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Based Cooking

based.cooking

171–180 of 485 posts

Re: Based Cooking

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've got the definition of homeopathy incorrect. I checked wikipedia and it says, "Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine." It does mean pseudoscience, specifically medicine, just like your association with it. As far as I can tell from on the usage of based I've seen, it means cringe/unpleasant/racist (depending on context).

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. It mentions that homeopathy is a pseudoscience because it would be a glaring omission for an encyclopedia if it didn’t. Homeopathy is a medical system that works as I described above, and it just so happens that it’s totally junk as well. Its usage in the context of those that practice homeopathy is not the definition that describes it as being bunk. Similarly, “based” is used to mean t…

I don't know. You cited a youtube clip with usage of a word as a definition of a word, which I accept, actually, as an interesting and useful source. But you deny the wikipedia language I quoted as acceptable input to this conversation? Why is your youtube context more right than my wikipedia context?

Words have multiple meanings. Clearly based is one of them.

Re: Based Cooking

#172

Some of these recipes seem decent if you're already somewhat experienced and have developed cook's intuition. Otherwise they're way too vague. For instance, the chicken parm recipe: - There should be a photo of how to slice the chicken breast. Saying "through their width" isn't good enough. I had to explain what "lengthwise" was once because my friend cut all the vegetables the exact opposite of it. - Pound with what…

On this subject, can an American please tell me what a spoonful is? There is a great video series on youtube, with his recipes online, but all measurements are spoonful: https://www.ethanchlebowski.com/cooking-techniques-recipes/p... Spoons can vary in size, so is it a tablespoon or a teaspoon? When dealing with spices you'll be adding 3 times the amount if you go with tablespoon interpretation so it'd be a pretty bi…

As an American, I have no idea. I actually don't think I've ever seen a recipe that didn't have explicit tea/tablespoons before, that's really weird.

Re: Based Cooking

#174
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned to cook a lot from the 3x5 cards my mom has in a cupboard. They list stuff like a "pinch" of salt or a "stick" of butter. Sometimes I'll make her dinner from her recipe and she'll be surprised and say "that's not the way I do it" and then she'll really enjoy the food anyway. I think interpretation is what makes cooking an art, and many times, those little individual choices we make to interpret a recipe or…

Eh sure, but I could see a newbie making this recipe, putting too little oil, having it start smoking, then burning the cutlets and undercooking the chicken. That's not interpretation, that's just poor instruction. Take the Serious Eats version. Yes, it's 10x more complicated, but it has photos and careful descriptions and measurements: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/09/the-best-chicken...

You're trying to cut out the middle man in learning how to cook.

It doesn't need to be complicated. Everyone who cooks knows the answers to these questions because they can remember that time their oil started smoking or they burnt this or undercooked that. Just start trying it, you'll learn as you go.

Re: Based Cooking

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh sure, but I could see a newbie making this recipe, putting too little oil, having it start smoking, then burning the cutlets and undercooking the chicken. That's not interpretation, that's just poor instruction. Take the Serious Eats version. Yes, it's 10x more complicated, but it has photos and careful descriptions and measurements: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/09/the-best-chicken...

> Take the Serious Eats version. Ad ad ad... some irrelevant random video trying to play when I clearly don't want it to. The site is really not about the quality of recipe, though they could be made better via your contribution.

Yes it is a shame, because their recipes (especially from Kenji López-Alt) are really good. But if you keep one open to read from during cooking, you will see every video they have available playing in the little box.

Re: Based Cooking

#177

Some of these recipes seem decent if you're already somewhat experienced and have developed cook's intuition. Otherwise they're way too vague. For instance, the chicken parm recipe: - There should be a photo of how to slice the chicken breast. Saying "through their width" isn't good enough. I had to explain what "lengthwise" was once because my friend cut all the vegetables the exact opposite of it. - Pound with what…

On this subject, can an American please tell me what a spoonful is? There is a great video series on youtube, with his recipes online, but all measurements are spoonful: https://www.ethanchlebowski.com/cooking-techniques-recipes/p... Spoons can vary in size, so is it a tablespoon or a teaspoon? When dealing with spices you'll be adding 3 times the amount if you go with tablespoon interpretation so it'd be a pretty bi…

If I had to hazard a guess, our table cutlery (i.e. the stuff people eat meals with) has somehow managed to get really bizarrely standardized. There are basically only two sizes of spoon in the normal set - a regular spoon, which has a fairly consistent size, and then a "soup spoon", which is a bit inconsistent (sometimes it's a larger size, sometimes it's round rather than teardrop-shaped, etc).

So most likely they're relying on the "incidental standardizing" of normal silverware, and making a guess that most people's regular eating spoons are bizarrely similar in size.

Since we're on HN, there's probably a really interesting philosophical rabbit hole one could go down, concerning the idea of things that aren't officially standardized (by some standard-setting body), but end up gravitating towards almost being so, due to industrial pressures and consumer expectations.

Re: Based Cooking

#178
post #54

This website actually proves why everyone's favourite punching bag, the picture heavy SEO laden, anecdote about my mother's neighbors rabbi style cooking blogs exist. These recipes would be totally un-followable unless you've made them before, especially without pictures. Some of them are terrible recipes, particularly the "curry". And maybe there are good reasons for them being very basic (e.g. they're traditional o…

Assuming you like that style of curry, it's a decent recipe. The only trouble would be if you didn't read the whole thing first. If you didn't read ahead, you'd hit "dump all of your tomatoes and extra ingredients into a food processor" and take it literally. There would be no spinach left for the next step.

I would rather not rely on commercial curry powder. This becomes a problem if one day you can't buy the same brand.

Re: Based Cooking

#179

I was just looking up some recipes the other day and my goodness, does this website feel like a breath of fresh air. Today's web just utterly buries even the simplest content underneath a mountain of shit, whether it's ads or fancy banners or a long-winded speech about god-knows-what before getting to the point. Kudos to whoever made this.

I love thermomix [0] recipes because of their simplicity. Most recipes are 5 or 6 lines, each with symbol, ingredient, time, temperature. Super tight shorthand.

[0] thermomix is basically the non American alternative to the Vitamix blender. Except that it has a scale and has temperature control built in.

Re: Based Cooking

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No website can fully replace life experience. Either way, the simplicity of presentation here transcends any such criticism which misses the point entirely.

I think of myself as a pretty decent cook but without some rough measurements I don’t find the recipes very useful. When I look at the gnocchi recipe I have no idea how much flour to take for an amount of potatoes for example . It is a little like watching my mom who just seems to throw things together until it’s right. Every time it’s perfect but she can’t explain what she does. You need a lot of experience for this…

The thing is that cooking, as it's (usually) based on products that have some intrinsic variability in them ( plants, dead animals... ) hence the recipe cannot be made fully deterministic. I know for gnocchis for example, the amouny of flour needed depends on the moisture content of the potatoes which depend on the variety uses, and how long they've been stored... Also depends on the flour you use. Until you get the dough texture "just right". Agree with many comments here that this makes a cooking an art.
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