21–30 of 75 posts
However, it really doesn’t resonate with me. I was hoping to get some extra tips for min/maxing my kitchen time or some tasty slow cooker recipes. Perhaps a recipe for a macro and micro nutrient rich smoothie with minimal ingredients.
Love the sentiment behind the post - cooking is great life skill to get good at, but I think the "Essential Gear" is definitely far from "essential" (and maybe this will help the new cook from being too scared of the list). Here's my version of the "minimum viable set": 1. big, sharp knife 2. cutting board 3. wooden spoon 4. pan. IMO, the particularly dispensable: "instant read digital cooking thermometer", "micro-pl…
Some good cooking shows. * Matty Matheson - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpqH8-BBNTsluhcOzFKWLuw * French Cooking Academy - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0lG3Ihe4LGV851lODRIS5g * Bon Appetit - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbpMy0Fg74eXXkvxJrtEn3w * J. Kenji Lopez-Alt - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqJQ_cXSat0KIAVfIfKkVA * Munchies - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaLfMkkHhSA_LaCta0BzyhQ
Watching Matty Matheson is fun but damn do I feel ill with some of his recipes. They are food porn - a fantasy not intended for the real world.
The blog post is a 3,500 word advertisement to Amazon affiliation links. A selection of "helpful" advice given in the post:
- How to chop food? "Just search them on YouTube"
- "When you are first learning to cook I recommend avoiding complex recipes"
- "Get cooking"
Finally: "The goal of this post is [..] to provide fairly comprehensive [..] roadmap for going from a cooking noob to solid home chef." Sorry. This is not it.
[^] Alternatively, the title might be interpreted to mean "Cooking for founders [who are visiting you]". This is also not the case.
Follow the recipe, then don't follow it. As a beginner, follow the damn recipe. Read the ingredients list, buy the ingredients, and follow the instructions to the word. I know too many beginners who get lazy, don't follow the recipe and then the food doesn't taste good. Then, once you've gotten it down, start to tweak and experiment. Try adding a new ingredient or substituting something you don't have. Once you're not a beginner, you can skip following the recipe.
Learn the basic science of searing, emulsions, salting and temperature (hot & fast versus low & slow). The Food Lab/Serious Eats is a great resource for this. Salt Fat Acid Heat is also good.
Gain intuition. Learn to taste the food and see what's missing. You probably need to add more salt. Maybe a little acid? Or you could slip in some butter.
You will need to use more fat and salt than you think. When beginners watch me cook, they're shocked at how much salt and fat I add. It's still a fraction of how much you eat at a restaurant. This is especially true if you're blanching or boiling something, as the water needs to be really really really salty. Pasta water needs quite a few tablespoons of salt. Don't worry about it.
I read a theory that the whole bacon wrapped whatever craze was due to bacon being essentially fat and salt. People became obsessed with adding bacon because they weren't adding enough salt and fat.
American food tends to not have a lot of vegetables, but a crapton of carbs and meat. Try to learn Indian, Chinese, Korean or Mediterranean dishes. Beans are a great meat substitute.
E.g. how to roast chicken thighs:
- Preheat cast iron pan in oven until the oven has been at 450 for at least 10 min.
- Place four chicken thighs in the cast iron pan with a good amount of space in between, after tossing them in a gallon ziplock bag with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper.
- Roast for 20 min at 450, then pour out excess fat. (If you don't do this, then again you're just steaming the chicken.)
- Turn down oven to 400, and cook for another 25 - 30 min.
You can apply the exact same technique to most vegetables and mushrooms, but understanding and nailing the principle is key. This recipe for roast maitake mushrooms also explains it well: https://foragerchef.com/simple-roasted-hen-of-the-woods/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely - that and salt. Whenever you watch a professional chef cook you realize how much fat and salt going into making something taste "restaurant quality".
Watching old Julia Childs videos gave me the impression that all vegetables were primarily different substrates for butter :D
this made me think of what my take on "Cooking for Engineers" would be- roughly based on what I do personally. essential gear would be a chef's knife, a stainless or cast iron pan, a nonstick pan, a large dutch oven, a sous vide circulator w a large bucket, a 10qt instant pot, and a vacuum sealer. learn braising, roasting, sauteeing, and baking (veggies and proteins) whenever you cook something where you can make ext…
I'm bemused as to why this is aimed at "founders", but whatever. I would like to say, though, that if I'd made a list of essential kit, I would have included a sauté pan; it's like a frying pan, but deeper and with vertical sides and usually with a (transparent) lid. You can cook great meals in a sauté pan - do your onions/spices/garlic etc, then add meat (if that's your thing), then stock, pasatta (or whatever) and…
Granted I already knew how to cook at the point where I was suddenly living apart from my spouse for a few months. It being Texas, I picked up a huge package of tortillas. It's amazing how well you can eat if you just know how to quickly saute some meat and vegetables.
Well, that depends a lot on what you're baking. Baking bread can be very easy, and very rewarding. There are few things more delicious than freshly baked bread with butter. There are some simple cakes that are also easy to make. But yes, fancy desserts are hard.