A common kitchen question I see asked is how to make restaurant food at home. People always want to know how to make their meals taste just like the ones at their favorite restaurant. Today I’m going to share with you some of the secrets that restaurants use to make delicious dishes.
Obviously, I can’t tell you how every dish in every restaurant is made. What I can do is go over some of the basic differences between a restaurant-quality meal and a home-cooked meal.
One thing I should mention first, cooks in a restaurant make the same dishes over and over again. There is a level of expertise you get from such high repetition that you simply can’t match at home. These guys are professionals, so if your food doesn’t come out quite as good, don’t beat yourself up.
There are 3 big factors that separate the dishes that come out of a restaurant and the ones you make at home: the quality of the ingredients, the techniques used to cook the ingredients, and the equipment you cook with. Let’s look at each factor in more detail.
Quality Of Ingredients
Most restaurants do not get a majority of their ingredients from the local grocery store. They have suppliers who can access goods that you can not. This can be a big advantage.
On top of that, the higher-end restaurants go with high-end ingredients. They purchase the best cuts of meat and the freshest produce. Some of them even butcher their own meat. This is a level of quality you probably won’t get at Walmart.
Many restaurants also make many of their products from scratch. For example, some Mexican restaurants will make their own tortillas. This product is going to be immensely better than the one you get off the shelf.
Better ingredients generally make better dishes. While this advantage can be overcome, it takes a great deal of knowledge and skill to do so.
Cooking Techniques To Make Restaurant Food At Home
Another factor that separates restaurant food from home-cooked food is cooking techniques. Cooks in a restaurant use cooking techniques that you may not be familiar with as a home cook.
A sure way to upgrade your cooking is to get familiar with every cooking technique you can. On top of sauteing, there is braising, roasting, smoking, searing, poaching, boiling, and more. Never stop learning!
You also need to know WHEN to use certain techniques. Knowing how to saute onions is great, but knowing when to saute and when to slow cook them is even better.
Cooking Equipment
The final factor that will help you make restaurant food at home is using the right cooking equipment. There are some areas where you won’t be able to match a restaurant. They have commercial equipment that you can’t or wouldn’t want to install in your home.
You are not going to want to put a large commercial fryer in your home. However, you can get an excellent tabletop fryer such as the T-Fal deep fryer with oil filtration. A good tabletop deep fryer is going to produce a better-finished product than something fried in a skillet on the stovetop.
Restaurants often use convection ovens in place of conventional ovens. They cook faster and more evenly than a normal oven. While you can buy a convection oven for your home, they are going to be pricey. If you don’t want to fork over a ton of money for a convection oven, look into an air fryer instead. I have reviews of the PowerXL air fryer and the unit I use now made by Aumate.
Making Restaurant Quality Food At Home
All right, example time! Let’s examine how to make a restaurant-quality steak at home. We are going to do this by going over the factors I’ve laid out his this blog post.
Let’s start with the ingredients. If you want to eat a restaurant-quality steak at home, you have to buy restaurant-quality meat. A thin-cut ribeye from the local grocery store won’t do it. If you can find and afford it, try and get a USDA Prime cut of steak. You want a piece of meat with a lot of marbling in it.
Next, we need to decide how to cook the steak. The best steak houses use high-temperature broilers to finish their steaks. These broilers can reach up to 1200 degrees Fahrenheit! Your oven can’t match that.
Instead of a high-temperature broiler, I suggest searing the steak in a steel pan or cast iron skillet. Place your pan on the stove and turn the heat up to high. When the pan is smoking hot, throw in the steak.
Depending on how you like your steak cooked, flip it after 3 to 4 minutes. It needs to cook an additional 3 to 4 minutes on the other side. When the steak has about a minute left, toss in a knob of butter and baste the steak once it melts. The combination of rendered steak fat and butter is simply magical.
This is just one example of using the right ingredients, the right equipment, and the right techniques to make restaurant food at home. If you want more examples, browse the site for some of my best recipes and lessons on techniques. If you prefer video, check out our Youtube channel!
