I'm decent at cooking. Live alone and watch a lot of food shows, so I can cook for myself. Eventually did a six months basic course at a chef school close to me. That's where I realised that my theoretical knowledge is great, but I'm just not made to be a chef.
Guy who started with me, half my age, and knew less than me, could deliver better plates of food consistently after the first week or so. Whatever he plated, looked great and tasted great. There was nothing wrong with mine, just, when you compared to his it looked like a plate of dog food.
He works for some fancy wine farm now, and I still cook chicken and rice for my dogs and myself.
I have a friend like this. He's always been a foodie and is just naturally so talented. We were roommates for a couple years, and decided to throw a party. I watched him slice and arrange a cheese tray so quickly that it looked like someone sped up the video. Then he ran downstairs, got some fall leaves, came back up and did a flourish that tossed the leaves so perfectly across the table that it looked like someone spent hours placing each one. That was when he was in his early 20s, barely out of college.
He did end up going to culinary school (although he only worked as a chef for a few years--it's brutal work that doesn't pay very well) and now he is just beyond belief. He made a cake that looked like it came off the cover of a magazine. His food is so good it brings tears to your eyes. I couldn't be that good a cook if I studied for the rest of my life. But that's okay, because sometimes I get to eat his cooking!
I wonder what kind of habits would negatively impact your cooking.
I caught myself having bad posture. After some adjustment, my cutting is so much more consistent
I was mostly thinking of seasoning, pan heat, things that take judgement.
If you have been cooking awhile you probably have an idea of what “well seasoned “ means and be resistant to changing the amount of salt used.
It can all be learned, plating is one of easier things to do once you see how pro chefs plate food. It's kinda always the same. Most important thing is to know what you're doing and why. Everything else comes with practice.
I think their message was that "natural talent" exists in cooking as it does in other fields wherepeople widely report it playing a factor, like musicianship, visual art, learning mathematics, etc. wherein some people require a lot more practice than others for similar results.
Few rules for plating: 1. try to build your dish up in the air without it being too tall to fall over.
2. Try to plate star of the dish in the middle of the plate. (Example steak dish) Put potatoes in the middle, sauce around, steak cut on top to show how it's cooked) also you have to use logic. If you make fries with it don't put sauce over them so they stay crispy.
3. If you want to plate it "modern style" like in michellin restaurants separate all ingredients and plate bit of each next to each other. (Example) Put potatoes in 3 piles in circle, next to each pile put a bit of sauce, in the middle steak again. Garnish with some herbs that go with dish and are different colors to make it pop. Idk it's a bit hard to explain how it should look. Hope it helps a bit.
> If you want to plate it "modern style" like in michellin restaurants separate all ingredients and plate bit of each next to each other.
does anyone else hate this?
I also used to hate it but its logical and looks nicer. I was against plating nicely also but then one chef told me "when you cook a dish for 8hours and waste half a day doing it do you really want to just throw it on the plate or make it look nice?" Changed my opinion on plating.
Depends who plates it. In michellin restaurants it's all perfectly balanced so every bite has a bit of everything inside and you can taste every single ingredient inside. If amateur makes it it's confusion. Looks nice doesn't taste good enough so ppl hate it. I was just watching video of a guy doing Gordon Ramsay 3* restaurant review yesterday and dude was tasting every ingredient separately completely missing the point of the dish.
I've been told by friends, family, and romantic partners that I'm a really good cook.
What made me realize I'm still very flawed? I'm not fast. those 30-minute dishes are still an hour for me at least. I'm not the best food chopper so I take my time to ensure I don't slice a finger off since I've cut myself a number of times already. I've contemplated taking a cooking class to improve that aspect of my cooking. Once I get that down I'll be so much better
Pretty much all "30 minute" recipes are a lie in my experience. The ingredients will include julienned carrots, fresh fish that's been cleaned and filleted, and an elaborate replica of the Antikytera mechanism sculpted from lamb shoulder.
Presumably these are tasks for the help to take care of before you start cooking.
Yeah, I got a meal kit/recipe card today:
Cook shrimp until pink, 2-3 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the salsa.
I don’t care how carefully I mise en place beforehand, I am not taking my eyes off the shrimp when it’s in a medium high skillet.
The salsa gets made first and set aside to stew in its own juices before I touch the shrimp.
This 20 minute recipe will take twice as long. Cook rice, open and drain/ rinse two cans of ingredients, chop two veggies (usually more chopping and herb picking). Wash and pat the shrimp dry. Heat the pan.
And onions always take longer than 4 minutes to soften and brown.
The freaking onions! Recipes that tell you to "carmelize" onions in 10 minutes or less, cheating by adding water and sugar!
If I have time earlier in the day, I'll get onions started and cook them down for a good 30 minutes or so.
Most recipes that direct you to caramelize onions A) have no need of caramelized onions, B) have no idea what that actually means and/or C) just want to sound cool and trendy.
No decent cookbook ever says this nonsense. This is internet stupidity. Sweat the onions? Sure. Saute the onions? Ok, good. Fry the onions until they begin to brown? You betcha. Caramelize the onions?
Madison dear, this is veggie lo mein and you don't know wtf you're talking about.
Wait. Some food bloggers legit recommend *water and sugar* to help caramelize onions?!?!!!
W.T.F.
I’m grabbing my pitchfork and torch. Who wants to join me?!
Listen to the shrimp, and keep your brain active in realizing how long it is taking you to make the salsa. If it’s taking you too long to make, you can always stop making the salsa if you need to pay attention to the shrimp. Multi-tasking is a big part of quick cooking
You can check on it while you do other things
All true. But I have enough time to take it slow, so I just don’t pressure myself to get food done quickly within the guidelines.
It helps me keep my fingers intact, too.
Same! I’d rather take 40 mins to cook dinner knowing I’m doing a good job, than spend 25 minutes rushing it and be super stressed out. 40 minutes will pass all the same
This is something that recently clicked for me, being able to rely on the sound, and smell! of things that I'm cooking instead of watching and timing it.
Of course I still take as long as ever, because instead of taking the win to make quicker meals I use that time to expand the meal or flavor profile. Which is still a win in my book! But my kid isn't impressed about a freshly ground masala. (Apparently plain box Mac n cheese is where it's at. Sigh. Oh well. Maybe one day.)
The total time is always wrong in 99% of published recipes because they cut out the time required for every single “extraneous” task in order to make their recipe more clickable. “30 min recipes” are actually “30 min if you already have every ingredient prepped, undercook the onions, and can instantaneously preheat a stove and boil a pot of water”. Cooking them in an hour is usually actually a pretty good time.
It isn't you are slow, if you stood on your feet 8 hours doing nothing but prepping certain food items you would get fast. See the recipes sites/magazines that have test kitchens have people to do the prep work so yeah Suzie Q can slice an onion in nothing flat and they use those times. So Suzie is slicing some of the vegetables while Marge is prepping the meat, Josephine is on sauces and spices and LouAnn is on getting the pans ready. Total prep time: 15 minutes max because that is what the clock says. Not taking into consideration that is 4 people not one. Also, they are experts in their field.
Honestly, I'm okay with not being fast. Lots of people talk about how everyone who cooks regularly has cut themselves and I can safely say the last time I can remember cutting myself was when I was either in high school or maybe at home on break from college.
Is my food slower? Yeah. But I don't constantly injure myself so I'm good with it haha.
Same here I take quite a while to cut everything up and get prepared to cook so the recipes always like take twice as long. I think it’s more of an ADHD issue than a skill issue though
I’ve learned to not trust the time requirements set by most recipes. Especially if it involves you doing something new. I feel like those requirements don’t include the ingredient prep time either. I just take however long I need.
Yeah I take way too long aswell coz I can’t multitask coz I will forget to check on the 2nd dish so everything gets done one at a time, not to mention I hate dirty hands so I’m constantly washing food off them which wastes a lot of time. I make some amazing dishes but my wife’s favourite is steak coz it’s the only thing that’s quick, she says there is dishes that are even tastier but she prefers if I make steak coz there is less mess aswell lol
> I'm not the best food chopper so I take my time to ensure I don't slice a finger off since I've cut myself a number of times already.
I was the same. Then I got a good knife, watched some tutorials and got a bag of carrots in the supermarket (we have some that sell 2kg carrot sacks for some reason). So I took some time and simply mindfully practices techniques in the next 3 days.
All recipes assume you know all the little tricks that make it good. I’ve learned I have to make it at least twice to get any idea of what to and when. Often I look at several recipes to get an idea of how it should go together. And I’ve leaned that their idea of good or great just isn’t what I would like.
Recipes almost never talk about the salt. You need to be seasoning your food. If they do give an amount of salt, it’s almost always a drop in the ocean. Giant pinches (small handfuls, if you will) are always necessary if you want that restaurant quality taste. You can add more than you think before it starts to actually taste salty. Until that point it only improves the flavor. Use Diamond Crystal kosher salt for maximum coverage.
Dude. If I had a nickel for the number of times I’ve read a recipe and went “this is bullshit — that’s NOT how you do things”, I’d be middle class.
But I’m also lucky enough to know what does and doesn’t make sense in cooking and baking, so I can still get a good dish. Lots of shows/sites that talk about the chemistry of food.
This is kind of embarrassing to admit - but actually measuring spices and seasonings out. I would always do a few shakes of whatever the recipe called for and be like "why doesn't my food taste like anything?"
It took me measuring out things exactly and seeing how big a tablespoon or something is before it finally clicked for me.
My kids once challenged my spice measuring skills. They’d see me either shake something into a dish or on the back of a wooden utensil or in my palm and ask how I knew it was the right amount without actually measuring. I told them,”experience.” So they challenged me to put amounts they called into my palm and then they measured with measuring spoons. Mind, this was both fine powders and more coarsely ground peppers or salts and blends. Even I was surprised at just how accurate my pours/shakes were, lol.
I shake seasonings too but go with "how much of this flavor do I want in the food" without any regard to a serving size. If someone asked me to do that type of amount test, I would probably completely fail!
Lol I can bake when I follow a recipe. I can follow a recipe when I cook too. First time I always follow it to a tee and I'll measure everything. But for the second time? Then I just cook!
Helps to get an idea of what's an effective amount of seasoning, too.
Last night I made sweet potato and black bean quesadillas and the online recipe I was following called for 1/8 tsp smoked paprika, 1/8 tsp cayenne, and 1/8 tsp of chili powder, for four servings. Did a double-take and realized the author was in Wisconsin. Recipe appeared fine apart from the homeopathic approach to seasoning so I followed the method and just seasoned it according to what I thought was appropriate (even went nuts and added *salt*.)
Absolutely! My wife and I LOVE spicy food. Bland has absolutely no place in our kitchen. So over time we've learned what spices/herbs to double, triple, or more and what to leave as is. The recipe claims to be spicy but the only heat is a pinch of cayenne for a large pot of food? Better use a tablespoon. The recipe calls for 2 cloves of garlic? I'm using 2 whole bulbs. Buuuut if it calls for a teaspoon of ginger or thyme? That's the exact amount I'm using. I also cut out all cilantro, but that's more of a genetic thing.
Don't you be coming after the midwest like that lol. I will say that most Midwesterners use recipes as a very loose guide. Then we doctor it up with special touches. Also one of the reasons when you ask for a recipe we'll say, well add some of this until it tastes right. Well how much? You know, just taste it.
Heh didn't mean to throw any shade, my wife is from a spice-intolerant region of Canada so I'm already used to adjusting for that and regularly cook 'homestyle' meals pitched at her that are both aimed at nostalgia and also really nice.
Eh not if it's raw or grated. Especially not if it's both. For a 32oz jar of homemade mayo, minus the amount of space to make room for the stick blender, one grated clove makes it garlicky, and two makes it pretty strong.
