.
What’s the best and worst cooking advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I’ve ever been given was a couple of years ago. It came from a guy who put himself forward to tell me how well he cooked. He told me to never cook if I’m feeling too tired, or my kids aren’t home from school, or I’m not in a great mood. Just because you’re cooking, doesn’t mean you should feel like doing it.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learnt from your cooking trips?
Cutting, or altering for that matter, with the help of the knife is just as important as using