Cooking

id probably say start with stews and bologneses and chillis and suchlike

cant really go wrong if you start careful with amounts of salt/seasoning, nothing needs to be done quickly or too well, lots of room for you to experiment, and the ingredients needed and batches produced will set you up with the basics while also giving you a quick win ito racking up economic results

I suggest Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, which is less than ideal as a general cookbook in some respects but it’s the one that got me going.

I get scared off of recipes that call for too many ingredients.

That's your innate wisdom asserting itself. If they are scary, then wait until they seem more in line with your skill set.

btw, you can cook very, very well while never making any dish with an ingredient list in double digits.

This is actually the most important thing: if you skip adding in the ~tablespoon of oil or butter you can substitute that with drinking a beer or glass of wine instead. It's about the same caloric intake.

― Yerac, Friday, 4 January 2019 01:55 (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is crucial yes

sipping away with a playlist on while a long prep comes together is actually the greatest thing imo

fwiw i don't really consider "number of ingredients" to be telling most of the time, like are they a) shelf-stable spices and pantry items, b) inexpensive vegetables and grains, c) imported cheese, cured meats, wine, and a dozen eggs for pasta dough? it makes a difference, and yes i am outing myself.

My favorite recipes are the ones where the only ingredient is cured meat

reasonable take

I actually should get started learning this stuff bc my current apartment has kind of a great kitchen

that is a great thing to have.

everyone has talked a lot about ingredients and recipes but an important question is do you have access to a decent and really sharp knife?

i have occasionally tried to prep food in foreign kitchens where every knife is dull and it is without question the worst.

I mean, the knifes are bad, I’m still poor even though this apartment is weirdly beautiful for the price

*knives

buy this, it will not set you back much: https://www.amazon.com/Victorinox-Fibrox-Chefs-Knife-8-Inch/dp/B008M5U1C2/ref=asc_df_B008M5U1C2/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198090821251&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10091209022275543775&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001821&hvtargid=pla-320868655861&psc=1

i'm really not exaggerating much when i say that if you want to learn how to hate cooking, just do all your prep with shitty knives

otm otm otm

I think the proliferation of cooking shows has been a double-edged sword. They tend to disseminate knowledge and demystify cooking, but imo they also tend to disguise how much sous-chef assistance has happened prior to what the viewer sees. They also downplay how much true knowledge is at play as the chef chatters away, but knows exactly what the food is doing at each moment.

"Just add some chives" the chef says, grabbing a prep bowl brimming with chopped chives sitting conveniently at hand and sprinkling some over the food sizzling away in the pan. No hint that you at home will be the sous-chef who chops up, measures out, and trims up the ingredients in those fifteen little bowls of this-and-that, which the chef has but to reach for at the correct moment on camera. This can lure new cooks into a kind of fantasyland idea of cooking that is very hard to carry off in a home kitchen by a home cook. Then, when they fail to carry it off, they blame themselves and get discouraged.

That Victorinox knife linked by CAD is really good btw; I sharpened a bunch for different people over the holidays and they hold a nice edge.

i learned on that victorinox, the only reason i don't still use it is that i was gifted a very nice shun chef's knife for my wedding.

Cooking like you’re in a cooking show, with everything measured out in advance into prep bowls, is a lot of fun.

i'd recommend actually doing that most of the time, your recipes will take longer overall but you will actually be able to focus on every step of the process and reduce your overall stress level, especially as you're learning.

The main complaint I have with the average recipe is it sneaks steps into the ingredient list, like “1 onion, diced” or whatever.

when the ingredient is a link you are fucked

That Victorinox knife linked by CAD is really good btw

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

If you're cooking for yourself, plan to waste food. Live with wasting food. Don't, like, try to waste food, but there's only so many days in a row you can eat the same thing and only so many things you can cook where you get strictly one serving out of it.

tbomb

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.

xps rather than the tv prog, the book of "salt fat acid heat" is great and I absolutely *would* recommend it to a beginner as it explains a lot of stuff really well and with bags of enthusiasm.

hard disagree. the book is phenomenal but would be overwhelming for true noobs. charts of how long you should salt each different type of meat or veg for, separating ghee and whey... that shits just too advanced imo and would sow more confusion than it provides insights. maybe after 6 mo or a year

Brown rice is not this hard, unless I'm making terrible rice without realizing it.

Use 2-1 water to rice ratio,

3-1 minimum imo

ha basically came on here to say make sure your knives are sharp and your pan is hot. the rest you'll pick up.
I got my non-serrated knives from ikea, you can buy a knife sharpener there too.
a few chopping boards also useful.

On the "make sure the pan/pot is hot" tip, the best way to test it is to sprinkle water on it. If it sizzles or dances before quickly evaporating, it's hot enough.

I'm Asian so I use a cleaver for pretty much everything.

And for seasoning, salt and pepper go a long way! You don't need to get into turmeric or cumin or whatnot for a meal to taste good (helps too if you get fresh ingredients).

The best thing that ever happened to my cooking was...
...using metric measurements in recipes. Huge opening of recipe floodgates (and Ikea sell a gram/ounce scale that is really helpful).

Scale is good for cooking, amazing for baking.

Treesh if you enjoy following directions carefully you should try baking, which doesn’t get dinner on the table really but it’s enjoyable to crank out cookies

no

baking is the devil u must never go there

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!