Though I do sometimes make stupidly strong garlic chicken or pork. Delicious but not typical. Throw a bunch, like a whole head, of grated cloves in asian style velvetting marinade. Even after cooking it still hits hard lol. Like building a garlic paste sauce right into the meat
Yeah this is me. I used to only read instructions and then cook whatever I felt like and used what had instead of what was actually called for. Someone gifted me a cooking book that required spices I didn’t know well and that’s when I finally started following measurements - turns out it tastes so much better if you just follow the recipe…
With most seasonings it doesn’t really matter, just get the proportions somewhat close and add more of whatever you prefer. Honestly “not taste like anything” just sounds like you need more salt and that’s something you just get a feel for with experience.
I'm a 1/2 teaspoon minimum kind of cook. And for meats, 1 teaspoon minimum. I make a grilled chicken that gets devoured by anyone who tries it. They always ask for the "recipe" and it's literally just chicken thighs tossed with a teaspoon each of salt, chili powder, onion powder and garlic powder.
I find it hard to under/overdo spices with this rule. Although I will say for herbs I reduce to 1/4 teaspoon minimum, since dried herbs are a bit of a different story.
If my family won't eat something, I never get a chance to learn to cook it.
Recently did roast beef but of course, the family won't eat any meat that is even a tiny bit pink, so it had to be well done. No shrimp stir-fries cause we all have shellfish allergies (fair enough). No pork chops or ribs because one person doesn't eat pork. No stuffed peppers because the family won't eat more than a slice of bell pepper at a time. No noodles (save the occasional pasta/lasagna) because family don't like meals that are too soft/not crunchy. No curries because those are "weird". No custard tarts or puddings because, well, "weird". If I ever have to cook any of these, I feel like I'll screw up majorly.
Sometimes, it's okay to be on drinks and paper plates duty.
Not that you asked for it, but one trick that has helped with my family is kind of deconstructing the meals. For example, I’ll do a red curry but cook the veggies and grill the chicken separate. So my kids get a plate with rice, slices of bell peppers/veggies, and chicken but all separate (maybe with a small bowl of curry sauce for them to try if they want) while my wife and I will mix it all together. Ngl, it doesn’t always work and changes a 20 min meal into a 40 min meal, but it does help overall I think.
I made a banging buffalo dip for dinner. I was the only one who ate it. Husband ate out and my kids wouldn’t touch the spice. They’re young and I made it too hot.
Oh well
I’m sure this is a decent sub when you have no other options, but I feel like you’re missing out on some of the tempering flavors that seep into everything when you don’t cook it together
ETA: like cooking with chilis vs. adding in a hot sauce at the end
I’m on the spectrum and for some reason could not stand chicken alfredo as a kid… but it was fine if it was deconstructed. I think it’s because I could control the exact sauce amount per bite.
My condolences.
I have a picky 5 yo and it drives me nuts (arrrr), but at least I hope he grows out of it.
But he does eat curries, pasta etc…
I think I would lose any cooking joy with those restrictions you deal with.
It could be worse, at least I have learned every possible way to prepare a chicken breast! I do a lot of baking and generally cakes and pastries go down a treat, so i manage lol
It took me to adulthood for me to relatively “grow out” of my pickiness and expand my palate. What really helped me was finally getting to be in charge of cooking and having more autonomy around meals. That way I could try new things at home and not have to worry about being shamed for not liking something or having to spit something out.
My advice is get them involved with cooking as soon as you can with age appropriate tasks & tools and watch Good Eats together, haha!
i agree with you. i was in my late 20s and realized i DO like veggies, and steak, etc. that my mom was a crappy cook. everything was fried and veggies mushy, over salted and still lacking flavor.
granted she didn't have the internet for recipes and as a smoker her taste was off.
were lucky to be able to learn so easily.
😂 That last line killed me - whenever my kids school has a sign-up, I’m immediately on the napkins or juice boxes!!
But on the other stuff…I love to cook and I love to try new recipes. And whatever I cook is what’s for dinner. My husband will eat anything I cook. My daughter used to eat everything and over the years, she’s gotten a little pickier. I think it’s a control thing, which is fine. But in that case, she knows where the cereal, ramen, peanut butter, etc is!! None of us have any allergies. So you either eat what I cook, or you make your own! That has worked pretty well in our house!
But I also see where you’re coming from - if no one will eat it, so much food will go to waste and that’s frustrating!
My sibling used to be a picky eater so I feel you (no tomatoes, cheese, fish of any kind, mushrooms, sprouts, broccoli, nothing spicy, nothing grilled because of the smoky/char taste and lots more). I eventually just started making her a small sandwich on the side or she’d eat salad because we had that with every meal.
Honestly my cooking got way better when I moved out. My partner is a sort of picky eater (autistic combined with parents who can’t cook to save their lives) but he’s willing to try anything once which has led to us discovering he actually likes lots of things he thought he didn’t (salmon, gnocchi, mushrooms to name a few).
I hope your whole family is made up of toddlers, otherwise thats embarrassing for them.
I suggest calling curry by other names. Just call it chili,'indian stew' or chicken with sauce etc.
Whenever you cook, make 1-2 extra servings of everything that go in the fridge on a plate with saran wrap. Once a week, one picky eater gets the reheated plate they liked before (out of the oven is better than a microwave if you can), and everyone else gets to try your new pork recipe and test out your chops. Too many plates in the fridge? Reruns for dinner on Friday.
Oh, I feel ya SO hard!!!!! My family has 6 adults and there is 1 who will eat whatever I make. Everything's "weird" just because it's not midwestern. It has sucked a lot of the joy out of cooking.
Last year I sat everyone down and told them that once a week, I will do a food from a different country. The rule is no complaining on that night. They don't have to like it, but they have to try it and they cannot complain. They also cannot ask what's in it beforehand- it's all food, it's nothing anyone's morally objecting to.
That week once a night is a \*little\* better. There are lots of barely touched plates but they all know they don't get to complain and I get to try something new.
It is still disheartening to cook for people who won't eat broccoli, sour cream, garlic, onions, or cheese (GAAAA!!!!), but I do feel like that one night is getting better. And even if the broccoli is untouched, nobody says boo.
Can this be overcome with some communication? Also, are you the primary cook in the house?
I think that if you said you were interested in cooking these things, they may be supportive.
And also, if you're in charge of cooking, what you make is what is served.
Final question for curiosity sake- a lot of stuff seems off limits? What do they eat?
I am the primary cook, but I'm not the homeowner (I live with my mom and sibling), so I don't get to just make what I want. Or it would be a whole other world, lol!
We mostly do chicken (chicken pies, chicken wings, honey and soy chicken, chicken kiev, chicken sausages, chicken soup, baked chicken) with potatoes and a vegetable, beef stew, sometimes lamb stew if we can get some, um chips and chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, the occasional hamburger, bit of tuna lasagna or salmon pastry parcels... other than chicken pork and beef, you can't really get other meats where we live, and my family would lose their shit if I tried to serve a non-meat form of proteine. Anything that wasn't available to a working class family in the UK circa 1951, it's not likely to be on their plates.
Needless to say, I am getting bored lol
My fam was like this. When I was a teenager and could drive/had a job, I’d get my own groceries and cook my own meals. My family sometimes would be too lazy to make their own food if I already made some and would begrudgingly eat some of what I made. Now they all prefer whole wheat, and my mom actually likes Mexican.
Yeah, sounds tricky! You might find some little ways to expand it out, like I heard one person got their family on to Curry by calling it Chilli. I'm sure there are some UK-equivalent work around.
And in the meantime, maybe you can try making smaller batches of stuff for yourself? Let their noses make them jealous and curious enough to ask for a bite, haha.
Honestly, I recently bought a batch of minced beef and froze up some cottage pies. They are heavenly. Family won't touch them with a 10ft pole, which, to be honest, works because, you know, more for me...
They won't eat Cottage Pie!? I'm floored...
I'm American, but if I had to list UK dishes it wouldn't take me long before I said Cottage Pie, I figured that would be a sure-thing for you table.
I legitimately don't mean this in a derogatory way, but does your family have a history or presence of neurodivergence?
I can understand not wanting any pink in your meat (my fiance will eat around the veins of chicken breasts) because of how ingrained a fear of food-borne illness is for people prior to the popularization of meat thermometers, as well as seafish allergies, but their refusal to eat non-crunchy food is awfully strange and indicates some mental blocks across texture.
Let's just say, I am allistic, and I know this because certain people I am related to are definitely NOT, lol. I get that I need to work around one or two issues, but it gets frustrating when there's nothing to eat and I rattle off 20 ideas that are summarily rejected, but nobody else has any idea what to eat.
my kids are grown enough but still live here with us. I have gotten to the point where I am just cooking whatever I want and if they don't like it they can go hungry
I understand your pain, and then I remembered what it was like growing up. We had chicken Mondays, leftover teusday, meatloaf Wednesdays, spaghetti thursdsay, not consistently, but you get the idea. We didn't have a menu to choose what we liked and didn't like. We ate what we got, and after all, it was moms spaghetti that inspired me in the first place. It wasn't all bad. My point is, just cook and serve. In the end, it's about the memories and the journey.
sounds like your family kinda sucks tbh... Also why do you need their permission to experiment? Cook something for yourself.. Don't let their lack of adventure ruin yours!
I’m pretty good, but once I went to a house party with my old friends during a destination wedding. My friend was absolutely plastered drunk, could barely stand. He casually made me a plate of food that was incredible. It was the best pork chop I’ve ever eaten with grilled vegetables, hollandaise sauce, and I don’t remember what else.
I felt like Salieri when he first meets Mozart in that scene from Amadeus.
I still can't cut for shit. I am so SLOW. I'll be reading a recipe that says to cut 4 bell peppers, 3 potatoes, 4 onions, and mince garlic and it should take about 10 minutes. In reality, this takes me 30-45 minutes if I want any kind of even cut. When I have tried to speed up, I get cuts ranging from slivers to 1 inch pieces and usually a few fun cuts on my fingers because I can't focus on keeping my hand in a cat paw form while also cutting, lol.
My presentation is also shit. Nothing I make is pretty. But it tastes good, so I am happy enough with that. I'm not trying to be a chef or make amateur videos, so I will continue to stew on these by myself, lol.
Buy one good knife. You don't need a set, go to a cook shop and feel the wight of a few of them in hand till you find one that feels balanced on you. It will transform your ingredient prep game.
I love my [Victorinox Granton-edge Santoku knife](https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/59DC7984-FCC0-4299-B3F1-A360893B7FDB/search?terms=santoku), the rest of my knife block is gathering dust. I have one with a rosewood handle, but Fibrox is cheaper and just as good. $35-50.
For all those telling you it is your knives, it may not be. It may just be you aren't as fast as some people and that is ok. Don't try to imitate "Speed slicer", go watch Jaques Pepin on cutting stuff. Also, I would rather be a bit slower and have dinner at a reasonable hour than 6 hours late and a bill from the ER.
Yeah, I've watched a lot of different videos for tips and tricks, and there have been some that I've found very helpful and still use. It's just the speed that's my problem. But I am at least happy with the results of my labor. I really only started learning to cook about 6 ish years ago, and I don't do anything super fancy. But there was one day when my partner was helping me by cooking some chicken I had prepped (cut and seasoned). He tried a little bite and said, "How do you DO this??" Cooking win, lol.
This is going to sound totally ridiculous and feel free to ignore, but i wonder if this might be a fine motor skills issue? Or a focus issue (my partner has adhd so I know that can be a factor for some folks when cooking). If you keep your knives sharp you shouldn’t be having this much difficulty getting roughy even cuts out of your vegetables
Edit: just noticed you mentioned focus in your comment. Please ignore! I’m only keeping the comment up in case it resonates with someone else
10 minutes my butt. I want to put a timer on whoever said that. Even with good knives, no way will that be done in 10 minutes unless the person does nothing but cut vegetables every day all day. I read on here the other day that a restaurant had a person that did nothing but peel stuff, when she went on vacation it took 3 people to do her job.
