Learn to cook — and build a career in food

01Mise en place — the habit that changes everything

"Mise en place" just means "everything in its place." Before you turn on a single hob, you read the whole recipe, get out your equipment, and chop, measure and arrange every ingredient. It feels slow the first few times. Then it becomes the thing that separates a calm cook from a stressed one.

In a professional kitchen this isn't optional — a chef who isn't set up can't keep up during service. Build the habit now and everything else gets easier.

02Knife skills — the first thing every kitchen teaches

You don't need an expensive knife — you need one sharp knife you keep sharp, and a steady technique. The two things to learn first:

• The grip: pinch the blade between thumb and forefinger rather than gripping the handle. It feels odd, then it feels like control.
• The claw: curl the fingertips of your other hand under, knuckles forward, so the flat of the blade rides against your knuckles. Your fingertips stay safe and your cuts stay even.

Practise on something cheap and forgiving — an onion, a carrot. Even, consistent cuts aren't about looking fancy: same size means same cooking time, which means food that's cooked properly.

03Food safety & hygiene — non-negotiable

This is the part that matters most if you're heading for a career, because a kitchen lives or dies by it. The basics everyone needs to know:

• Clean as you go. A tidy station is a safe station. Wipe, wash and clear constantly rather than facing a mountain at the end.
• Avoid cross-contamination. Keep raw meat away from ready-to-eat food, and use separate boards and knives (or wash thoroughly between).
• Temperature is everything. Keep cold food cold and hot food hot; cook things through; cool and store leftovers quickly.
• Wash your hands properly and often — before, during and after handling food.

If you're serious about working in food, a recognised Level 2 Food Hygiene certificate is inexpensive, often done online in a few hours, and is something many employers expect. It's a strong, cheap first step.

04The main cooking methods — and when to use them

Almost everything you'll ever cook is a version of a handful of methods. Learn what each one does and you can cook from instinct, not just instructions:

• Dry heat (roasting, frying, grilling, searing) — high heat, browning, big flavour. Best for things you want crisp or caramelised.
• Wet heat (boiling, steaming, poaching, simmering) — gentler, for cooking through without browning.
• Combination (braising, stewing) — sear first for flavour, then cook slow and low in liquid until tender. This is where tough, cheap cuts become the best meals.

That browning in dry-heat cooking has a name — the Maillard reaction — and it's where a huge amount of flavour comes from. It's why a seared steak tastes better than a boiled one.

05Seasoning & balance — making food actually taste good

The single biggest difference between home cooking and good cooking is seasoning. Most beginners under-salt. Salt doesn't make food "salty" when used well — it makes food taste more like itself.

• Season in layers as you cook, not just at the end.
• Taste constantly. A great cook tastes their food a dozen times while cooking.
• Balance the five: salt, fat, acid, sweetness and heat. If something tastes flat, it usually needs salt or a squeeze of acid (lemon, vinegar) rather than more of everything.

06How to read a recipe properly

A recipe is a set of instructions, but a good cook reads it like a plan. Before you start: read it all the way through, check you have everything and enough time, and note anything that needs doing in advance. Halfway through is the worst time to discover a step takes an hour.

Learn to scale too — doubling or halving a recipe is a skill, and getting comfortable adjusting quantities is exactly the kind of thing that makes you useful in a kitchen.

07How to get started in culinary arts

You don't need permission, a degree, or expensive kit to start — you need reps. Culinary arts is a craft, and every craft starts the same way: basic techniques repeated until they're automatic. Here's the order that works:

• Master the fundamentals first. Knife skills, the main cooking methods (roast, fry, braise, boil, grill), seasoning and food safety — everything above on this page. These are the same fundamentals taught in week one of culinary school.
• Cook daily, not occasionally. One dish a day beats a weekend blowout. Repeat dishes until you can cook them without reading the method.
• Learn to taste critically. Ask of every plate: does it need salt, acid, fat or heat? That question is half of professional cooking.
• Follow structured recipes, then loosen up. Exact amounts teach you calibration; once a dish is second nature, start adjusting it. That's when you're cooking, not following.
• Document what you cook. Photos and notes build both your skill and — if you go professional — the beginnings of a portfolio.

08How to train as a chef — the main routes compared

There's no single door into professional kitchens. The four main routes, honestly compared:

• Start in a kitchen (earn from day one). Begin as a kitchen porter or commis chef and learn on the job. Hard and fast-paced, but many respected chefs started exactly here. Best if you learn by doing and want in quickly.
• Apprenticeship (earn while you qualify). Work in a real kitchen while studying for a recognised qualification (in the UK, commis chef and chef de partie apprenticeships are common). The strongest blend of wage, experience and paper.
• College or culinary school (structure first). A professional cookery course — such as an NVQ Level 2–3 in the UK — gives you supervised fundamentals and a qualification before you enter a working kitchen. Costs time and sometimes money, but suits people who want the theory grounded first.
• Self-taught plus stages. Build skills at home, then ask kitchens you admire for a stage (a short trial shift). Attitude, punctuality and a sharp knife open more doors in this trade than any CV line.

09The culinary career path — from commis to head chef

Most professional kitchens run on the classic brigade ladder. Titles vary, but the climb usually looks like this:

• Kitchen porter / prep cook — where many people start: dishes, prep, learning how a kitchen breathes.
• Commis chef — the junior cook, rotating through sections and learning each one.
• Chef de partie — running a single section (grill, sauce, pastry) during service.
• Sous chef — the head chef's second: running the pass, the rota and the kitchen when the boss is off.
• Head chef — menus, margins, hiring, standards. As much leadership as cooking.
• Executive chef / owner — multiple kitchens, or your own place.

And the ladder isn't the only path: private cheffing, catering and events, recipe development, food styling and photography, product development for food brands, and teaching all branch off it. The fundamentals underneath are identical — which is why the smartest first step, whatever your destination, is simply learning to cook properly.

10How to practise — the only thing that actually works

Reading about cooking won't make you a cook. Cooking will. The fastest way to improve is to cook often, cook the same things until they're easy, then push into harder ones. Pick recipes that stretch you a little each week and pay attention to what goes wrong — that's where the learning is.

That's exactly what After Six is built for: every recipe is written to be cooked from, with the kit, the prep, a step-by-step method with the amounts built in, and the nutrition — so you can drill the fundamentals on real dishes.