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Based Cooking

based.cooking

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Re: Based Cooking

#271

Post by astura »

vineyardmike wrote: post #208
dpcan wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned to cook a lot from the 3x5 cards my mom has in a cupboard. They list stuff like a "pinch" of salt or a "stick" of butter. Sometimes I'll make her dinner from her recipe and she'll be surprised and say "that's not the way I do it" and then she'll really enjoy the food anyway. I think interpretation is what makes cooking an art, and many times, those little individual choices we make to interpret a recipe or…

What if you moved to the west coast from the eastern coast (of USA) where a stick of butter meant something different? This is a time interpretation could be a horrible difference. https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/east-coast-vs-west-coast...

One stick of butter is defined as 8 tablespoons, no matter the shape it was packaged in, or if you're getting it from a butter churn.

Re: Based Cooking

#274

Post by dmitriid »

OwlsParlay wrote: post #244
dmitriid wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really bad advice to give beginners. If you're lucky, you'll guess right the first time, and end up with a good dish. And then you'll use that. If you're unlucky — and the more inexperienced you are the more unlucky you are — then you'll guess wrong, and your dish will be at best okay, and at worst inedible. A few failed experiments like this, and you'll hate cooking, or approach cooking with fear. Recipes h…

Experimentation is part of learning though. Heck, failing is part of learning! We really need to teach kids that just because you fail a few times at something you're not bad at it - it's part of learning.

You can't experiment if you don't even know the basics.

> We really need to teach kids

Ah yeah. Because every single beginner is a kid, and everyone learns to cook when they are kids.

Re: Based Cooking

#275

Post by bigfudge »

beeforpork wrote: post #245
tayo42 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really you just cook to your taste. Cooking isn't a science experiment. Like step 5 says, taste it and adjust. The foods already cooked by the time your adding the spices

Bad advice not only for beginners, but also for any dough recipe, because amounts often need to be exact for a dough to work properly. In this case, cooking really is a science experiment. Also, I do not like 'salt to taste', particularly for raw egg or raw meat mixtures. Just tell me the amount of salt, whynot?

My experience is the opposite. Most bread recipes for example are both incredibly tolerant of mistakes. Also — flour varies so much in capacity to absorb water and gluten content between brands that I'd say precision is very much illusory unless you are after industrial-style consistency.

Small changes in how you handle doughs of different hydration, and changes in timing/temperature thereafter have a much bigger difference to the outcome. I think it's better to develop an intuition for what the right consistency is and work towards that.

Re: Based Cooking

#277

Post by curtainsforus »

akjssdk wrote: post #175
reedjosh wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take the Serious Eats version. Ad ad ad... some irrelevant random video trying to play when I clearly don't want it to. The site is really not about the quality of recipe, though they could be made better via your contribution.

Yes it is a shame, because their recipes (especially from Kenji López-Alt) are really good. But if you keep one open to read from during cooking, you will see every video they have available playing in the little box.

The obvious move is to ctrl-c ctrl-v the recipes to the ad-free site ;)

Re: Based Cooking

#278

Post by luckycharms810 »

tylorr wrote: post #49
luckycharms810 wrote: post #20

In the last few years I’ve learnt that there really is nothing better than a good cook book. Vibrant colors, techniques, stories - these can all really add to your experience if their presence is not solely for the purpose of including additional ads. I’ve also found that the recipe alone is truly not enough - the techniques and background are incredibly important !

Any suggestions for a good cook book?

Listing out a few of my go tos!

- Every grain of rice ( Fuschia Dunlop ) is close to what I’d consider a perfect cookbook.

- Franklin BBQ ( Aaron Franklin ) is a definitive guide to how to use an offset smoker. I’ve read through portions over and over again - it’s only got about 10 recipes.

- My two south’s ( Asha Gomez ) - A wonderful collection of recipes inspired by South India, the south.

A good cook book will usually have a section that introduces new ingredients, tells you how to source them, introduces new techniques or methods, and also introduce some shorter recipes that can be used as dependencies for others. At the end of the day - you want good building blocks.

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