Deep into my 2nd decade of intensive cooking for my family, I realise how much I have changed since I began. While I used to focus more on how good the food tasted, I have slowly but surely pivoted more to the quality of the ingredients (resulting in even better-tasting food😂👌👌).
There are many reasons for my natural evolution. Living in an agricultural country and being semi-active in the F&B world, I am lucky to access to premium produce (local and imported) from farms and suppliers. I have kids with growing appetites - making nutritious home-made meals more cost-efficient and also increasingly worth the time and effort.
Let me break it down simply.
If you order a dish priced at $10 at a good restaurant, as a safe rule of thumb, the ingredients will cost approximately $3. The other $7 will be used to pay for overheads (set up costs, manpower, rental which contribute to the preparation/presentation, service, cleanliness, air-conditioning, marketing etc.), government taxes, service charge and (hopefully) some profit margin for the owners.
Obviously, the restaurant will have economies of scale ordering ingredients from their suppliers. What they get for $3, we might get the same for $6.
Then comes even more analysis. Firstly, $6 is already less than $10. Secondly, depending on your habits, there is an opportunity this $6 can be stretched into 2, 3, 4, 5 meals. How does that start to sound?
I would like to think that the basic principle behind my current style is the focus on ingredient and giving it the respect it deserves.
Take an 'expensive', premium quality free range chicken for example:
1. You can separate the meaty parts from the carcass and use the parts as the centrepiece of your champion dish, be it a roast/braise/curry....
2. The carcass can be used to make the most wonderful pot of chicken stock (using frozen leek tops, parsley stalks etc, you get the idea😏, other accumulated chicken 'spare parts') that will be the base of your cooking (soups, braises, sauces) for meals to come.
3. Innards can be accumulated for a future stir-fry or pate.
Just 1 good chicken can grace your dining table in different forms for days.
If I buy a slab of good grass-fed beef for the BBQ, I will save the precious fat for a subsequent meal of heavenly beef fat fried rice, and the grilled bones to add delicious smoky beefiness to my next pot of Ragu.
If you are still reading, I believe you get the drift. I just hope you can reconsider the pros and cons of cooking at home. The key is to get your hands on ingredients you can trust, and have no hesitation feeding your family with, and give it the greatest form of respect it deserves. This is the basis of a lifestyle of wholesome home-cooked family meals. Bless you!
PS. If you are worried about your cooking skills, just know that like any other activity, you can only get better. Just do it!