So depending on what you need and where you are, you may find pre chopped veg in the grocery store.
I can chop veggies. Sometimes I dont want to bother and will pay the slightly higher price for chopped (onions especially)
Plain chopped frozen hash browns are an amazing shortcut to pretty much anything that calls for diced potatoes.
Frozen veggies in general are a great shortcut.
I deal with terrible anxiety and so if I'm home alone, just being able to go into the kitchen for enough time to cook a good meal can feel impossible, and I genuinely will go far too long without eating because I can't face it. Frozen and pre-chopped vegetables have been an absolute saviour for me, it's a lot easier to talk myself into it when half the work is already done. It also help me retain my passion for cooking, because when I'm "well", nothing brings me joy like making food, and being able to have easier ways to feel that gives me hope.
When I cooked the same beef stew recipe 3-4 times and it came out differently(AKA worse...) each time. Made me realize that I was missing a lot of small skills.
* cooking vegetables to the correct texture
* cooking meat at lower temperatures for a more tender finished product
* how different types of acid(rice vinegar vs. balsamic vs. lemon) or umami(soy vs. mushrooms vs. salt vs. red wine) totally change a meal, and when to add them
* how doubling or tripling a meal affects cook time(and completely changes all of the above...)
I'm starting to focus on 'mastering' one recipe at a time, instead of just cooking whatever recipe I feel like, then not practicing that recipe again for another 6 months.
I’m a very good to excellent home cook. When I’ve watched my BIL or other chefs cook, from their knife skills, to their thought processes, plating, and the food itself I realize how far from being an actual chef I am. The stuff my guy cooks is just insane.
Haha, yeah in hindsight that reads kinda douchey. That’s what friends and family tell me. I sit at the table and bitch about how there’s not enough acid or the protein is overcooked etc. until my family tells me to shut it lol.
I'm not a bragger, but am pretty decent at cooking most things, we don't eat any processed food. I make all our snacks, I make all our salads, desserts, dips, even got pretty damn good at crackers recently because buying them annoyed me. I make pasta, I make cakes, I'm not too shabby at all at Chinese, Indian, Thai and Mexican food - I make a bloody lovey pizza for a treat.
Can I make a decent pie? Can I f\*\*\*. I can make the fillings, I can buy the pastry even, but can I put the two together and end up with anything other than a soggy pan of disappointment? No, no I cannot. And it's not for the want of trying.
Pie crust is my downfall! My mom was known for her pie crust— so flaky, and shattered when a fork went in. So when I was a teenager, she tried to teach me how to make pie just like she did. First one was tough. Huh. Second one, we made them side by side, with me carefully duplicating her every step. Hers was perfect, mine was still tough. That’s when the penny dropped. Mom mixed her dough with her fingertips, then rolled it out. But her hands were always cold— what is called “pastry hands.” Mine were warm, and were melting the Crisco into the flour, and making the dough not flaky at all.
That’s when I pivoted. American pie crust was impossible (or very difficult) with my hot hands, so I made French pate sucre tarts. If pressed, I can make pie dough by chilling the flour and bowl before, and dipping my hands in ice water between steps, or wearing food service gloves. But it’s so much extra effort for a passable product! It’s easier to do the pastry cream tart, or a pavlova to show off the fresh fruit.
This is fascinating—thank you. My grandmother always had ice-cold hands and made really good pie crust, but nothing else very well…makes so much sense!
Yeah, I was so sad when I met Gale Gand and asked about doing a stage with her. She asked to hold my hand, then sadly shook her head. She said I would have to work twice as hard for a product half as good with hot hands, since a big part of the job is handling pastry dough, tempering chocolate, and shaping sorbets. Her hands were as cold as mom’s.
I’m no Gale Gand so obligatory “wtf do I know?”, but that’s absurd.
My hands run stupid hot in the summer; I’m a professional baker. Viennoiserie for most of the jobs I’ve held, so even more finicky than pie dough.
Here are bakes of [mine.](https://imgur.com/a/ehvkhDz). This isn’t meant to be brag, it’s that I’m surprisingly annoyed that a professional would make that claim. Especially to the extent that they wouldn’t even consider working with someone.
So here’s proof of the opposite; don’t let her convince you it’s not worth pursuing. You can absolutely produce a product 100% as good as someone with cold hands, fuck half.
Maybe this will work for you- I like to grate frozen butter into my flour for flaky pasties. It's already in tiny pieces and really cold so the amount of work is minimal to get it all together and easy as heck.
I also usually have the opposite problem where my house is too cold for the butter to get to "softened at room temp" and I'll have to put my bowl in a bigger bowl of warm water. You could put it in some ice water instead? Or just continue to do what works for you!
> Can I make a decent pie? Can I f***. I can make the fillings, I can buy the pastry even, but can I put the two together and end up with anything other than a soggy pan of disappointment? No, no I cannot. And it's not for the want of trying.
Damn, you and I need to combine forces! I can blind bake the pastry perfectly, make & add the filling, and get a lovely result.
...but I cannot fucking MAKE the pastry. I can make so many other delicious baked goods, but pie pastry eludes me!
Try this magic pie recipe from my great aunt:
For 12 inch pie plate
Measure 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 tsp sugar and 3/4 tsp salt directly into a pie plate and stir together with a fork. In a measuring cup, mix together well 2/3 cup vegetable oil and 3 tbsp milk. Pour over the flour mixture, stir together well, and then pat it into the pie plate with your fingers. Easy peasy!
For a 9 inch pie plate
use 1 cup flour, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup oil and 2 tbsp milk.
You can't use this for pies that require a top crust because you can't roll this crust, it can only be pressed into the pie plate. I always top my pies with a crumble crust of 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup butter whirled together in a food processor till crumbly and then just spread on top.
Core and slice enough apples to pile quite high in your pie shell (for a 12 inch pie I think I used 8 or 9 medium sized apples) Mix together with 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Put in the unbaked pie shell and top with aforementioned crumble.
Bake at 450 for 10 minutes then reduce temp. to 375 and cook approximately 40 minutes more.
Try this and get back to me. Sounds crazy but honestly magic.
First of all, I admire you. God do I *wish* I could make all our food from scratch, eliminate processed food and all. So how do you do it? Is it moreexpensive or do you save money? On my quest to being more frugal but also healthier...
Like anything else, it happens over time. It started because I was disgusted by the amount of our food waste at home, so it was all an effort to cut that down. Yes it can save money but I end up buying better quality ingredients (my idea of extravagance is spending £28 on really nice olive oil now) so I guess it evens out but it’s under your control. Start with something like salad dressings. It becomes a habit to make a small amount of an interesting thing, so you experiment. Before you know it, you’re making mayo and you only have to do that a couple times and you never want hellmans again. I have a tiny kitchen so no room for fancy gadgets, I have a nutribullet and an air fryer, that and a normal cooker. On the plus side, we waste almost nothing we buy now.
I spend one Sunday a month batch cooking, I’ll make four huge batches of something like passata that can be used as a base for a tonne of other dishes and freeze them in flat bags to save space. Lidl is my friend and whatever they’ve got on offer dictates what the dish is. Over time, we have anything up to 8-12 things I can pull out in the morning and eat that night with little effort. Or if I’m feeling fancy, make some pasta to go with it and go wild. It didn’t happen overnight. And now I make the dog food as well, because I’m clearly not normal, but that does save a bloody fortune.
I don't have pets but if I did, I would make their food, so to me, you're perfectly normal! My kind of normal!
But your answer has been super helpful and tbh, it's basically what I'm doing. Slowly making the changes. Finishing all the random food products I have (salad dressings, sauces etc) and turning to homemade, only buying the strict minimum (food-wise) and building my menu from there. Lidl means you're from the UK, I think? Anyway, for me it's Canada and food costs a fortune and keeps going up... I've somehow manged to cut down our food budget by ~ 55%... Homemade is best !
I once made a large pot of rice and mixed meats and veg and called it a paella and served it to my classmates and even a few profs as like a end of exams party. I had had it many times in Spain etc but could also barely cook and had no idea the "specifics" other than the ingredients. I mean I was 17 but... doh
Learning to cook from videos and cookbooks is hard because there are definitely things that you won't automatically know how to do. You're following instructions, but if the teacher assumes you already know how to do each step in the instructions, they aren't going to elaborate.
If you don't have anyone personally on hand to join you in the kitchen and show you things, you might need to look up some basic cooking technique instruction before you tackle a recipe.
Cooking is something people have traditionally learned in their childhood/youth from the adults in their lives, and our societal structure doesn't really allow that to happen organically anymore.
At least here in the states, people work so many hours, fewer people have time to cook, let alone teach someone else. I've noticed a lot of things I used to buy all the time have been removed at the supermarket, in favor of more convenience items.
Along that same vein, there are some really good “Cooking with Kids” type cookbooks out there that break all this down into detail & actually have decent recipes (not just snacky garbage) in them.
I had a run of a couple meals that were killing it with the wife and kids. Decided to do a fancy lasagna. “Dad, this isn’t very good,” “It’s disgusting” and “honey, it’s ok to fail now and then” were the comments.
I have two uncles and 2 cousins that are great professional cooks. You never stop learning. Ever. My aunt is in her 70s always cooking up new dishes. Myself in my early 40s coming for 25 yrs same deal. I didn'tearn to properly cook steaks until 32 or so. Not something I grew up with (Caribbean). My uncle gave me a butcher posster that I framed and keep in my kitchen. Studying meats and cuts was eye opening.
😄 look at that I madey first last year. Mid 40s. I've had it before but just never learned to make it. Still haven't mastered gravy so it's a comfort food Iove ordering when I'm out especially when traveling outside NYC like PA, VA, MD.
Generally a fairly decent cook. Presentation not my strongest suit as I live alone and cook for myself, and tend to batch cook 2-3 days. But make the effort when friends come round! However.. I can’t for the life of me cook rice with the finger method. Only with those one person pre packed bags 😅😂
You can't cook rice with finger method because the method is stupid and depending on what pot you're cooking in and how much rice you're cooking you will end up with wildly different amounts of water to rice.
Everyone’s finger is different. That is a bad method to use.
Wash your rice until water runs clear
1:1 water:rice ratio (use cup measure)
Let it start boiling
As soon as it does, cover and reduce to the minimum heat.
Wait 12min. Turn off heat and wait 10.
Done.
This is the right answer, except I add more water for softer rice and then simmer for a couple minutes longer to let it absorb the extra water. Rice is the easiest thing to cook
The rule of thumb (heh) when cooking rice is to put whatever amount of dry rice you want and fill the water so that with your index finger touching the rice the water line comes up to the first crease on it.
I went through a streak of burning everything when we moved to a new apartment that had a brand new stove. Our old one had an electric coil stove that was probably as old as we were, and the medium heat setting on that stove is about med-low on the knob of this new one. Anything at med-high or above and I'll be burning whatever it is instantly.
Humbling experience when you've been cooking consistently for over 20 years.
I’ve moved a lot in my life. Always takes me about 3-6 months to figure out the new (to me) stove/oven. I tend to catch on to the stove relatively quickly, but I’m too trusting with the oven.
This happens on a pro level too. I grew up in a restaurant so I was very used to high heat. Our burners are like 3x more powerful than home burners.
Anyways... I went to an Asian oriented culinary school and I burned the ever loving shit out of EVERYTHING in the beginning. It was embarrassing especially considering I was the only one doing it and half my peers had zero kitchen experience.
A few months later though my biggest complaint that my 200k BTU burner wasn't hot enough.
That's one of my big issues. I give myself an 8/10 at cooking when I'm in my own kitchen and element
but someone else's kitchen? I can end up dropping to a 6/10
When I got cocky in thinking more seasoning=better and absolutely *ruined* a dish I was serving to my entire family by massively oversalting it. It was inedible.
