It's been a few weeks of isolation now and I'm seeing lots of dismay from friends cooking for themselves for the first time. I'm no expert, but a lot of books and recipes assume some experience and skip on a lot of basic tips... so here's a thread. Add your own!

These are in no order: first nonstick pans are fine if you're a beginner because you'll probably find you keep making stuff stick to stainless steel/iron. Why? You probably don't let it get hot enough first. Get it REALLY hot. Then put fat into it and let that get hot. Then cook.

You can use almost any fat to cook with. Oil. Butter. Lard. Bacon fat. People talk about how wonderful olive oil is, but it's not as easy to use as the terrible-for-you-vegetable-oil. If ANY oil starts smoking? Take it off the heat before it ignites!

But if you're going to roast stuff.. don't use olive oil unless you know what you're doing. You can't get that very hot (350 or so max), and beginner roasting is, in my opinion, more successful if you're using higher temps like 425-450.

First thing you should try to roast is probably potatoes. Don't go for a whole chicken until you are used to working with a hot oven a little bit. Cut any potato into 1/2 inch cubes, roll it in vegetable oil, put in a pan, cook at 425 for 13 mins, stir, cook for 13 more, done.

Don't "test" to see if your pan full of oil is hot enough by splashing it with water. That's how you get it to splatter boiling oil everywhere. Instead, tilt the pan. Look at how the oil will shimmer a little as it slides down. Learn to see how it looks different than cold oil.

About pan frying and splattering: WATER is what makes oil splatter. Water and oil = danger! Cooking chicken breast? Wash it and DRY it... for a few reasons, and safety is one of them!

Another reason to dry any poultry you wash? That's how you get breading to actually stick to it. All of the sudden breading something will actually WORK if you go: wash, DRY, dip in flour, egg, breadcrumb, then drop into a pan of hot oil. Otherwise, breading something is tricky.

Hot take: Cast iron is wonderful, but I really don't think it's a beginner tool (unless you're talking a dutch oven). My cast iron skillets are the moodiest of my pans, and make delicious stuff, but they like to be treated very particularly. Exception: burgers are easy on them.

Fresher onions hurt your eyes more. But learning to cut them right makes a WORLD of difference. Don't go all Edward Scissorhands on the damn things. Slicing the onion systematically in a way that keeps it together until the last cross-cuts it the way! Youtube it!