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…
Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
141–150 of 215 posts
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#142Is 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…
I won't put my nice metal bowls through a full cycle, but a rinse during prep makes the later hand wash a breeze.
When we build our next home, I desperately want a pair/trio of those drawer-style dishwashers.
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#143What 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?…
Give "Salt Fat Acid Heat" a try (the book, not the netflix show)
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Have you checked out Adam Ragusea on YouTube? https://youtube.com/@aragusea He continues on in a similar, if more modern, tradition as Alton Brown, I enjoy his videos and I have learned a lot from his videos.
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#145My main mistakes back then were simply using too high a heat (though on rare occasion not high enough, like when pan-searing fish), cooking too long, and not using enough oil. All of these things could have been corrected with basic technique videos.
On a somewhat related note, a long time ago I learned how to make gnocchi from an elderly Italian woman. Her teaching technique was immersive: she simply made a batch of it with me standing at her side. There's an art to how quickly you knead the flour into the potatoes: if you don't knead it in rapidly enough you work it too much and it gets tough. You also don't want to overshoot and knead too much flour in. She would work a certain amount in, then have me poke the dough to feel it, and she'd comment on the consistency and where in the process we were; things like "this is what it feels like when you're almost there" and "now it is ready". These things were remarkably hard to put into words, it was a much more immediate thing, like she could detect and point out to me how different it felt from thirty seconds ago. These were things like resilience, just how resistant the dough was to being poked and how quickly it popped back. I can't see how this kind of thing could be conveyed in text or a video, or any way other than in person.
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
He also taught me something pretty critical - you don't need a huge fancy kitchen to execute great food. Most of the work he does happens on a large cutting board, the sink, or the stove. When I moved into my current place with a tiny kitchen, I wasn't nearly as freaked out about it. I knew I would be able to work in it just fine.
I was humbled and inspired by the creativity and resourcefulness of some prison inmates. There's a Youtube channel[0] where they recreate "dishes" that can only be sourced from the commissary or leftovers from a provided meal. Ones I saw included: Laffy Taffy, ice cream and a breakfast burrito. I now look at my small kitchen in a different light. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1nWOkoNQWM
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#147What 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?…
The basics never end. There is no strict vertical. When you stir-fry vegetables, salt the oil before adding the aromatics. That's basic. How many years was it until I figured that out? How many pro chefs have never figured that out? What's pro? What about mincing your meat with one cleaver and one chef's knife? Not two cleavers. Not two chefs knives? That's basic. For a certain type of mince. How many people figure t…
Are you sure? What is it for, evenness, or are you playing with the chemistry? I never got this memo and a search suggests otherwise:
https://magnesol.com/six-enemies-of-oil-salt/ https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos...
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#148The 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…
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not entirely sure what else you expect? Cooking takes a long-ass time, it is a day-long full-time affair. You can hide the real time by doing prep, outright fully preparing parts of dishes agreed of time, having multiple people or buying premade but someone is putting in those hours somewhere.
Me and my wife cook meals with fresh ingredients every night and it takes between 20 and 40 minutes. Do you order takeout for every single meal? Did your family spend every day cooking all day growing up? I'm curious how someone can have this take.
An added component is how many meals we are talking about. Making breakfast, lunch and dinner can be very painful unless you meal prep or get quick and easy items (readymade salads, overnight oats, frozen food etc.)
Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?
#150Most cookbooks tend to be like the meme about drawing an owl [0]. Mostly because the people making the instructions make assumptions about Stuff One Should Just Know and skip those bits in the instructions. On video you can actually see the consistency of things as they are cooked and maybe even hear what the process sounds like (frying spices in oil has a distinct sound if the oil is at the correct temperature). You…
> Most cookbooks tend to be like the meme about drawing an owl [0]. Mostly because the people making the instructions make assumptions about Stuff One Should Just Know and skip those bits in the instructions. You may wish to look at cookbooks produced by America's Test Kitchen. They try to create instructions that are clear and easy to follow. This is done via a 'beta testing' program which you can join: > As a recip…