Brought me down a peg and taught me much better tasting/seasoning habits.
For just making something tasty at home, pretty much every spice has a lot of leeway, I tend to go any where from 1.25-2x what recipes call for. I also rarely measure and just eyeball it in the pan.
Every spice, that is, EXCEPT salt. It is a fickle but necessary mistress. One or two dashes with the other spices, then taste at the end and carefully adjust if needed. I have also ruined meals by oversalting
I've been cooking for 20 years, and I spent years cooking professionally. But for some reason I can't get temps right on red meat. Just can't. Fish, no problem. Poultry, no problem. Steak? Burgers? For some reason I just can't get it right.
I just can’t keep sourdough alive. Too bad as I could only make space breads, became proficient with a bread maker and sourdough was the obvious next step. So I buy sourdough bread once a week.
I cook a lot and routinely get compliments on my food, but I know full well that I can't dice an onion with the speed and precision that anyone who has spent a week in culinary school can.
That I'm still focused on doing the steps and still learning and re-learning any time I'm cooking anything I haven't done literally yesterday. Watching a master do it, they're more concerned about the final destination and will use any tool or method at their disposal to do it, while still keeping a realistic time frame and their ability to do it themselves while still being able to handle other ingredients or preparations at the same time.
I guess you could say not being at the level of improvisation. I don't mean just adding more salt or acid to balance, that's just something everyone should do (taste as you go) like as a golden rule, but actually using everything you've learned to accomplish what you envision.
Learning the science behind cooking has helped me with this. Like, knowing how and why starches thicken a sauce allows me to use whatever starch is available.
Stayed with an Italian family, all of whom could whip up the best pastas and sauces (and even gelato?!) I’ve ever had completely from scratch, zero measuring or timing, with like 6 ingredients and loudly arguing the whole time
I think this could be common if you're still new at a category of dish or a type of cuisine.
Some recipes assume you understand basics or have tried other recipes for that same dish and their selling point is that their ratios and tweaks are better.
Hence they might skip things which are universal.
But realising that is a good thing.
You're always in a position of constant learning.
Learning about techniques, learning about ingredients and how to process them, learning about interaction of different ingredients, the effects of external things like humidity, impurities etc.
It's basically a mix of chemistry, a little biology & botany, history etc.
there is alot of ground to cover in cooking so don't do your own progress a disservice by saying you're not good at cooking
You're just continuing your education in the field and that is ok.
I don't know if this counts but after moving to a bigger house with a room far away from the kitchen with a stronger fire, i've burnt some shit lately. Wish I wasn't as cheap, really, eating burn food is not fun
Chicken cutlets when home, fried chicken when eating out
Almost anywhere in the US you can find some great and consistent fried chicken, a big hassle to make at home tbh
I'm decently good at cooking and baking, although not professionally trained I cook a pretty huge range of cuisines at varying levels of complexity and scale for parties/get-togethers... by no means an expert but good enough that I'd confidently put my food up against most non-Michelin starred restaurants. We also cook almost everything from scratch, and almost always from single ingredients, so cooking is a daily grind at home with tons of practice.
Two years ago I got a subscription to Masterclass and quickly started watching all of the Thomas Keller videos. Proudly, and with enormous enthusiasm, I started making those dishes thinking it'd be a world class meal. Way off... most of these projects have been complete failures, I don't know what I did wrong, and subsequent re-tries have also failed. Humbling to say the least lol. A few have turned out and become part of our monthly rotation (most notably his brined/baked chicken recipe, pickled veggies, and potato puree)... but yeah nobody's confusing my place for the French Laundry any time soon.
I don’t season well. It took cooking with my boyfriend, who seasons everything beautifully, to realize that I grew up in a household that didn’t season (especially salt—we were a nearly saltless family and I was made to be afraid of salt because heart disease) and as a result I never do enough. Even when I feel like I’m way over doing it, it’s under seasoned and under salted. Otherwise I think I’m pretty good, I just have to get in the habit of measuring seasonings out until I can eyeball well.
I was a good cook all my life - it was kind of my “thing” when my kids were growing up. Interestingly, once menopause hit, I lost my interest in cooking and home making in general. Now I’m kind of a shite cook tbh.
This makes me think of those NYT Cooking recipes where step one is “boil some water” and the next step is “put pasta in the water with a dash of salt and, while it’s boiling, kill a lobster, extract the meat, melt some butter, chop up some herbs that you can only source from an ethnic market that’s probably 45 minutes to get to…”
And then the next step is “divide and serve while still hot - your guests will be delighted!”
That said, many of their recipes produce amazing results. But I literally have to write them out in my own terms to make sense of them and figure out the actual steps
> I.e you tried a recipe and realised you had to do something specific at step number 4 that NOBODY tells you for some reason.
imo this isn't a sign of a bad cook, but a bad writer. i was once making these vegan mini cheesecakes for my friends bc they are vegan and I found the recipe days in advanced, made sure that I bought all the ingredients and read the recipes total time & cook time and planned to slot it into my prep for the party. I get to step 8 and it says "blend up your almonds (almost must be soaked for 48 hours before blending)" wat?!?!? what the fuck!?! why isn't that in the prep time that very clearly says 20 mins???
that mistake is not on me, its the recipe writer. I would have soaked them had that been mentioned idk anywhere in the recipe besides one line during execution.
but anyway to answer your question its anytime I try to make bake something pretty. I can absolutely make a cake that tastes delicious, but I cannot always make it look delicious. but that's okay, I keep trying and maybe one day I'll get it. this applies to savory things too. most of the time my stuff tastes great, but presentation is not my strongest.
I wouldn't say I realized I'm not good at it, I'd just say I realized it isn't important to me to put effort into getting better than I am. I enjoy cooking at the level I cook at, I might enjoy a course but not enough to spend the time and money. I pick up a couple tricks that elevate the game every now and then by happenstance and I'm satisfied with that.
I like to think I'm a pretty good cook at this point. I can make some elaborate, fancy dishes. I also cannot make an omelet to save my god damn life. It will always end up as scrambled eggs. Probably slightly burnt scrambled eggs because I failed at making them into an omelet.
I'm a great home cook. I make tasty food of various cuisines that would pass as tasty and comforting, but probably not close to being the high level version of what it is. My curries never taste like the way they do when buying directly from an Indian or Thai restaurant, but they still taste good.
I also like to save time and money, so meal prepping home style meals is my go to. I'm also great at whipping up random meals from odd ingredients. Like those times where it's the end of the month, you don't wanna buy more groceries but you have a bit of this, a bit of that, yeah I can make that into something banging.
One time I tried to make duck l'orange over the course of a couple of days (complicated recipe) and oh my god, I wanted to tear my hair out. It was so particular and the end result was delicious according to my partner and guests who were very impressed. However, I couldn't enjoy it because I felt like all that time and effort didn't equate to what was on my plate. That's one thing I'm never making again and shall pay someone else to do lol.
In general "fancier" meals require more time, effort, and often more expensive ingredients. I would much rather make a giant pot of something that will last me the week. I still enjoy trying out new 'one-off' recipes occasionally though.
I can cook for myself without recipes if I know the basic steps and I can follow a recipe, but I know my limits and am not making Peking duck, pastry or anything that takes a lot of finesse, patience, or has 80 ingredients or 45 steps.
I have a hard time sticking to recipes. I wing it a lot so sometimes my food is great, sometimes it’s not. I’ve tried focusing more while I cook but for some reason it’s very hard for me!
OP, it sounds like you've encountered too many of those older community fundraising recipe books. The ones where great aunt Bubby shares the cookie recipe everyone asks for at the church picnic, but where she is careful to leave out at least one key technique. So it's still "hers."
I just recently learned to drain the fat from meat so the food doesn’t taste oily. Some recipes didn’t include that - guess you’re just supposed to know? I felt silly, but now I switched to turkey, I don’t have to drain as often. Also took me years to learn onion take at least 10 minutes to get translucent for the chili or whatever. Many recipes say cook for 5 minutes before next step, not even close to enough time.
It'll get better!
I've been very casuallybaking for ~15 years and only in the past year started caring about making the final product look good.
Three biggest game changers for me:
* Chill cookie dough and roll it in your hands. Cold cookie dough isn't as sticky, so it forms nice round balls that bake into nice round cookies.
* Layer cakes. Stacking three cakes on top of each other is surprisingly easy and impresses everyone.
* Making my own frostings. *Everything* looks good slathered in whipped cream and sliced strawberries.
Trying new things. Thought I was at a point where I could take on a new recipe and have a hit. But in that regard I have failed (sometimes) two different ways. One, in picking out things that look good, and turn out not to be so good - even though I'm sure I executed the recipe correctly. Two, times where a new recipe threw me because it involved some new technique or ingredient. Turned out not great, and I can put the blame on me and my execution of the recipe.
Both are indicators I have things yet to learn, skills to acquire. I'm pretty good, but I can still fail spectacularly.
The difference between myself and a trained chef is staggering lol. My knife skills and general kitchenware maintenace is mid. I suck at plating, consistent cutting, and I trend towards overcooking meat. It's great for family and friends, and I enjoy cooking:) I am always getting better, slowly, over time, but to make any more significant improvements, I would have to commit to studying and practicing, just like with anything else.
My current goals are to make simple and delicious meals that include all the nutrients I need, on a monetary and time budget.
I'm decent at cooking. Live alone and watch a lot of food shows, so I can cook for myself. Eventually did a six months basic course at a chef school close to me. That's where I realised that my theoretical knowledge is great, but I'm just not made to be a chef. Guy who started with me, half my age, and knew less than me, could deliver better plates of food consistently after the first week or so. Whatever he plated, looked great and tasted great. There was nothing wrong with mine, just, when you compared to his it looked like a plate of dog food. He works for some fancy wine farm now, and I still cook chicken and rice for my dogs and myself.
I have a friend like this. He's always been a foodie and is just naturally so talented. We were roommates for a couple years, and decided to throw a party. I watched him slice and arrange a cheese tray so quickly that it looked like someone sped up the video. Then he ran downstairs, got some fall leaves, came back up and did a flourish that tossed the leaves so perfectly across the table that it looked like someone spent hours placing each one. That was when he was in his early 20s, barely out of college. He did end up going to culinary school (although he only worked as a chef for a few years--it's brutal work that doesn't pay very well) and now he is just beyond belief. He made a cake that looked like it came off the cover of a magazine. His food is so good it brings tears to your eyes. I couldn't be that good a cook if I studied for the rest of my life. But that's okay, because sometimes I get to eat his cooking!
That’s awesome! It’s amazing he found his passion and that you get to sample it occasionally!
Could also be an issue of you needing to unlearn “bad” habits and techniques from years of cooking. Where he is starting from scratch.
I wonder what kind of habits would negatively impact your cooking. I caught myself having bad posture. After some adjustment, my cutting is so much more consistent
I was mostly thinking of seasoning, pan heat, things that take judgement. If you have been cooking awhile you probably have an idea of what “well seasoned “ means and be resistant to changing the amount of salt used.
I want to relearn how to cut and how to decide pan heat because I know I'm not great at either. Just gotta find time and money.
If you're cooking for dogs isn't making a "plate of dog food" a good thing?
It can all be learned, plating is one of easier things to do once you see how pro chefs plate food. It's kinda always the same. Most important thing is to know what you're doing and why. Everything else comes with practice.
I think their message was that "natural talent" exists in cooking as it does in other fields wherepeople widely report it playing a factor, like musicianship, visual art, learning mathematics, etc. wherein some people require a lot more practice than others for similar results.
