One of the ways we show love during the holidays is through food. This is when we invite people over and visit our loved ones to share hearty meals.
Christmas, being the biggest festive season universally, has people spending hours in the kitchen.
We’re not just preparing the meals we eat every day because this is a special time. This might be a breeze for the pros but for beginners, it’s not that easy.
If you’re not the best chef out there but would still like to prepare mind-blowing meals for your guests, you can hack it with these five tips:
1. Upgrade what you know
A simple trick to turn basic meals into masterpieces is, to modify what you already make on a daily basis. This could be by adding an extra ingredient or even preparing it in a different way.
You would be surprised how making these small changes could completely change the flavour of a simple meal you’ve been preparing for years.
If you’re busy, pressed for time and still want to learn how to cook within a few days, do a quick google search and see what extra ingredients and cooking methods people are using.
2. Request someone to teach you
You might also have someone around you who knows how to prepare a meal or snack you’ve always wanted to make. It might be something like chapatti that many people struggle to prepare correctly, mahamri, biriyani or just anything that you’re interested in knowing.
Notify them on time and have a short training session before Christmas. At least when 25th comes, you will have an idea of what to do.
YouTube is probably the best place to learn how to cook within a short time. We’re blessed to have an abundance of recipes with full step-by-step tutorials that anyone can easily follow.
If you would like to prepare something completely new this year, you can search for unique Christmas dishes and go through the tutorials.
4. Don’t try too hard
The thing that will make this whole experience a lot easier is keeping it simple. You might want to make five-star meals and desserts that everyone will remember but, you need enough time to learn which you don’t necessarily have right now.
So, choose one or two meals that are simple but delicious instead of choosing complicated ones that might stress you out. You can learn the rest slowly next year so that you will be confident enough to prepare them when the next Christmas comes.
5. Start experimenting
It’s extremely important not to wait until Christmas to prepare something for the first time. The chances of meals backfiring are very high which isn’t what you want.
Even if something looks simple, just prepare it at least once. You will have a chance to know if the ingredients work for you and how to estimate the correct portions depending on how many guests you will have.
