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Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

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Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#91

Post by el_benhameen »

prpl wrote: post #69

I think some Jacques Pepin videos, especially old ones, helped me to the next level, more than anything else. I have a 70s print of La Methods and, while I was fairly advanced before getting it, it is pretty thorough on methods for cooking. The thing I love about his later stuff especially is that it is practically freestyle. Ming Tsai has a bit of that too.

I love his philosophy and style, particularly in his various PBS series. He teaches you not just to cook different dishes, but how to gracefully cook several at once in a reasonable weeknight dinner timeframe. The way he’s relaxed about quantities and substitutions and focuses on making things the way he likes them versus how they’re “supposed to be made” completely changed my approach to the kitchen and gave me a fundamental ease with cooking. And I love the “waste not, want not” philosophy!

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#92

Post by shepherdjerred »

mabbo wrote: post #25

The absolute pinnacle of cooking video chefs today has to be J. Kenji Lopez-Alt[0], in large part because of his use of first person view. He straps a go-pro to this head and you see what he sees while he cooks. There's no cuts or retakes (unless he's waiting for something to cook or gets interrupted by his kids). There's no swaps. And it's all real- he's cooking dinner for his family. And it doesn't always go perfec…

95% of what I know about cooking came from Kenji. I love the scientific approach he takes when explaining why things work.

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#93

Post by atomicfiredoll »

clan wrote: post #70
psukhedelos wrote: post #46

Is there any cooking content that takes into account cleaning up after? In my limited viewing experience the focus often seems to be prep and the cooking, ignoring the reality of the inevitable clean up. Is there anyone focusing on recipes and how to cook that minimises / reuses cookware and through to a reset clean kitchen? When I cook I enjoy getting into a flow where I’m ordering the prep or modifying the recipe s…

We all have our own journey. But one of the biggest improvements in enjoying to cook was to learn not to clean up after. It was a revelation to me and the big enabler which moved cooking from a chore to something I appreciate. Do not clean up after - clean during! Maybe annoying at first but it quickly turn into a habit There is plenty of time (as a home cook!) during prep to clean the knives, bowls boards etc. What…

There are one pot or instapot/crock pot/rice cooker recipes that can help, but a lot of those still require some prep work. I 100% agree here, though. The key, especially in a small space, is to keep things clean as you work.

But, this also means managing sub-tasks through the day, like making sure clean items get pulled out of the dishwasher when it's done so that, to your point, things don't stack up in the sink through the day. There's nothing worse than trying to quickly throw a meal together and realizing the tool you need is at the bottom of the sink under a stack or pile. Things quickly turn to yak shaving.

Cooking and cleaning go hand and hand in my mind. I don't always have everything clean when I'm done cooking, but I'm proud when I'm able leave things at a good stopping point. That said, go eat the food you just cooked while it's hot. I think it can be difficult for people new to cooking to balance all these things, it takes practice. As you get a better sense of timing when things will be ready, you find time to clean something. [The more clean and organized your workspace is, the easier meals come together.]

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#94

Post by tengbretson »

dagw wrote: post #71
mabbo wrote: post #25

The absolute pinnacle of cooking video chefs today has to be J. Kenji Lopez-Alt[0], in large part because of his use of first person view. He straps a go-pro to this head and you see what he sees while he cooks. There's no cuts or retakes (unless he's waiting for something to cook or gets interrupted by his kids). There's no swaps. And it's all real- he's cooking dinner for his family. And it doesn't always go perfec…

While I'm a huge fan of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and Serious Eats is my go to web site before cooking just about anything, nothing I've seen before or since beats Alton Brown and Good Eats when it comes to video based cooking education.

Good Eats sets the standard for educational cooking content, but actually implementing the recipes Alton demonstrates usually results in a nearly day-long cooking project.

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#95

Post by wenc »

prpl wrote: post #69

I think some Jacques Pepin videos, especially old ones, helped me to the next level, more than anything else. I have a 70s print of La Methods and, while I was fairly advanced before getting it, it is pretty thorough on methods for cooking. The thing I love about his later stuff especially is that it is practically freestyle. Ming Tsai has a bit of that too.

I have a copy of the combined La Méthode and La Technique. Although I don't have any special affinity for French cooking, Jacques Pepin got me into cooking because he showed me that method and technique was universal. His knife skills were fun to watch.

The person who got me into knife skills was Martin Yan who had a show called "Yan Can Cook" (not to be confused with Wok with Yan by Stephen Yan from Canada).

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#97

Post by mongol »

I like the Chain Baker. He has a quite scientific approach, for example he bakes the same bread with salt before yeast, yeast before salt, and two other variations, to explore the difference it makes. In the next video he tries something else in four variations. Over time you learn what matters and not.

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#98

Post by wheels »

matsemann wrote: post #36

What I often miss is "the basics". After reading a recipe or following a video, I perhaps know how to make exactly that dish. But that's like a bootcamp programmer learning a single framework. I want to learn the concepts, how to apply them, how and when to break the rules, how to modify it and experiment with what I got. When I follow a recipe, and the result isn't pristine, how do I fix it? Should I add more salt?…

A lot of that is about developing intuition and like in most fields, there's not an easy way to develop intuition without a lot of experience.

What helped me a lot was starting to work through "On Cooking", which is geared towards culinary students, and at least has a more useful progression of skills (e.g. starts with equipment, knife skills, etc.) and techniques, and then starts building up from there. e.g. you learn to make sauces before starting on full dishes, etc. But doing something like that is a pretty large commitment (and all of the recipes have to be scaled down to non-restaurant sizes).

At one point in my early 30s I considered writing a cook book based on trying to teach my housemate to cook, starting with the assumptions that the person in question hadn't ever cooked and didn't own any reasonable cooking stuff, and trying to establish a baseline of recipes that could all be cooked from the same 20-ish ingredients that one could reasonably always have around.

There are definitely recipe-based and intuition-based approaches to cooking, and while I think teaching intuition is difficult, learning a particular vocabulary of skills in a certain order can help.

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#99

Post by myshpa »

selimthegrim wrote: post #84
myshpa wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What helped me when learning to cook vegan was focusing on the basics. I studied a few recipes (such as Indian curry) and identified the fundamental ingredients (onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, spices, and protein), creating a list of non-basic spices and other potential ingredients. I mastered the process of this basic recipe: browning the onions with cumin and bay leaf, no salt, adding garlic and the remaining sp…

One of the fundamental parts of curry making is cooking the spices until the oil separates - that is until all the water boils off, and the tomato skins blacken. This is usually not explained terribly well in written recipes.

Yeah, I've seen the step, but decided to skip that to save time. Seems like I'll have to try that anyway. Thank you.

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#100

Post by veryfancy »

bonniemuffin wrote: post #65
mabbo wrote: post #25

The absolute pinnacle of cooking video chefs today has to be J. Kenji Lopez-Alt[0], in large part because of his use of first person view. He straps a go-pro to this head and you see what he sees while he cooks. There's no cuts or retakes (unless he's waiting for something to cook or gets interrupted by his kids). There's no swaps. And it's all real- he's cooking dinner for his family. And it doesn't always go perfec…

His kids book "Every night is pizza night" is also great. I've read several "get your kid to try new foods" books to my child, but that one actually got her excited to try red beans and tagine and dumplings and green pozole soup, and now those are all foods she will happily ask for!

Same for my two sons. Wonderful book.
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