If you appreciate a decent meal, then the chances are that you’re a fan of eating out. After all, as well as saving you from having to cook, restaurant food ordered from the right places can provide some of the best dining experiences. Unfortunately, it also comes with a high price tag. As such, whether you’re looking to cut costs on food or are simply fed up with bankrupting yourself for the sake of a decent dish, you might want to try and cut down.
Luckily, far from bland pasta dishes and salads that are always somehow lacking, more home chefs are starting to realize that replicating restaurant-quality food is a whole lot easier than the professional would like us to know. To get started, simply consider the following basic secrets to starting on your own restaurant replicas.
Secret 1: Stock quality ingredients
Ingredients can be the difference between a standard dish and a great one, which is why chefs always make sure to have the best quality ingredients in their kitchen. As such, your first step is as simple as avoiding those discount food stores in place of local farm shops or sellers who provide fresh, organic produce that you can work wonders with. Admittedly, this option will cost a little more than your standard food-based go-to’s, but when you consider the money you’re already saving by eating in, you can still bet you’ll spend less in the long run.
Secret 2: Consider the depth of your dishes
Often, restaurant dishes are relatively simple, so why do they taste so good? Most of the time, the answer lies in the depths of flavor used. While you may go for basic options like cumin and paprika, for instance, a chef will furnish their dishes with umami richness and delights.
Luckily, you can buy your way around this, with options like shop-bought dressings, fish sauce, and even just a decent stock all providing fantastic depth. However, if you really want to mimic your favorite restaurant, you would be far better off opting for home-based options like this red wine vinaigrette recipe, or even just a homemade stock that adds a little more authenticity. Just like that, you should find that dishes start to have the same wow-factor that you’re used to enjoying elsewhere.
Secret 3: It’s all in the atmosphere
A lot of the time, you may also find that your enjoyment of restaurant food is solely atmospheric. After all, a dish enjoyed in a carefully curated space with the ideal lighting and ambiance is guaranteed to taste better than a bowl of pasta eaten from the sofa. With this in mind, embrace restaurant-style decor in your dining room, or at least make more of an effort to light a few candles and sit at the table where you can truly taste your food, instead of eating it as quickly as you can between your children’s bedtimes.
Restaurant food is wonderful, but it’s not hard to make sure that your home cooking is too.
This is a contributed post; for more information please visit our Privacy Policy.
