491–500 of 747 posts
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No such book actually exists. There's a french book that covers basic/common procedures and a reader's digest book but those are about it; and they definitely are not beginner oriented.
Sure it does. https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-Institute-... Would be useful for any home cook (I have it in my kitchen)
https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-Institute-...
I cook mine in a stainless steel pan without oil. The sugars will start to caramelize in the bottom of the pan. At a point I add a small amount of water to the pan (less than a tablespoon) and then cover with a lid. If it's a 10" frying pan, I use a 4" lid. The steam cooks the onions quickly and the cooked onions absorb the browned sugars from the bottom of the pan.
People really make cooking a lot more difficult than it needs to be. If it tastes good and your technique works, who cares?
I dunno about 10 minutes, but in my very limited experience it's easier to crank the heat up when you have several pounds of onions. Otherwise, if you're just carmelizing one onion, stirring doesn't really allow you to temporarily remove the onion from the heat, whereas if you have a large amount of onions you're basically turning over the whole lot. I've only made French onion soup once or twice, but I make Italian…
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> A timer can never replace the knowledge of how something is supposed to look, feel, and smell when it's done or not. I tend to disagree on that one, unless you are particularly experienced, or naturally gifted, measuring tools (timers, scales, thermometers,...) will give you the best results. At least for me, that's the case. And if you can't follow a recipe to the letter, without knowledge of how things are suppos…
I think you're leaving out the extent to which cooking is an analogue process. Your particular ovens temperature envelope, the rate at which your pan or wok heats (due to its thickness and composition), the specifics of the varieties of plant or cuts of meat you're cooking, the quality or specifics of the spices or oils you're using. I'm no chef, but it seems like these can all make quite substantial changes in cooki…
The main difference between cooking and process chemistry is that the latter actually cares about quality of the end result.
There is some unavoidable variation because of the inconsistency in ingredients and lack of access to tools that would mitigate it. However, the typical kitchen tools are also just bad by design, with any kind of precision or consistency long ago "value engineered" out of them. And now we also learn that cooking recipes are mostly pulled out of their writers' arses, to the point you might as well ask GPT-4, and save money on a cookbook / avoid exposure to ads and made up life stories on-line.
Hell, GPT-4 can at least also give you a Gantt chart to go with your recipe[0].
In the end, the only way to deal with this is by hand-holding the process, performing minute adjustments as guided by experience. This makes cooking much more of an art than it could - or should - be.
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[0] - Some assembly required. Taste and safety not guaranteed, as I can't cook to save my life. https://cloud.typingmind.com/share/a349a38e-0e24-470e-a1c8-3...
I talk about cooking and food a lot with my Czech teacher (not just because I like to cook, but if I'm low-energy it's such an easy topic) and I brought this idea up - something along the lines of "What do you think about all the recipes that say 'fry onions until caramelised - about 5-10 minutes'?". Her reply floored me - "ha! yeah, 10 minutes? They'd be burned by then!". I spent the next few minutes trying to expla…
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As if I needed more fuel on the fire of my burning hatred for recipe collections. Everyone who is interested in cooking should do themselves a favour and buy a proper cookbook. Something that starts with the basics, and works itself up to full meals. It should have cheat-sheets for basic ways to cook all your staples, here's all the ways you can cook a potato, with times and temperature. Here's all the ways you can s…
No such book actually exists. There's a french book that covers basic/common procedures and a reader's digest book but those are about it; and they definitely are not beginner oriented.
Time to watch Cunningham's Law in action.
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This is different. If you learn enough about Linux, you can install Arch in 15-20minutes no problem. Especially since learning about Linux means reinstalling your OS many times until you finally learn how to keep it clean and rescue it from any situation. You are not going to be able to cook chicken in 3-4minutes per side like so many recipes claim. It's just not possible to have a good outside temperature and a good…
Just FYI you can easily cook a room temp chicken breast or thigh (or lots of them) 4 minutes a side directly below a broiler on a broiler pan, letting them rest covered for 5 afterwards. Add a minute for the genetic freak 2+ inch thick ones. You will need to pat the moisture off them first and brush with oil.
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I think you're leaving out the extent to which cooking is an analogue process. Your particular ovens temperature envelope, the rate at which your pan or wok heats (due to its thickness and composition), the specifics of the varieties of plant or cuts of meat you're cooking, the quality or specifics of the spices or oils you're using. I'm no chef, but it seems like these can all make quite substantial changes in cooki…
> I think you're leaving out the extent to which cooking is an analogue process. The main difference between cooking and process chemistry is that the latter actually cares about quality of the end result. There is some unavoidable variation because of the inconsistency in ingredients and lack of access to tools that would mitigate it. However, the typical kitchen tools are also just bad by design , with any kind of…
Its ripoff engineered. I just threw in the trash an obscenely expensive pan with Vegan, cancer free, teflon free and gluten free coating thats coming off.