Cooking

darragh come over I’ll bake u some bread

bread occurs in nature bread is a friend of mine i know bread and you sir are no bread why would you even say bread is baked no seriously why would you say that

I grew up in a family of bakers but I spent my whole life studying other stuff. To me the ability to bake a good loaf of bread still seems like magic

that knife linked by CAD - I 've got roughly the exact same one, but mine is Mercer brand. With the £10 sharpener I got it's been my good friend for years now.

I’d suggest that the three best early habits you can develop in cooking are:

- prepping all of your ingredients before starting
- watching YouTube videos on how to cut onions/tomatoes, and practicing with a good but not expensive knife and an ample cutting board
- learning to follow a recipe [to the letter] the first time you make it ,so you establish a baseline for how it’s supposed to taste

1. Maybe focus on a cuisine or general type of food you want to eat and enjoy. This will allow you to buy the herbs and spices etc you need for that type of cooking and have a functioning store cupboard without having to go to the shop over and over. Spices can add up when your cupboard is empty.

2. I agree that currys, stews, that kind of thing are the easiest place to start. They're very forgiving since nothing needs to be exposed to major heat but they'll also teach you some of the core principles of food and the flavour combinations.

3. Essential things: People might differ on this but I would say basically make sure you have: one v good knife for chopping veg etc, doesn't need to be expensive, a big cutting board to chop them on. A big pot for stews etc. a frying pan or I guess Americans call this a skillet, a smaller pot for other things like potatoes or rice. Maybe measuring cups if you're using US recipes. Some wooden spatulas or similar for stirring things.

4. Worth considering: a tongs for flipping meat/fish, a serving spoon, some good plastic containers for storing leftovers. If you want to eat rice I would suggest a rice cooker. I got one recently after years of cooking rice in a pot and I don't know why I wasted all that time and effort. There are some good small ones available. I live alone so I didn't want a gigantic one, the brand "Judge" does good ones if that's available.

5. Again depends what sort of food you want to focus on, but if cooking for just yourself it might be worth starting to use a butchers or fishmongers or an independent grocery store. This could be a UK-centric take but IME this means I can buy eg one chicken leg and a handful of whatever veg and make a meal that way rather than constantly having to do soups and stews etc which mean I have way too much food. It also is nice and makes the shopping enjoyable.

oh another vital thing.

generally, the minute you start cooking or before you start, fill the sink with hot water and add washing up liquid. washing stuff as you go is p much the key to a happy and long life.

and just to say on point 5 there i meant because stuff doesn't come in pre-packaged quantities

a nice addition to my kitchen I found on e-bay recently was: Spanish Ceramic Terracotta Oven / Grill tray. It is made out of some special clay from Valencia and treated with oils so that apparently it's non-stick qualities naturally improve the more you use it. Even if that is a load of bollox - it only cost me a tenner and is very pretty and has been very useful so far.

I walk past about five bay trees between the station and my house, so use a lot in my cooking. They freeze well. They also survive a trip through the wash in a trouser pocket. I would not buy dried ones.

My block of flats has a herb garden with four bay trees next to it, plus rosemary, lemon thyme and (when in season) mint. I have herb pots on my balcony: tarragon, oregano, parsley, thyme, rosemary, red chilli and both Thai and regular basil (both of these are out of commission right now). Invest in herbs, because they are seriously expensive in shops (I still buy coriander, dill and huge parsley bunches because those are cheap at Turkish shops).

I'm trying out a smallish cast iron pan before buying a bigger one if I'm happy with it. My non-stick Ken Hom wok is getting a bit old now.

― calzino, Friday, 4 January 2019 7:49 AM (fifteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've been thinking of geting a carbon steal pan. Has anyone used one?

treeship if your aim is lots of veggies and non-refined grains, I would really recommend starting with making something like quinoa, which I find easier to get right over brown rice, and then mixing in veggies, spices, beans that you like.

