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September 05, 2018
If you want to be a good home cook, you need to have some good cooking skills up your sleeves. But this doesn’t always have to be the case. It may be surprising but even those with minimal cooking skills can still be great cooks with just one basic skill – knowing how to choose the perfect Sri Lankan recipe.
Thankfully, Sri Lankan recipes have become easily accessible now, courtesy of the astounding number of Sri Lankan recipes resources available online. Sure, not all recipes out there are foolproof. In fact, some Sri Lankan recipes can turn out to be disastrous but this is where you need to know how to choose the perfect recipe every time. There are plenty of clearly instructed, well tested, and amazing recipes that can make a newbie to cooking whip up a delicious meal. Here are some quick pointers to get you started:
1. Opt for reliable sources
When searching for reliable recipes in Sri Lanka, the first thing any home cook should do is stick to reliable sources. If there are particular blogs or videos that has helped you to successfully prepare a meal before, source your recipes from them. However, it’s important to remember that a blog or website would often have multiple contributors so you may have more success with certain authors than others.
2. What are your goals?
Once you have gotten Sri Lankan recipes from a reliable source, make sure that the recipe you’ve chosen matches your meal goals. Start off by considering that the recipe is actually for – Do you have enough time to complete a meal that requires one hour in just fifty minutes? Do you simply want to bake something to pass time on a rainy weekend? Or do you want to whip up a quick dinner fix in under half an hour?
No matter what your cooking skill level may be, you can make a completely different meal if you start preparing for it from the afternoon as opposed to quickly rushing through it in one hour. And this is why it’s important to know what your goals are because there’s a world of a difference between a huge pot of macaroni versus an elegant, well-balanced meal.
Below are some quick tips to choose the right recipe:
Go for a recipe that aligns with your cooking skills
There are thousands of Sri Lankan recipes available but opt for one that fits with your style, taste, and skill
Consider the number of ingredients. If you need to cook something real fast, go for a recipe that calls for fewer ingredients.
3. Consider the number of pantry ingredients vs fresh ingredients
You can use your pantry ingredients to make fresh and nutritious meals. However, when you’re cooking for a special occasion, go all out for fresh ingredients. Otherwise, look for recipes in Sri Lanka that pair a few fresh ingredients with affordable pantry ingredients that don’t go bad. These include frozen peas, tomato sauce, canned chickpeas, dried grains, rice, and so on.
4. What’s the active cooking time?
Usually, recipes will take longer than they say. So if you’re set to complete a meal before 8 pm, it’s a good idea to start preparing for it at least one hour ahead of the time the recipe calls for, particularly if you happen to be a newbie to cooking.
5. How much chopping does the recipe ask for?
Make sure to quickly scan the recipe to determine how much chopping you’ll need to do. Remember that many recipes are not written in a way that tells how much chopping will be needed by just looking at the ingredients. If you need to speed up and complete a meal, then less chopping is better since an unbelievable amount of time usually goes into chopping and prepping for the food.
If you have the perfect recipe in hand, you’ll be amazed yourself and you’ll amaze your friends and family too with your amazing cooking skills. True, you may call yourself a horrible cook, but with the right recipe in hand, no-cook can be a bad cook!