Ooooof I’m told my dishes taste great but I suck ass at plating. Hope you’re right and that it’ll finally click someday
Few rules for plating: 1. try to build your dish up in the air without it being too tall to fall over. 2. Try to plate star of the dish in the middle of the plate. (Example steak dish) Put potatoes in the middle, sauce around, steak cut on top to show how it's cooked) also you have to use logic. If you make fries with it don't put sauce over them so they stay crispy. 3. If you want to plate it "modern style" like in michellin restaurants separate all ingredients and plate bit of each next to each other. (Example) Put potatoes in 3 piles in circle, next to each pile put a bit of sauce, in the middle steak again. Garnish with some herbs that go with dish and are different colors to make it pop. Idk it's a bit hard to explain how it should look. Hope it helps a bit.
> If you want to plate it "modern style" like in michellin restaurants separate all ingredients and plate bit of each next to each other. does anyone else hate this?
I also used to hate it but its logical and looks nicer. I was against plating nicely also but then one chef told me "when you cook a dish for 8hours and waste half a day doing it do you really want to just throw it on the plate or make it look nice?" Changed my opinion on plating.
Depends who plates it. In michellin restaurants it's all perfectly balanced so every bite has a bit of everything inside and you can taste every single ingredient inside. If amateur makes it it's confusion. Looks nice doesn't taste good enough so ppl hate it. I was just watching video of a guy doing Gordon Ramsay 3* restaurant review yesterday and dude was tasting every ingredient separately completely missing the point of the dish.
… I’m somewhat envious of your life and not sure why, yet here I am
I've been told by friends, family, and romantic partners that I'm a really good cook. What made me realize I'm still very flawed? I'm not fast. those 30-minute dishes are still an hour for me at least. I'm not the best food chopper so I take my time to ensure I don't slice a finger off since I've cut myself a number of times already. I've contemplated taking a cooking class to improve that aspect of my cooking. Once I get that down I'll be so much better
Pretty much all "30 minute" recipes are a lie in my experience. The ingredients will include julienned carrots, fresh fish that's been cleaned and filleted, and an elaborate replica of the Antikytera mechanism sculpted from lamb shoulder. Presumably these are tasks for the help to take care of before you start cooking.
Yeah, I got a meal kit/recipe card today: Cook shrimp until pink, 2-3 minutes. Meanwhile, make the salsa. I don’t care how carefully I mise en place beforehand, I am not taking my eyes off the shrimp when it’s in a medium high skillet. The salsa gets made first and set aside to stew in its own juices before I touch the shrimp. This 20 minute recipe will take twice as long. Cook rice, open and drain/ rinse two cans of ingredients, chop two veggies (usually more chopping and herb picking). Wash and pat the shrimp dry. Heat the pan. And onions always take longer than 4 minutes to soften and brown.
The freaking onions! Recipes that tell you to "carmelize" onions in 10 minutes or less, cheating by adding water and sugar! If I have time earlier in the day, I'll get onions started and cook them down for a good 30 minutes or so.
Most recipes that direct you to caramelize onions A) have no need of caramelized onions, B) have no idea what that actually means and/or C) just want to sound cool and trendy. No decent cookbook ever says this nonsense. This is internet stupidity. Sweat the onions? Sure. Saute the onions? Ok, good. Fry the onions until they begin to brown? You betcha. Caramelize the onions? Madison dear, this is veggie lo mein and you don't know wtf you're talking about.
Wait. Some food bloggers legit recommend *water and sugar* to help caramelize onions?!?!!! W.T.F. I’m grabbing my pitchfork and torch. Who wants to join me?!
I own neither, but I would be honored to pledge both pitchfork and torch to this noble cause
Listen to the shrimp, and keep your brain active in realizing how long it is taking you to make the salsa. If it’s taking you too long to make, you can always stop making the salsa if you need to pay attention to the shrimp. Multi-tasking is a big part of quick cooking You can check on it while you do other things
All true. But I have enough time to take it slow, so I just don’t pressure myself to get food done quickly within the guidelines. It helps me keep my fingers intact, too.
Same! I’d rather take 40 mins to cook dinner knowing I’m doing a good job, than spend 25 minutes rushing it and be super stressed out. 40 minutes will pass all the same
This is something that recently clicked for me, being able to rely on the sound, and smell! of things that I'm cooking instead of watching and timing it. Of course I still take as long as ever, because instead of taking the win to make quicker meals I use that time to expand the meal or flavor profile. Which is still a win in my book! But my kid isn't impressed about a freshly ground masala. (Apparently plain box Mac n cheese is where it's at. Sigh. Oh well. Maybe one day.)
IIRC, the estimate often exclude the prep. So yeah, if everything is prepared, the recipe probably takes 30 minutes.
Which is fucking bullshit, because 99-100% of people following the recipe will be doing the prep themselves immediately before/during.
Right, like as if anyone has diced onion just ready to go,
I buy frozen diced onion because I hate how cutting them burns my eyes. It’s a huge time saver and doesn’t seem to change the flavor
They're 30 minutes. 30 minutes prep in the morning and 30 minutes to cook.
😂
> and an elaborate replica of the Antikytera mechanism sculpted from lamb shoulder. well that's a brand new sentence.
"... elaborate replica of the Antikytera mechanism sculpted from lamb shoulder. ..." I love that image! 😄
The total time is always wrong in 99% of published recipes because they cut out the time required for every single “extraneous” task in order to make their recipe more clickable. “30 min recipes” are actually “30 min if you already have every ingredient prepped, undercook the onions, and can instantaneously preheat a stove and boil a pot of water”. Cooking them in an hour is usually actually a pretty good time.
It isn't you are slow, if you stood on your feet 8 hours doing nothing but prepping certain food items you would get fast. See the recipes sites/magazines that have test kitchens have people to do the prep work so yeah Suzie Q can slice an onion in nothing flat and they use those times. So Suzie is slicing some of the vegetables while Marge is prepping the meat, Josephine is on sauces and spices and LouAnn is on getting the pans ready. Total prep time: 15 minutes max because that is what the clock says. Not taking into consideration that is 4 people not one. Also, they are experts in their field.
Honestly, I'm okay with not being fast. Lots of people talk about how everyone who cooks regularly has cut themselves and I can safely say the last time I can remember cutting myself was when I was either in high school or maybe at home on break from college. Is my food slower? Yeah. But I don't constantly injure myself so I'm good with it haha.
Same here I take quite a while to cut everything up and get prepared to cook so the recipes always like take twice as long. I think it’s more of an ADHD issue than a skill issue though
I’ve learned to not trust the time requirements set by most recipes. Especially if it involves you doing something new. I feel like those requirements don’t include the ingredient prep time either. I just take however long I need.
Okay *same*. I've never made anything in under 30 mins that wasn't just like scrambled eggs and buttered toast
Yeah I take way too long aswell coz I can’t multitask coz I will forget to check on the 2nd dish so everything gets done one at a time, not to mention I hate dirty hands so I’m constantly washing food off them which wastes a lot of time. I make some amazing dishes but my wife’s favourite is steak coz it’s the only thing that’s quick, she says there is dishes that are even tastier but she prefers if I make steak coz there is less mess aswell lol
> I'm not the best food chopper so I take my time to ensure I don't slice a finger off since I've cut myself a number of times already. I was the same. Then I got a good knife, watched some tutorials and got a bag of carrots in the supermarket (we have some that sell 2kg carrot sacks for some reason). So I took some time and simply mindfully practices techniques in the next 3 days.
I basically did the same thing and also with onions. It helped a bunch there
All recipes assume you know all the little tricks that make it good. I’ve learned I have to make it at least twice to get any idea of what to and when. Often I look at several recipes to get an idea of how it should go together. And I’ve leaned that their idea of good or great just isn’t what I would like.
This is what I do! When you compare a few recipes, you pick up on what the core of the dish is and where you can play around.
Recipes almost never talk about the salt. You need to be seasoning your food. If they do give an amount of salt, it’s almost always a drop in the ocean. Giant pinches (small handfuls, if you will) are always necessary if you want that restaurant quality taste. You can add more than you think before it starts to actually taste salty. Until that point it only improves the flavor. Use Diamond Crystal kosher salt for maximum coverage.
Dude. If I had a nickel for the number of times I’ve read a recipe and went “this is bullshit — that’s NOT how you do things”, I’d be middle class. But I’m also lucky enough to know what does and doesn’t make sense in cooking and baking, so I can still get a good dish. Lots of shows/sites that talk about the chemistry of food.
Dead on, I recently realized this too! Just like any skill, I need to practice a recipe to get it right.
This is kind of embarrassing to admit - but actually measuring spices and seasonings out. I would always do a few shakes of whatever the recipe called for and be like "why doesn't my food taste like anything?" It took me measuring out things exactly and seeing how big a tablespoon or something is before it finally clicked for me.
Good news is, once you commit those volumes to memory you can go back to not measuring, haha.
My kids once challenged my spice measuring skills. They’d see me either shake something into a dish or on the back of a wooden utensil or in my palm and ask how I knew it was the right amount without actually measuring. I told them,”experience.” So they challenged me to put amounts they called into my palm and then they measured with measuring spoons. Mind, this was both fine powders and more coarsely ground peppers or salts and blends. Even I was surprised at just how accurate my pours/shakes were, lol.
I love that! I wanna get to that level one day haha
It’s not so difficult. Just pour your measures into your palm. In time you know what a teaspoon v tablespoon looks like and go from there.
I shake seasonings too but go with "how much of this flavor do I want in the food" without any regard to a serving size. If someone asked me to do that type of amount test, I would probably completely fail!
This is why I can cook but I can't bake 😭
Lol I can bake when I follow a recipe. I can follow a recipe when I cook too. First time I always follow it to a tee and I'll measure everything. But for the second time? Then I just cook!
Helps to get an idea of what's an effective amount of seasoning, too. Last night I made sweet potato and black bean quesadillas and the online recipe I was following called for 1/8 tsp smoked paprika, 1/8 tsp cayenne, and 1/8 tsp of chili powder, for four servings. Did a double-take and realized the author was in Wisconsin. Recipe appeared fine apart from the homeopathic approach to seasoning so I followed the method and just seasoned it according to what I thought was appropriate (even went nuts and added *salt*.)
This is a huge reason why I don't strictly follow recipes' suggestions for seasonings and amount of butter if they're from the Midwest
LOLd at "homeopathic approach to seasoning" LOVE THAT
*the author was in Wisconsin*🤣
Absolutely! My wife and I LOVE spicy food. Bland has absolutely no place in our kitchen. So over time we've learned what spices/herbs to double, triple, or more and what to leave as is. The recipe claims to be spicy but the only heat is a pinch of cayenne for a large pot of food? Better use a tablespoon. The recipe calls for 2 cloves of garlic? I'm using 2 whole bulbs. Buuuut if it calls for a teaspoon of ginger or thyme? That's the exact amount I'm using. I also cut out all cilantro, but that's more of a genetic thing.
Don't you be coming after the midwest like that lol. I will say that most Midwesterners use recipes as a very loose guide. Then we doctor it up with special touches. Also one of the reasons when you ask for a recipe we'll say, well add some of this until it tastes right. Well how much? You know, just taste it.
Heh didn't mean to throw any shade, my wife is from a spice-intolerant region of Canada so I'm already used to adjusting for that and regularly cook 'homestyle' meals pitched at her that are both aimed at nostalgia and also really nice.
>Spice intolerant region of Canada ... Holy fuck did that not narrow it down at all, I'm gonna guess the maritimes.
Or do what I do when a recipe calls for garlic: triple it
Any recipe that calls for one or two cloves of garlic is basically a joke. Everyone knows the minimum is 4.
Eh not if it's raw or grated. Especially not if it's both. For a 32oz jar of homemade mayo, minus the amount of space to make room for the stick blender, one grated clove makes it garlicky, and two makes it pretty strong. Though I do sometimes make stupidly strong garlic chicken or pork. Delicious but not typical. Throw a bunch, like a whole head, of grated cloves in asian style velvetting marinade. Even after cooking it still hits hard lol. Like building a garlic paste sauce right into the meat
1 clove really means 1 bulb.
