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Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

nytimes.com

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Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#212

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. 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…

Other than Salt Fat Acid Heat (mentioned elsewhere in this thread), any recommendations for building that baseline knowledge? Step-by-step videos are great for making that one dish, but are pretty inefficient for reaching a skill baseline.

If you want to deep dive read the modernist cuisine 5 volume tome though you really most need the first couple. I don’t think I made a single recipe out of it. The recipes are too elaborate, but the knowledge and explanation of why things were done the way they were was really magical

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find a life partner. One cooks the other cleans up. :) The clean as you go method works well with most recipes though. There are dishes that come together really quickly and you can’t walk away from or others that must be monitored constantly but most dishes have some downtime built in. Prepping all of your ingredients ahead of time makes a huge difference. I used to try and slice the veg for step 3 while step 2 was…

I really hate it when my wife cooks and she leaves me the kitchen looking like a bomb went off. And then I cook and I leave her maybe two pans and a knife.

This, it ruins relationships

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#214
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen exactly one "Americas test kitchen" video. It claimed with confidence that the only way to make pork skin crunchy (ie into crackling) is to fry the pork after it's been roasted (ie turn it upside down in a pan of oil/fat) I didn't even watch the rest of the video. I don't know if they're catering to people who can't work the knob on an oven or if they themselves are just incompetent but that one claim was e…

They've been operating in one form or another for like 20 years and their whole deal is experimenting to find optimal recipes. Kenji Lopez started on that show and has guest appeared recently.

Here is the video, right at the point where they make their absolutely ridiculous fucking claim:

> We tried to get that skin crisp in a hot oven and under the broiler, and it just didn't work. The only way to get it crisp was using hot oil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ucXLDX_xrE&t=390s

No need to apologise, I'll just take you deleting your original reply as apology enough.

Re: Are cooking videos making us better cooks?

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hate it when my wife cooks and she leaves me the kitchen looking like a bomb went off. And then I cook and I leave her maybe two pans and a knife.

This, it ruins relationships

This doesn’t ruin it, lack of communication and compromise does. This is a symptom.
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