3 things that made you a better cook

[EbS-P]

The cooking thread got me thinking what are the three things that improved my cooking the most.

In no particular order

1. Ethnic market. You can’t cook what you can’t get and substitutions only go so far. Any maybe it’s about about finding new foods or flavors you really like.

2. Cooking equipment. My giant wok and 200k btu burner and my kamado grill have truly transformed how I cook for the better. The right tool for the job is important.

3. good how to resources. I’m not talking about a recipe (they are helpful) but more of a deeper cooking tutorial. I rarely follow a new recipe to the T. I might not have all the ingredients or know my family’s preferences better than the recipe (garlic has its own space on my family’s food pyramid). A good resource doesn’t just teach you how to cook one thing but gives you knowledge that you can apply to many things.

I’m not a foodie. I just like good food. So what has improved your cooking?

Evan

 

[stoveliker]

Doing it together with someone. Talking about it (while having a glass of wine or cognac).

So, my wife.

 

[stoveliker]

In fact, more than my wife.
Having friends from other countries.
Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Indian, Ukrainian, British - one can learn a lot by cooking together, about cooking, about cultures, and about friends.
(well, scrap the last country there w.r.t. cooking quality, as well as my own (Dutch)).

 

[Riverbanks]

PBS cooking shows! Lydia and jack. I have to add more, the polish and Greek cooking show and also Belton with the southern style, "the Trinity"

 

[Montanalocal]

Having a fair sized garden.
Getting a large amount of something all at once will get one motivated to find something new to do with it. If you have a five gallon bucket of broccoli, beets, cabbage, etc. you may be tempted to get creative, and the large amount will make you less afraid to waste it if you do something that does not turn out.

 

[Max W]

What has made me a better cook? My cooking is pretty basic but I don’t mind putting in extra effort to make it good.

Digital meat thermometer.

The motivation I get from just enjoying and sharing a well cooked meal.

Many mesh bags of long keeper onions hanging in the cellar.

 

[EbS-P]

What has made me a better cook? My cooking is pretty basic but I don’t mind putting in extra effort to make it good.

Digital meat thermometer.

The motivation I get from just enjoying and sharing a well cooked meal.

Many mesh bags of long keeper onions hanging in the cellar.

Thermometer almost made my list. But I cooked
Pork loin last night and unusual cook it rare. Didn’t get out the programable thermometer and and took it to about a medium. Cooked low and slow over charcoal I liked the more cooked version. So being imprecise does allow some variation to find better (or worse) ways.

 

[Poindexter]

1. Finding out the price of groceries in a successful restaurant should be 15% of total expenses. So if you buy a $100 steak dinner out, the steak was $14.50 from the butcher, plus another 50 cents for the roasted vegetables and etcetera. The other $85 pays the chef, and the kitchen crew, and the electric bill and the lease blah blah. That was a huge eye opener for me, and gave me agency to invest in decent kitchen gear.

2. Good tools. I can make a decent alfredo sauce in a non stick skillet with a plastic spoon. However, I was in my 20s when I learned thing number one and figured amortized over my lifetime investing in good basic equipment would break even on price long before I die. Kitchen knives are very much like high end cameras or hunting rifles. They are all top notch, you are looking for the tools that come alive in your hand. I buy Cutco knives, Sako rifles and Nikon cameras, but Sabatier, Winchester and Canon are all making (or have made) great products - if they come alive for you in your hands.

3. Dating above my weight class because I could cook.

Besides youtube and cookbooks, there are some terrific online courses, especially since social distancing became a thing in 2020. Through our Roku my wife and I have had subscriptions to both "Great Courses" and "Wondrium" and I think we have a third one now. We just start a subscription, watch all the courses we want, cancel, try another one.

In person classes are fabulous. If we ever go to Paris, there is seasonally offered a one day course at Le Cordon Bleu to make chocolate raspberry torte. First thing in the morning you go visit a street market to buy ingredients, and then head back to the school; that one is on my short list. I plan to buy an apron in the gift shop on my way out.

Among books I really like a book I suggested to @DuaeGuttae a few weeks ago, _America's Best Recipe's_ from the American Test kitchen. You want the first edition with butter, not the later margarine edition, similar to _Joy of Cooking_. Also _Counter Top Cooking School_ by Kathleen somebody. Linky: Amazon product ASIN 0143122177 . Both of these books have a fair bit of exposition to sort of help you along as you get your feet wet.

Honestly if you have both of those books well in hand and feel good about the various techniques you can start browsing Francis Mallman and Thomas Keller at the bookstore. Thomas' Banana Split recipe took me three days to get on the table, but I knew how to do all the steps and processes.