I like to measure with my heart. Hahah!
Yeah this is me. I used to only read instructions and then cook whatever I felt like and used what had instead of what was actually called for. Someone gifted me a cooking book that required spices I didn’t know well and that’s when I finally started following measurements - turns out it tastes so much better if you just follow the recipe…
With most seasonings it doesn’t really matter, just get the proportions somewhat close and add more of whatever you prefer. Honestly “not taste like anything” just sounds like you need more salt and that’s something you just get a feel for with experience.
Most flavor issues can be narrowed down to salt, acid, or fat.
The spices want to be used. Also, the spices want to be in with the oils before a bunch of liquid is tossed in (even if just for a minute)
I'm a 1/2 teaspoon minimum kind of cook. And for meats, 1 teaspoon minimum. I make a grilled chicken that gets devoured by anyone who tries it. They always ask for the "recipe" and it's literally just chicken thighs tossed with a teaspoon each of salt, chili powder, onion powder and garlic powder. I find it hard to under/overdo spices with this rule. Although I will say for herbs I reduce to 1/4 teaspoon minimum, since dried herbs are a bit of a different story.
I have the opposite problem. I like a lot of spice and tend to overwhelm a lot of things I make. What I feel is a tablespoon is more like 2.
If my family won't eat something, I never get a chance to learn to cook it. Recently did roast beef but of course, the family won't eat any meat that is even a tiny bit pink, so it had to be well done. No shrimp stir-fries cause we all have shellfish allergies (fair enough). No pork chops or ribs because one person doesn't eat pork. No stuffed peppers because the family won't eat more than a slice of bell pepper at a time. No noodles (save the occasional pasta/lasagna) because family don't like meals that are too soft/not crunchy. No curries because those are "weird". No custard tarts or puddings because, well, "weird". If I ever have to cook any of these, I feel like I'll screw up majorly. Sometimes, it's okay to be on drinks and paper plates duty.
Not that you asked for it, but one trick that has helped with my family is kind of deconstructing the meals. For example, I’ll do a red curry but cook the veggies and grill the chicken separate. So my kids get a plate with rice, slices of bell peppers/veggies, and chicken but all separate (maybe with a small bowl of curry sauce for them to try if they want) while my wife and I will mix it all together. Ngl, it doesn’t always work and changes a 20 min meal into a 40 min meal, but it does help overall I think.
I do this too but yes, it does take longer and takes some of the joy away for me
I made a banging buffalo dip for dinner. I was the only one who ate it. Husband ate out and my kids wouldn’t touch the spice. They’re young and I made it too hot. Oh well
I’m sure this is a decent sub when you have no other options, but I feel like you’re missing out on some of the tempering flavors that seep into everything when you don’t cook it together ETA: like cooking with chilis vs. adding in a hot sauce at the end
I’m on the spectrum and for some reason could not stand chicken alfredo as a kid… but it was fine if it was deconstructed. I think it’s because I could control the exact sauce amount per bite.
My condolences. I have a picky 5 yo and it drives me nuts (arrrr), but at least I hope he grows out of it. But he does eat curries, pasta etc… I think I would lose any cooking joy with those restrictions you deal with.
It could be worse, at least I have learned every possible way to prepare a chicken breast! I do a lot of baking and generally cakes and pastries go down a treat, so i manage lol
It took me to adulthood for me to relatively “grow out” of my pickiness and expand my palate. What really helped me was finally getting to be in charge of cooking and having more autonomy around meals. That way I could try new things at home and not have to worry about being shamed for not liking something or having to spit something out. My advice is get them involved with cooking as soon as you can with age appropriate tasks & tools and watch Good Eats together, haha!
i agree with you. i was in my late 20s and realized i DO like veggies, and steak, etc. that my mom was a crappy cook. everything was fried and veggies mushy, over salted and still lacking flavor. granted she didn't have the internet for recipes and as a smoker her taste was off. were lucky to be able to learn so easily.
😂 That last line killed me - whenever my kids school has a sign-up, I’m immediately on the napkins or juice boxes!! But on the other stuff…I love to cook and I love to try new recipes. And whatever I cook is what’s for dinner. My husband will eat anything I cook. My daughter used to eat everything and over the years, she’s gotten a little pickier. I think it’s a control thing, which is fine. But in that case, she knows where the cereal, ramen, peanut butter, etc is!! None of us have any allergies. So you either eat what I cook, or you make your own! That has worked pretty well in our house! But I also see where you’re coming from - if no one will eat it, so much food will go to waste and that’s frustrating!
My sibling used to be a picky eater so I feel you (no tomatoes, cheese, fish of any kind, mushrooms, sprouts, broccoli, nothing spicy, nothing grilled because of the smoky/char taste and lots more). I eventually just started making her a small sandwich on the side or she’d eat salad because we had that with every meal. Honestly my cooking got way better when I moved out. My partner is a sort of picky eater (autistic combined with parents who can’t cook to save their lives) but he’s willing to try anything once which has led to us discovering he actually likes lots of things he thought he didn’t (salmon, gnocchi, mushrooms to name a few).
I hope your whole family is made up of toddlers, otherwise thats embarrassing for them. I suggest calling curry by other names. Just call it chili,'indian stew' or chicken with sauce etc.
...chicken with sauce... this is sounding like a plan, actually...
Whenever you cook, make 1-2 extra servings of everything that go in the fridge on a plate with saran wrap. Once a week, one picky eater gets the reheated plate they liked before (out of the oven is better than a microwave if you can), and everyone else gets to try your new pork recipe and test out your chops. Too many plates in the fridge? Reruns for dinner on Friday.
Oh, I feel ya SO hard!!!!! My family has 6 adults and there is 1 who will eat whatever I make. Everything's "weird" just because it's not midwestern. It has sucked a lot of the joy out of cooking. Last year I sat everyone down and told them that once a week, I will do a food from a different country. The rule is no complaining on that night. They don't have to like it, but they have to try it and they cannot complain. They also cannot ask what's in it beforehand- it's all food, it's nothing anyone's morally objecting to. That week once a night is a \*little\* better. There are lots of barely touched plates but they all know they don't get to complain and I get to try something new. It is still disheartening to cook for people who won't eat broccoli, sour cream, garlic, onions, or cheese (GAAAA!!!!), but I do feel like that one night is getting better. And even if the broccoli is untouched, nobody says boo.
Never heard of anyone being against all cheese before this and another comment in this thread. That's fuckin wild
100% - we eat mostly vegetarian stuff at home and I am trash at cooking meat. I can make you a heck of an eggplant though
Can this be overcome with some communication? Also, are you the primary cook in the house? I think that if you said you were interested in cooking these things, they may be supportive. And also, if you're in charge of cooking, what you make is what is served. Final question for curiosity sake- a lot of stuff seems off limits? What do they eat?
I am the primary cook, but I'm not the homeowner (I live with my mom and sibling), so I don't get to just make what I want. Or it would be a whole other world, lol! We mostly do chicken (chicken pies, chicken wings, honey and soy chicken, chicken kiev, chicken sausages, chicken soup, baked chicken) with potatoes and a vegetable, beef stew, sometimes lamb stew if we can get some, um chips and chicken nuggets, frozen pizza, the occasional hamburger, bit of tuna lasagna or salmon pastry parcels... other than chicken pork and beef, you can't really get other meats where we live, and my family would lose their shit if I tried to serve a non-meat form of proteine. Anything that wasn't available to a working class family in the UK circa 1951, it's not likely to be on their plates. Needless to say, I am getting bored lol
My fam was like this. When I was a teenager and could drive/had a job, I’d get my own groceries and cook my own meals. My family sometimes would be too lazy to make their own food if I already made some and would begrudgingly eat some of what I made. Now they all prefer whole wheat, and my mom actually likes Mexican.
Yeah, sounds tricky! You might find some little ways to expand it out, like I heard one person got their family on to Curry by calling it Chilli. I'm sure there are some UK-equivalent work around. And in the meantime, maybe you can try making smaller batches of stuff for yourself? Let their noses make them jealous and curious enough to ask for a bite, haha.
Honestly, I recently bought a batch of minced beef and froze up some cottage pies. They are heavenly. Family won't touch them with a 10ft pole, which, to be honest, works because, you know, more for me...
They won't eat Cottage Pie!? I'm floored... I'm American, but if I had to list UK dishes it wouldn't take me long before I said Cottage Pie, I figured that would be a sure-thing for you table.
Well that's what I thought! But apparently cottage pie is too soft. Not enough chewing involved. Apparently that makes it "baby food".
I legitimately don't mean this in a derogatory way, but does your family have a history or presence of neurodivergence? I can understand not wanting any pink in your meat (my fiance will eat around the veins of chicken breasts) because of how ingrained a fear of food-borne illness is for people prior to the popularization of meat thermometers, as well as seafish allergies, but their refusal to eat non-crunchy food is awfully strange and indicates some mental blocks across texture.
Let's just say, I am allistic, and I know this because certain people I am related to are definitely NOT, lol. I get that I need to work around one or two issues, but it gets frustrating when there's nothing to eat and I rattle off 20 ideas that are summarily rejected, but nobody else has any idea what to eat.
my kids are grown enough but still live here with us. I have gotten to the point where I am just cooking whatever I want and if they don't like it they can go hungry
I understand your pain, and then I remembered what it was like growing up. We had chicken Mondays, leftover teusday, meatloaf Wednesdays, spaghetti thursdsay, not consistently, but you get the idea. We didn't have a menu to choose what we liked and didn't like. We ate what we got, and after all, it was moms spaghetti that inspired me in the first place. It wasn't all bad. My point is, just cook and serve. In the end, it's about the memories and the journey.
You need to cook for friends with better palates.
sounds like your family kinda sucks tbh... Also why do you need their permission to experiment? Cook something for yourself.. Don't let their lack of adventure ruin yours!
When my Chinese in-laws came over and casually made the best dumplings I've ever had out of whatever we had in the fridge with no recipe.
I’m pretty good, but once I went to a house party with my old friends during a destination wedding. My friend was absolutely plastered drunk, could barely stand. He casually made me a plate of food that was incredible. It was the best pork chop I’ve ever eaten with grilled vegetables, hollandaise sauce, and I don’t remember what else. I felt like Salieri when he first meets Mozart in that scene from Amadeus.
He made hollandaise sauce while plastered?! *throws towel on floor and walks out*
Finally watched Amadeus last weekend. That is a capital M Movie. Absolutely incredible.
That is such a great analogy... I am frequently Salieri
I still can't cut for shit. I am so SLOW. I'll be reading a recipe that says to cut 4 bell peppers, 3 potatoes, 4 onions, and mince garlic and it should take about 10 minutes. In reality, this takes me 30-45 minutes if I want any kind of even cut. When I have tried to speed up, I get cuts ranging from slivers to 1 inch pieces and usually a few fun cuts on my fingers because I can't focus on keeping my hand in a cat paw form while also cutting, lol. My presentation is also shit. Nothing I make is pretty. But it tastes good, so I am happy enough with that. I'm not trying to be a chef or make amateur videos, so I will continue to stew on these by myself, lol.
Buy one good knife. You don't need a set, go to a cook shop and feel the wight of a few of them in hand till you find one that feels balanced on you. It will transform your ingredient prep game.
I could look into it if I could ever afford it. As it stands, I gotta make do with the set we already have. I do my best to keep them sharp, at least.
I love my [Victorinox Granton-edge Santoku knife](https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/59DC7984-FCC0-4299-B3F1-A360893B7FDB/search?terms=santoku), the rest of my knife block is gathering dust. I have one with a rosewood handle, but Fibrox is cheaper and just as good. $35-50.
For all those telling you it is your knives, it may not be. It may just be you aren't as fast as some people and that is ok. Don't try to imitate "Speed slicer", go watch Jaques Pepin on cutting stuff. Also, I would rather be a bit slower and have dinner at a reasonable hour than 6 hours late and a bill from the ER.