― Yerac, Friday, 4 January 2019 8:11 AM (fifteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The answer to both these posts is a carbon steel wok. Cheap as anything and will be more non-stick than anything with a Teflon coating if treated right. Treating it right means seasoning with oil once in a while and only washing with hot water and scrubbing. You can do other carbon steel pans later but a wok is a no brainer and should cost you lest than $15 from a Chinese grocer

Seasoning, btw, is heating the clean pan as hot as it will go and wiping in the inside of the pans with some oil on a wad of kitchen towel.

I'll definitely take that advice, Ed. Is there a particular oil that is best suited for seasoning it?

can I ask a question about hobs. we’re getting a new kitchen next year: gas or induction ?

sheeit! you can get a very impressive looking 40" carbon steel wok for £20 on e-bay.

actually centimetres, lol that would huuuge!

I've ordered a more sensible 30cm one for £13.95.

according to the seller vegetable oil will season it good.

personally I think you can't beat a gas hob, but inductions appeal to me too

Yea, I use whatever veg/canola type of oil i have around for the wok and cast iron. I was interested in a carbon steel pan to try to migrate from non-stick pans for things like cooking eggs etc. Cast iron is just too heavy for quick things. I rarely use it. Although I did get a small tamagoyaki omelette pan that is really, really great.

xpost I prefer gas over induction but I know some countries it's too difficult to do gas. Induction is totally fine if gas seems annoying to put in.

My wife, for whom cooking has always been the enemy, has the bad notion that smaller bowls means less work cleaning up, so she will mix stuff in bowls barely big enough to hold the ingredients, and stuff doesn't get properly mixed. Mix in bowls large enough to really move stuff around, not just turn one teaspoonful at a time.

I've got this huge pyrex mixing bowl with a plastic cover that clips over it. Nice bit of kit.

Once you start putting containers aside to wash later, unless you've got a huge kitchen - you'll soon be in trouble.

My kitchen is quite small. So I got loads of wall mounted hooks and put a couple of shelves below them, so everything is within easy reach.

I have such anxiety about messy kitchens that I end up washing every single thing as soon as it's used. My spouse loves it when he cooks, but I know it annoys other people who want control of their kitchen.

That knife is a great deal; I’ve had the santoku version for years and use it almost exclusively over my much more expensive German chefs knife.

― joygoat, Friday, January 4, 2019 12:48 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually didn't know that there was a victorinox santoku for the same price, that's dope

thinking about knives/knife techniques makes cooking seem unfun, I dunno. sure some knives help you cut more easily but if you're not cooking at all, worrying about cutting "better" or whatever may just make you say "fuck this I'm ordering in again".

I don't know anything about what makes a knife good or bad so I went to Kappabashi Street and went to a good knife store and said "tell me what to buy" and I bought a couple of them and they are very nice.

I like to break stuff apart with my hands and use scissors to cut some stuff quickly when it doesn't matter. But I do like the new knives I got last year. I did way too much research, but it's kind of fun.

just been reading that flaxseed oil is best for seasoning my cast iron pan that arrived today, but they don't sell it locally and I'm just going to use some light olive oil. It's been sold as "pre-seasoned" but I figured another seasoning wouldn't do any harm.

idk euler

if youre not cooking at all and intimidated by the thought of it, a few good basic use-everyday utensils are exactly what you need to take advice on to eliminate the common irritants

cleaning as you go def. makes sense imo as there's always a few moments between having to get back to the cooking. Especially if you have mise en place in place

hey, i'm curious abt this tamagoyaki pan. have seen the tamago-making procedure before and it sounds so different to how i've ever made a omelet/eggs previously. do you have a trick or any insight?
xpost to Yerac

no idea why this is the case, but i've found saturated fats work better for seasoning- butter or coconut oil are my go-to fwiw

This is the one I got. It might be something about the pan, but it cooks eggs so well there is really no trick to it. PAN

"Aubergine Purple" This colour signals glory and splendor, pure joy of life.

^^^^ ^^^
it looks good and this a deal sealer for sure!

