Restaurants may not be serving healthy food that we get at home, but when it comes to taste even the best home cooks cannot match restaurant’s consistency and deliciousness.
What is the reason behind it? How come those curries look and taste more enticing than the regular food?
We spoke to a couple of chefs and this is what we learnt.
1. Experience plays a role
At home the menu is constantly rotated and the items keep changing everyday which leads to varied taste of same dishes. In restaurants the signature dishes are everyday on the menu. So the sheer habit of making the same dish over and over again gradually leads to perfection and consistency in taste.
2. Free use of oil and spices
While the home food is cooked on a budget and also takes care of the dietary preferences of family members, thus using lesser oil, salt and spices which impacts the taste, the focus of the food in restaurants of taste and hence the quantity of oil and spices is not rationed.
3. Focus on details
Be it baking or cooking a curry, restaurants pay special attention to not just to ingredients but also to the way they are used. For example, using softened butter when the recipe calls for it or brown sugar when required or measuring the curry’s temperature with a thermometer which is not usually plausible at home may be the reasons for more refined taste in restaurant food.
4. Special equipment
The hotel kitchen is fitted with state-of-the-art equipment which makes cooking easier and more precise. This eventually impacts the final output.
5. Adopting the right method
Why is it that some people cook good food and some not so good? It is because of the knowledge of the right technique and having patience during the process. For example adding ingredients in the right order has a lot to do with the final output. If onion is added towards the end, it will remain raw and if spices are added in the beginning they will lose their aroma. Chefs know this technique and no wonder their food is tastier. Similarly, cooking calls for a lot of patience. Not frying enough, or not cooking the spices enough can lead to cooking disasters.