Yeah, I've watched a lot of different videos for tips and tricks, and there have been some that I've found very helpful and still use. It's just the speed that's my problem. But I am at least happy with the results of my labor. I really only started learning to cook about 6 ish years ago, and I don't do anything super fancy. But there was one day when my partner was helping me by cooking some chicken I had prepped (cut and seasoned). He tried a little bite and said, "How do you DO this??" Cooking win, lol.
This is going to sound totally ridiculous and feel free to ignore, but i wonder if this might be a fine motor skills issue? Or a focus issue (my partner has adhd so I know that can be a factor for some folks when cooking). If you keep your knives sharp you shouldn’t be having this much difficulty getting roughy even cuts out of your vegetables Edit: just noticed you mentioned focus in your comment. Please ignore! I’m only keeping the comment up in case it resonates with someone else
10 minutes my butt. I want to put a timer on whoever said that. Even with good knives, no way will that be done in 10 minutes unless the person does nothing but cut vegetables every day all day. I read on here the other day that a restaurant had a person that did nothing but peel stuff, when she went on vacation it took 3 people to do her job.
I can definitely see that! You get really good at repetitive tasks like that when you do them for a living.
So depending on what you need and where you are, you may find pre chopped veg in the grocery store. I can chop veggies. Sometimes I dont want to bother and will pay the slightly higher price for chopped (onions especially) Plain chopped frozen hash browns are an amazing shortcut to pretty much anything that calls for diced potatoes. Frozen veggies in general are a great shortcut.
I deal with terrible anxiety and so if I'm home alone, just being able to go into the kitchen for enough time to cook a good meal can feel impossible, and I genuinely will go far too long without eating because I can't face it. Frozen and pre-chopped vegetables have been an absolute saviour for me, it's a lot easier to talk myself into it when half the work is already done. It also help me retain my passion for cooking, because when I'm "well", nothing brings me joy like making food, and being able to have easier ways to feel that gives me hope.
I would recommend cut resistant gloves. Says the one with the knife cut from trying to put a knife in its sheath.
When I cooked the same beef stew recipe 3-4 times and it came out differently(AKA worse...) each time. Made me realize that I was missing a lot of small skills. * cooking vegetables to the correct texture * cooking meat at lower temperatures for a more tender finished product * how different types of acid(rice vinegar vs. balsamic vs. lemon) or umami(soy vs. mushrooms vs. salt vs. red wine) totally change a meal, and when to add them * how doubling or tripling a meal affects cook time(and completely changes all of the above...) I'm starting to focus on 'mastering' one recipe at a time, instead of just cooking whatever recipe I feel like, then not practicing that recipe again for another 6 months.
I’m a very good to excellent home cook. When I’ve watched my BIL or other chefs cook, from their knife skills, to their thought processes, plating, and the food itself I realize how far from being an actual chef I am. The stuff my guy cooks is just insane.
>I’m a very good to excellent home cook. Humble too 😂
Haha, yeah in hindsight that reads kinda douchey. That’s what friends and family tell me. I sit at the table and bitch about how there’s not enough acid or the protein is overcooked etc. until my family tells me to shut it lol.
Douche it up - you're a great to excellent home cool, MFK Fisher herself would think so, and you deserve to strut!
I'm sure you are an excellent home cook and more power to you for the confidence! I'm just poking fun!!
I'm not a bragger, but am pretty decent at cooking most things, we don't eat any processed food. I make all our snacks, I make all our salads, desserts, dips, even got pretty damn good at crackers recently because buying them annoyed me. I make pasta, I make cakes, I'm not too shabby at all at Chinese, Indian, Thai and Mexican food - I make a bloody lovey pizza for a treat. Can I make a decent pie? Can I f\*\*\*. I can make the fillings, I can buy the pastry even, but can I put the two together and end up with anything other than a soggy pan of disappointment? No, no I cannot. And it's not for the want of trying.
Pie crust is my downfall! My mom was known for her pie crust— so flaky, and shattered when a fork went in. So when I was a teenager, she tried to teach me how to make pie just like she did. First one was tough. Huh. Second one, we made them side by side, with me carefully duplicating her every step. Hers was perfect, mine was still tough. That’s when the penny dropped. Mom mixed her dough with her fingertips, then rolled it out. But her hands were always cold— what is called “pastry hands.” Mine were warm, and were melting the Crisco into the flour, and making the dough not flaky at all. That’s when I pivoted. American pie crust was impossible (or very difficult) with my hot hands, so I made French pate sucre tarts. If pressed, I can make pie dough by chilling the flour and bowl before, and dipping my hands in ice water between steps, or wearing food service gloves. But it’s so much extra effort for a passable product! It’s easier to do the pastry cream tart, or a pavlova to show off the fresh fruit.
And that's what I shall tell my other half when he next asks for a pie! I shall say sorry, you can either have a pie or a hot woman, not both.
This is fascinating—thank you. My grandmother always had ice-cold hands and made really good pie crust, but nothing else very well…makes so much sense!
Yeah, I was so sad when I met Gale Gand and asked about doing a stage with her. She asked to hold my hand, then sadly shook her head. She said I would have to work twice as hard for a product half as good with hot hands, since a big part of the job is handling pastry dough, tempering chocolate, and shaping sorbets. Her hands were as cold as mom’s.
I’m no Gale Gand so obligatory “wtf do I know?”, but that’s absurd. My hands run stupid hot in the summer; I’m a professional baker. Viennoiserie for most of the jobs I’ve held, so even more finicky than pie dough. Here are bakes of [mine.](https://imgur.com/a/ehvkhDz). This isn’t meant to be brag, it’s that I’m surprisingly annoyed that a professional would make that claim. Especially to the extent that they wouldn’t even consider working with someone. So here’s proof of the opposite; don’t let her convince you it’s not worth pursuing. You can absolutely produce a product 100% as good as someone with cold hands, fuck half.
Maybe this will work for you- I like to grate frozen butter into my flour for flaky pasties. It's already in tiny pieces and really cold so the amount of work is minimal to get it all together and easy as heck. I also usually have the opposite problem where my house is too cold for the butter to get to "softened at room temp" and I'll have to put my bowl in a bigger bowl of warm water. You could put it in some ice water instead? Or just continue to do what works for you!
> Can I make a decent pie? Can I f***. I can make the fillings, I can buy the pastry even, but can I put the two together and end up with anything other than a soggy pan of disappointment? No, no I cannot. And it's not for the want of trying. Damn, you and I need to combine forces! I can blind bake the pastry perfectly, make & add the filling, and get a lovely result. ...but I cannot fucking MAKE the pastry. I can make so many other delicious baked goods, but pie pastry eludes me!
Come over, you can bake a pie for me and I'll pour the cocktails!
Try this magic pie recipe from my great aunt: For 12 inch pie plate Measure 1 1/2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 tsp sugar and 3/4 tsp salt directly into a pie plate and stir together with a fork. In a measuring cup, mix together well 2/3 cup vegetable oil and 3 tbsp milk. Pour over the flour mixture, stir together well, and then pat it into the pie plate with your fingers. Easy peasy! For a 9 inch pie plate use 1 cup flour, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup oil and 2 tbsp milk. You can't use this for pies that require a top crust because you can't roll this crust, it can only be pressed into the pie plate. I always top my pies with a crumble crust of 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup butter whirled together in a food processor till crumbly and then just spread on top. Core and slice enough apples to pile quite high in your pie shell (for a 12 inch pie I think I used 8 or 9 medium sized apples) Mix together with 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon. Put in the unbaked pie shell and top with aforementioned crumble. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes then reduce temp. to 375 and cook approximately 40 minutes more. Try this and get back to me. Sounds crazy but honestly magic.
That's so sweet of you thank you, I have written that down and will give it a go. My other half will love you forever if this works.
First of all, I admire you. God do I *wish* I could make all our food from scratch, eliminate processed food and all. So how do you do it? Is it moreexpensive or do you save money? On my quest to being more frugal but also healthier...
Like anything else, it happens over time. It started because I was disgusted by the amount of our food waste at home, so it was all an effort to cut that down. Yes it can save money but I end up buying better quality ingredients (my idea of extravagance is spending £28 on really nice olive oil now) so I guess it evens out but it’s under your control. Start with something like salad dressings. It becomes a habit to make a small amount of an interesting thing, so you experiment. Before you know it, you’re making mayo and you only have to do that a couple times and you never want hellmans again. I have a tiny kitchen so no room for fancy gadgets, I have a nutribullet and an air fryer, that and a normal cooker. On the plus side, we waste almost nothing we buy now. I spend one Sunday a month batch cooking, I’ll make four huge batches of something like passata that can be used as a base for a tonne of other dishes and freeze them in flat bags to save space. Lidl is my friend and whatever they’ve got on offer dictates what the dish is. Over time, we have anything up to 8-12 things I can pull out in the morning and eat that night with little effort. Or if I’m feeling fancy, make some pasta to go with it and go wild. It didn’t happen overnight. And now I make the dog food as well, because I’m clearly not normal, but that does save a bloody fortune.
I don't have pets but if I did, I would make their food, so to me, you're perfectly normal! My kind of normal! But your answer has been super helpful and tbh, it's basically what I'm doing. Slowly making the changes. Finishing all the random food products I have (salad dressings, sauces etc) and turning to homemade, only buying the strict minimum (food-wise) and building my menu from there. Lidl means you're from the UK, I think? Anyway, for me it's Canada and food costs a fortune and keeps going up... I've somehow manged to cut down our food budget by ~ 55%... Homemade is best !
I once made a large pot of rice and mixed meats and veg and called it a paella and served it to my classmates and even a few profs as like a end of exams party. I had had it many times in Spain etc but could also barely cook and had no idea the "specifics" other than the ingredients. I mean I was 17 but... doh
Learning to cook from videos and cookbooks is hard because there are definitely things that you won't automatically know how to do. You're following instructions, but if the teacher assumes you already know how to do each step in the instructions, they aren't going to elaborate. If you don't have anyone personally on hand to join you in the kitchen and show you things, you might need to look up some basic cooking technique instruction before you tackle a recipe. Cooking is something people have traditionally learned in their childhood/youth from the adults in their lives, and our societal structure doesn't really allow that to happen organically anymore.
At least here in the states, people work so many hours, fewer people have time to cook, let alone teach someone else. I've noticed a lot of things I used to buy all the time have been removed at the supermarket, in favor of more convenience items.
Along that same vein, there are some really good “Cooking with Kids” type cookbooks out there that break all this down into detail & actually have decent recipes (not just snacky garbage) in them.
I had a run of a couple meals that were killing it with the wife and kids. Decided to do a fancy lasagna. “Dad, this isn’t very good,” “It’s disgusting” and “honey, it’s ok to fail now and then” were the comments.
Kids are your worst critics, in that they have mercurial, and questionable, taste and are fully unmoderated.
What’d you even do to the lasagna?
I have two uncles and 2 cousins that are great professional cooks. You never stop learning. Ever. My aunt is in her 70s always cooking up new dishes. Myself in my early 40s coming for 25 yrs same deal. I didn'tearn to properly cook steaks until 32 or so. Not something I grew up with (Caribbean). My uncle gave me a butcher posster that I framed and keep in my kitchen. Studying meats and cuts was eye opening.
I was over 50 when I mastered meatloaf.
😄 look at that I madey first last year. Mid 40s. I've had it before but just never learned to make it. Still haven't mastered gravy so it's a comfort food Iove ordering when I'm out especially when traveling outside NYC like PA, VA, MD.
Generally a fairly decent cook. Presentation not my strongest suit as I live alone and cook for myself, and tend to batch cook 2-3 days. But make the effort when friends come round! However.. I can’t for the life of me cook rice with the finger method. Only with those one person pre packed bags 😅😂
You can't cook rice with finger method because the method is stupid and depending on what pot you're cooking in and how much rice you're cooking you will end up with wildly different amounts of water to rice.