I still use a butter/oil but egg just basically slides around on it. Be careful resting anything wood on the edge though. It will burn.

I keep a simple kitchen (certainly easier for a plant-based eater who doesn't bake or make fresh pasta).

My only electric appliances are the stove/oven, the microwave, a nice (Bamix) immersion blender, and a cheap blade coffee grinder dedicated to spice grinding. I've had more gizmos like food processors, but for all, their annoyances particularly with cleanup outweighed their incremental value.

Cookware is a big pressure cooker, a carbon steel wok and paella pan that doubles as a roasting pan, and some legacy non-stick cookware that over time I'll replace with more carbon steel (fry pan(s)) or multi-layer stainless (stockpots). Pressure cookers are essential for those who eat legumes regularly, and even as an omnivore they made my soup stocks far richer; I pretty much cook all soups in the pressure cooker these days. Carbon steel is nicer than cast iron, lighter/smoother surface/doesn't fracture if dropped, but requires seasoning.

Seasoning tip: After stripping to bare metal with oven cleaner/vinegar/soap or in my case power tools, apply the thinnest layer of flax oil (cheapest will be the drug store gel caps) with a paper towel, and broil for an hour. This provides an impenetrable polymerized surface preventing rust, but it won't be non stick. For that season again with a cooking oil with higher saturated fat content (coconut oil/ghee/lard etc) which will be less durable but non-stick.

I learned how to sharpen my German knife set to peel daikon (I became a knife hobbyist for a winter), but like some pros with the whole knife roll, I gravitate to a ceramic knife for most veg prep. Can't be dropped or used to pry at meat joints, but its lighter and sharper than exhaustively sharpenned steel knives and keeps its edge for a couple years of use before it needs a factory resharpening. No one bought the black Kyocera nakiri I pined for this Xmas :(. If you get the largest polypropylene cutting board that will fit your sink, you won't need all those little bowls for mise en place, the margins of the board will be enough.

Re: spices, make friends with your local Indian grocer. I've the good fortune to have an Indian immigrant owned international grocer near me, affiliated with their restaurant wholesale warehouse, so I routinely buy 8 oz of spices for half the price of those tiny McCormick bottles. Whole spices will last practically indefinitely compared to pre-ground ones, so I buy whole and grind as needed.

Omitted tip: don't bother with a cutting board with rubber feet, a damp dishtowel underneath is as good.

anyone recommend a good cheapo slow cooker? I've not developed a slow cooker game at all and it looks like a nice lazy option to have.

oh and one important tip that hasn't been covered on here yet today is: get some powder free latex gloves if you are handling chopped chillis/scotch bonnets etc. And for blokes: never go for a piss if you've been foolish enough to handle them without gloves.

uh, men and women should be careful about sticking fingers anywhere for hours after cutting hot peppers.

I think I have had to take out my contact lenses with my wrists before.

yeah it is absolute torture getting it in yr eyes.

I went through a weird phase once where I wanted sliced jalapenos on everything. I had to eventually stop because of all the surprise burning.

slow cooker: other than making great stock, never really had good results from it and not particularly impressed when other people serve slowcooked meals either. maybe just need to get better skills idk

Lidded casserole dish in the oven did the business last night when making stroganoff with beef shin.

I was thinking : is there a diff between slow cooker and just turning down the oven to low.

unless your life will be incomplete without the ability to cook mushy braises while you're out of the house, don't buy a slow cooker

i like the aspect of being able to put on a (slow cooking) pot of beans for a hour or two and just forget about it. on the stove you generally have to keep an eye on 'em so they don't boil too hard, or conversely just sit there in hot water.

i hate to recommend bleach for anything, but it cuts through capsaicin lickety-split, if it's an emergency pour a bit on hand/finger and rinse. have tried olive oil to remove from hands before since capsaicin is fat soluble, but that doesn't work as well

Another vote for that knife as the best one you can get for so little money.

Another vote here. Tho I have a slightly different Victorinox. Use it much more often than the 3x as expensive Japanese one I have.