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Cooking can enrich your life if you give it the space.
Or so says Pati Jinich — a former public-policy analyst turned chef, cookbook author, and award-winning host of the PBS series "Pati's Mexican Table" — who is known for sharing the foods she was raised with in Mexico City with her audience. Each season of her show explores a different region of Mexico's diverse cuisine.
This National Hispanic American Heritage Month, Jinich spoke with Insider to share her cooking tips for beginners.
Beginners in the kitchen tend to be intimidated by ingredients they're not familiar with or cuisines they don't understand.
"My specialty is Mexican cuisines of all kind[s] — original, modern, traditional, anything — and I think fear is the No. 1 thing that we need to just get rid of because nothing happens," Jinich said.
Instead, you should just throw yourself into it, regardless of what the outcome might be.
"If you mess it up ... you just don't make it again," she said.
Beginners should do what the French call "mise en place," which is to know the ingredients you need and have them ready to use, Jinich said.
"If you know you're going to make pasta with tomato sauce, look at the recipe and make sure that you have the ingredients. Because if you're in the middle of cooking and you realize you don't have the crushed tomatoes, the onions are going to get burned when you're cooking," she said.
Thinking about cooking in a very linear, fast-paced way — as you see online in 60-second cooking TikTok recipes — is a mistake, she said.
Instead, you should relax and enjoy the process as much as possible.
"Cooking becomes this beautiful, therapeutic space where you're giving yourself the space and the time to make something delicious, to bring flavors and stories and cultures and countries into your kitchen," rather than trying to speed through everything in 10 minutes, she said.
It will also benefit the recipe if you take your time and pace yourself, she said.
Jinich uses chiles as an example: "If you're trying new chiles, read a little. The jalapeño is less spicy than the habanero. So if a recipe for a salsa says two to four jalapenos, start with one, taste how it goes, and see if you can take a little more heat."
As well as trying new ingredients, dishes, or processes in the kitchen, Jinich recommends learning about them as much as possible.
For example, if she is cooking with tequila, she takes into account the different kinds of tequila there are.
"The Gran Centenario Plata is light and bright and suave. Reposado is richer. The Añejo is deeper and [has a] more nutty, almond flavor," said Jinich, who spoke to Insider as part of her partnership with Gran Centenario Tequila.
There's nothing wrong with following a recipe, but once you feel empowered and have the tools, adapt it as you like.
"With cocktail making or with cooking food, I think it's the same thing," Jinich said. "Try to find someone that you like how they cook, their approach, follow the recipes, see how you like it, and then see if you want to make it your own."
"I mean, that's a beauty about food," she continued. "Food is everybody. It's communal. It's what we've learned that we're passing on and then once you put your recipe out in the world, people can adapt to their taste, which is the beauty of it."