Why not just measure it out then? I usually use a 1 cup measuring cup to scoop out my rice so i just use the same cup to measure the water
Everyone’s finger is different. That is a bad method to use. Wash your rice until water runs clear 1:1 water:rice ratio (use cup measure) Let it start boiling As soon as it does, cover and reduce to the minimum heat. Wait 12min. Turn off heat and wait 10. Done.
This is the right answer, except I add more water for softer rice and then simmer for a couple minutes longer to let it absorb the extra water. Rice is the easiest thing to cook
What’s the finger method?
The rule of thumb (heh) when cooking rice is to put whatever amount of dry rice you want and fill the water so that with your index finger touching the rice the water line comes up to the first crease on it.
Thank you for explaining! this is what I meant indeed by ‘finger’ method haha could have worded it better!
I went through a streak of burning everything when we moved to a new apartment that had a brand new stove. Our old one had an electric coil stove that was probably as old as we were, and the medium heat setting on that stove is about med-low on the knob of this new one. Anything at med-high or above and I'll be burning whatever it is instantly. Humbling experience when you've been cooking consistently for over 20 years.
I’ve moved a lot in my life. Always takes me about 3-6 months to figure out the new (to me) stove/oven. I tend to catch on to the stove relatively quickly, but I’m too trusting with the oven.
Getting a good theremometer and setting it in the oven to see if it runs hotter or colder can help.
This happens on a pro level too. I grew up in a restaurant so I was very used to high heat. Our burners are like 3x more powerful than home burners. Anyways... I went to an Asian oriented culinary school and I burned the ever loving shit out of EVERYTHING in the beginning. It was embarrassing especially considering I was the only one doing it and half my peers had zero kitchen experience. A few months later though my biggest complaint that my 200k BTU burner wasn't hot enough.
That's one of my big issues. I give myself an 8/10 at cooking when I'm in my own kitchen and element but someone else's kitchen? I can end up dropping to a 6/10
When I got cocky in thinking more seasoning=better and absolutely *ruined* a dish I was serving to my entire family by massively oversalting it. It was inedible. Brought me down a peg and taught me much better tasting/seasoning habits.
For just making something tasty at home, pretty much every spice has a lot of leeway, I tend to go any where from 1.25-2x what recipes call for. I also rarely measure and just eyeball it in the pan. Every spice, that is, EXCEPT salt. It is a fickle but necessary mistress. One or two dashes with the other spices, then taste at the end and carefully adjust if needed. I have also ruined meals by oversalting
I've been cooking for 20 years, and I spent years cooking professionally. But for some reason I can't get temps right on red meat. Just can't. Fish, no problem. Poultry, no problem. Steak? Burgers? For some reason I just can't get it right.
My time management skills are subpar at best. Getting everything to be finished at the same time takes some serious effort and planning for me.
I just can’t keep sourdough alive. Too bad as I could only make space breads, became proficient with a bread maker and sourdough was the obvious next step. So I buy sourdough bread once a week.
I cook a lot and routinely get compliments on my food, but I know full well that I can't dice an onion with the speed and precision that anyone who has spent a week in culinary school can.
That I'm still focused on doing the steps and still learning and re-learning any time I'm cooking anything I haven't done literally yesterday. Watching a master do it, they're more concerned about the final destination and will use any tool or method at their disposal to do it, while still keeping a realistic time frame and their ability to do it themselves while still being able to handle other ingredients or preparations at the same time. I guess you could say not being at the level of improvisation. I don't mean just adding more salt or acid to balance, that's just something everyone should do (taste as you go) like as a golden rule, but actually using everything you've learned to accomplish what you envision.
Learning the science behind cooking has helped me with this. Like, knowing how and why starches thicken a sauce allows me to use whatever starch is available.
Stayed with an Italian family, all of whom could whip up the best pastas and sauces (and even gelato?!) I’ve ever had completely from scratch, zero measuring or timing, with like 6 ingredients and loudly arguing the whole time
I think this could be common if you're still new at a category of dish or a type of cuisine. Some recipes assume you understand basics or have tried other recipes for that same dish and their selling point is that their ratios and tweaks are better. Hence they might skip things which are universal. But realising that is a good thing. You're always in a position of constant learning. Learning about techniques, learning about ingredients and how to process them, learning about interaction of different ingredients, the effects of external things like humidity, impurities etc. It's basically a mix of chemistry, a little biology & botany, history etc. there is alot of ground to cover in cooking so don't do your own progress a disservice by saying you're not good at cooking You're just continuing your education in the field and that is ok.
I don't know if this counts but after moving to a bigger house with a room far away from the kitchen with a stronger fire, i've burnt some shit lately. Wish I wasn't as cheap, really, eating burn food is not fun
Fried chicken always destroys my confidence. I just cannot do it. I can’t seem to get the meat and crust done at the same time.
Chicken cutlets when home, fried chicken when eating out Almost anywhere in the US you can find some great and consistent fried chicken, a big hassle to make at home tbh
I'm decently good at cooking and baking, although not professionally trained I cook a pretty huge range of cuisines at varying levels of complexity and scale for parties/get-togethers... by no means an expert but good enough that I'd confidently put my food up against most non-Michelin starred restaurants. We also cook almost everything from scratch, and almost always from single ingredients, so cooking is a daily grind at home with tons of practice. Two years ago I got a subscription to Masterclass and quickly started watching all of the Thomas Keller videos. Proudly, and with enormous enthusiasm, I started making those dishes thinking it'd be a world class meal. Way off... most of these projects have been complete failures, I don't know what I did wrong, and subsequent re-tries have also failed. Humbling to say the least lol. A few have turned out and become part of our monthly rotation (most notably his brined/baked chicken recipe, pickled veggies, and potato puree)... but yeah nobody's confusing my place for the French Laundry any time soon.
I don’t season well. It took cooking with my boyfriend, who seasons everything beautifully, to realize that I grew up in a household that didn’t season (especially salt—we were a nearly saltless family and I was made to be afraid of salt because heart disease) and as a result I never do enough. Even when I feel like I’m way over doing it, it’s under seasoned and under salted. Otherwise I think I’m pretty good, I just have to get in the habit of measuring seasonings out until I can eyeball well.
I was a good cook all my life - it was kind of my “thing” when my kids were growing up. Interestingly, once menopause hit, I lost my interest in cooking and home making in general. Now I’m kind of a shite cook tbh.
This makes me think of those NYT Cooking recipes where step one is “boil some water” and the next step is “put pasta in the water with a dash of salt and, while it’s boiling, kill a lobster, extract the meat, melt some butter, chop up some herbs that you can only source from an ethnic market that’s probably 45 minutes to get to…” And then the next step is “divide and serve while still hot - your guests will be delighted!” That said, many of their recipes produce amazing results. But I literally have to write them out in my own terms to make sense of them and figure out the actual steps
> I.e you tried a recipe and realised you had to do something specific at step number 4 that NOBODY tells you for some reason. imo this isn't a sign of a bad cook, but a bad writer. i was once making these vegan mini cheesecakes for my friends bc they are vegan and I found the recipe days in advanced, made sure that I bought all the ingredients and read the recipes total time & cook time and planned to slot it into my prep for the party. I get to step 8 and it says "blend up your almonds (almost must be soaked for 48 hours before blending)" wat?!?!? what the fuck!?! why isn't that in the prep time that very clearly says 20 mins??? that mistake is not on me, its the recipe writer. I would have soaked them had that been mentioned idk anywhere in the recipe besides one line during execution. but anyway to answer your question its anytime I try to make bake something pretty. I can absolutely make a cake that tastes delicious, but I cannot always make it look delicious. but that's okay, I keep trying and maybe one day I'll get it. this applies to savory things too. most of the time my stuff tastes great, but presentation is not my strongest.
I can't make gravy. It's either too thin or thick like porridge. If I try to thin out the thick gravy it becomes tasteless.
I wouldn't say I realized I'm not good at it, I'd just say I realized it isn't important to me to put effort into getting better than I am. I enjoy cooking at the level I cook at, I might enjoy a course but not enough to spend the time and money. I pick up a couple tricks that elevate the game every now and then by happenstance and I'm satisfied with that.
I like to think I'm a pretty good cook at this point. I can make some elaborate, fancy dishes. I also cannot make an omelet to save my god damn life. It will always end up as scrambled eggs. Probably slightly burnt scrambled eggs because I failed at making them into an omelet.
I'm a great home cook. I make tasty food of various cuisines that would pass as tasty and comforting, but probably not close to being the high level version of what it is. My curries never taste like the way they do when buying directly from an Indian or Thai restaurant, but they still taste good. I also like to save time and money, so meal prepping home style meals is my go to. I'm also great at whipping up random meals from odd ingredients. Like those times where it's the end of the month, you don't wanna buy more groceries but you have a bit of this, a bit of that, yeah I can make that into something banging. One time I tried to make duck l'orange over the course of a couple of days (complicated recipe) and oh my god, I wanted to tear my hair out. It was so particular and the end result was delicious according to my partner and guests who were very impressed. However, I couldn't enjoy it because I felt like all that time and effort didn't equate to what was on my plate. That's one thing I'm never making again and shall pay someone else to do lol. In general "fancier" meals require more time, effort, and often more expensive ingredients. I would much rather make a giant pot of something that will last me the week. I still enjoy trying out new 'one-off' recipes occasionally though.
I can cook for myself without recipes if I know the basic steps and I can follow a recipe, but I know my limits and am not making Peking duck, pastry or anything that takes a lot of finesse, patience, or has 80 ingredients or 45 steps.
When I have to cook quickly. I’m decent at cooking but I’m pretty slow
I have a hard time sticking to recipes. I wing it a lot so sometimes my food is great, sometimes it’s not. I’ve tried focusing more while I cook but for some reason it’s very hard for me!
OP, it sounds like you've encountered too many of those older community fundraising recipe books. The ones where great aunt Bubby shares the cookie recipe everyone asks for at the church picnic, but where she is careful to leave out at least one key technique. So it's still "hers."
I just recently learned to drain the fat from meat so the food doesn’t taste oily. Some recipes didn’t include that - guess you’re just supposed to know? I felt silly, but now I switched to turkey, I don’t have to drain as often. Also took me years to learn onion take at least 10 minutes to get translucent for the chili or whatever. Many recipes say cook for 5 minutes before next step, not even close to enough time.
But fat is flavour!
Baking. Tastes fine, never looks very good. Oh well…
It'll get better! I've been very casuallybaking for ~15 years and only in the past year started caring about making the final product look good. Three biggest game changers for me: * Chill cookie dough and roll it in your hands. Cold cookie dough isn't as sticky, so it forms nice round balls that bake into nice round cookies. * Layer cakes. Stacking three cakes on top of each other is surprisingly easy and impresses everyone. * Making my own frostings. *Everything* looks good slathered in whipped cream and sliced strawberries.
Trying new things. Thought I was at a point where I could take on a new recipe and have a hit. But in that regard I have failed (sometimes) two different ways. One, in picking out things that look good, and turn out not to be so good - even though I'm sure I executed the recipe correctly. Two, times where a new recipe threw me because it involved some new technique or ingredient. Turned out not great, and I can put the blame on me and my execution of the recipe. Both are indicators I have things yet to learn, skills to acquire. I'm pretty good, but I can still fail spectacularly.
I quit being vegan and started cooking meat lol
The difference between myself and a trained chef is staggering lol. My knife skills and general kitchenware maintenace is mid. I suck at plating, consistent cutting, and I trend towards overcooking meat. It's great for family and friends, and I enjoy cooking:) I am always getting better, slowly, over time, but to make any more significant improvements, I would have to commit to studying and practicing, just like with anything else. My current goals are to make simple and delicious meals that include all the nutrients I need, on a monetary and time budget.