Cook fine dining at home – Peter's best tips

Writer: Helena Bergström

What do you do when you want to relax with a hobby? Peter watches cooking videos on YouTube and then spends hours in the kitchen... Right now, it's all about fine dining at home. Here are Peter's best tips for those of you who also want to experiment with purées, tweezers and decorative plating!

Fine dining at home

So, what do we mean by fine dining at home? Well, Peter is inspired by the kind of meals you can get at Michelin-starred restaurants and other fine establishments. Some weekend evenings, when he has time, he stands in the kitchen to tinker and experiment... Peter is neither a chef nor an expert in cooking – he just thinks it's fun to be creative and try new things in the kitchen. Here are his best tips!

1. Find inspiration online

Peter finds inspiration for his cooking experiments on the Internet. He primarily watches YouTube videos, and his favourite is Chief Majk, which shows how to cook fine dining at home.

2. Review the equipment

Of course, you don't need to buy lots of new, expensive equipment to experiment with cooking, but it can still be worth reviewing the equipment in your kitchen. Peter has bought a blender/mixer, as we didn't have one before, as well as some plastic bottles for storing purées and sauces. He already had a sous vide, which has now come in very handy.

Peter has also been longing for new, colourful tableware for a long time, and during Black Week we found some really affordable plates at Åhléns, so we jumped at the chance. That's why there are different plates in different pictures!

3. Utilise potatoes and root vegetables in a variety of ways

Peter notes that potatoes are a common source of carbohydrates in many fine dining recipes. Potatoes are a great ingredient that can be used in many ways, for mashed potatoes, potato cakes and a thousand other innovative potato dishes.

Root vegetables are also used fresh, in the form of carrots, beetroot and parsnips, for example. Root vegetables are often used in several ways at the same time, for example both as a purée and as a cooked side dish.

4. Use vegetables in many ways

In addition to potatoes and other root vegetables, vegetables play a major role in fine dining cuisine. These can be both very ”basic” vegetables, such as cabbage and leeks, and slightly more exclusive vegetables such as asparagus and Asian mushrooms.

Vegetables are often used in more than one way. You might use one part of the vegetable to make a vegetable purée, while another part of the vegetable can be chopped, cooked and served as a side dish.

Peter says that vegetable purées often contain a large amount of pure vegetable ingredients and only small amounts of cream. In other words, it feels like a nutritious and healthy flavouring, and we save any leftovers in bottles in the fridge to use in other meals.

5. The ingredients don't have to be ”luxurious” – but they do need to be carefully prepared.

One might think that fine dining food must be very exclusive, but Peter has often used relatively common ingredients, such as chicken, turkey or salmon. Instead, the focus is on preparing the ingredients with care, which in our case has often been done by Peter using sous vide.

6. Be creative with the layout

A big focus is on being creative with the presentation! When Peter cooks fine dining at home, he spends a lot of time arranging the food nicely and decorating it with small dollops of vegetable purée and small sprigs of vegetables or herbs. How should the food be arranged? Well, that's a matter of taste... just try it out!

7. Bring inspiration to everyday meals

Last but not least... why not bring inspiration to everyday meals? When Peter recently cooked meatballs and mashed potatoes, it turned into a completely new approach …

Do you like experimenting with fine dining at home?

Do you like experimenting with fine dining at home? Do you like cooking? Or going to restaurants?