 

[ABMax24]

I'm not a great cook, I can fumble my way about in a kitchen and repeatedly produce eatable meals, but that's about it. I have however learned a few simple tricks:

1. Margarine is lack-luster at best. It gets the job done quick for toast, but butter imparts much nicer flavors for anything you intend to enjoy.

2. Buy the good stuff. In our mass produced world cost has replaced quality as the primary driver of most consumers. Parmesan is my big pet peeve, while I do enjoy a plate of spaghetti with cheap Kraft Parmesan, nothing replaces authentic Parmesan bought at the deli counter. I apply this to meat as well, I can get a 3 pack of AA Grade sirloin steaks for $20 at the grocery store, or go to my local butcher and buy a Prime or AAA Ribeye for the same price. Buy the Ribeye. (I just watched the first episode of Chef's Table: Pizza, and Chris Bianco has the same philosophy, junk in, junk out. Any good food starts with quality ingredients).

3. Less is more. While most people like a cheese loaded Pizza on occasion, a balance between the crust, tomato sauce, and cheese delivers a better result. Sometimes I like a little smoke flavor in Spahetti sauce, the first time I tried it I had a sliver of Smoked Gouda left, it imparted a very nice subtle flavor. If I had more cheese left I would have surely added more and ruined it.

 

[stoveliker]

Anything called Parmesan is junk. The real stuff on which that is piggybacking is called Parmigiano Reggiano.

 

[PaulOinMA]

All great responses. I love cooking. Chemist by education. Cooking is chemistry.

I'm cooking moderator at the WAGS forum.

 

[PaulOinMA]

I'm a child of the 60s/70s. Kraft cheese out of the green shaker. Aunt Jemima and Log Cabin syrup. Ugh.

I actually was thinking of buying the Kraft cheese again to try it. 🤔

 

[begreen]

Travel with an open mind to new tastes, access to great ingredients, and my partner who is a very skilled cook.

 

[ispinwool]

I guess if I had to name "tools" it'd be my cast iron skillets and stoneware baking pans.
As for 'grocery' type of things...I do my best to buy real food; organic if possible.
Eggs, veggies, meat, cheese, BUTTER... very very rarely stuff in a box/prepackaged.
[My mom and her mom both had diabetes (both were sugar addicts!);
and both of my parents died from cancer--I've been on a 10 year long research binge to make
sure I (and my loved ones) don't have the same fate. Real food/slow food seems to be a big part of good health.]

 

[stoveliker]

^^That.
I have the philosophy that "food" that my grandmother (died in 2010 at age 95) would not have recognized as food in her teens, is probably best not eaten.

 

[Riverbanks]

Do you make your own pasta? It is constantly on my mind

 

[stoveliker]

Yes, occasionally - well, often. Until we got kids...
I have had an italian colleague/friend who taught me (to make pasta, espresso, pizza, etc.).

The beauty of an international workplace...

(And then to hear that "mac and cheese" is the favorite meal of one of my kids...)

 

[Riverbanks]

Lol, Mac n cheese is in my cabinets, is the work involved with making the pasta, well rewarded? I just watch the cooking shows and they seem happy

 

[stoveliker]

Yes. With caveats, see below.

If you are wondering, then first buy fresh pasta in the supermarket (should be stored in a refrigerated section). Try that. If you like where that is going (as compared to dried mass mfg'd pasta), and you like the story below, then go for it. However, the point is not about the pasta itself - heavenly though it may be.

Making your own pasta takes time. Lots of time.
We (wife and I) were married for 11 years before we got our first kid. Lots of time.

Hand-kneading (for lack of a better word) the (durum!) flour and eggs (and nothing else!). Running it through the cylinder (multiple times), running it through the cutting part (i.e. linguine, spaghetti, fettucine). Then having it dry on cloth for a while. In the mean time you make the sauce and whatever else you want to eat with the pasta.
By this time the first bottle of wine has been consumed by you and your (cooking) partner.
Then the "cooking" of the pasta - is only 30-60 seconds, and you're done.

Hours.

And then you eat.
The pasta is great. By this time the wine can be less great - you wouldn't notice anymore. The meal will be great if you made the appropriate sauce and additions to the pasta in the right way.

Bottomline, it's not a "let's prepare a meal". It's the company, the joint venture, the time spent together, the talking, the wine, the - everything but the food that makes it great.
And yes, homemade pasta tastes great. Better than you can get in any restaurant (unless they charge $100 or more for a pasta dish). But that's at that point not the most important issue anymore.

It's a commitment to company that makes the day. The caveat is the time and the commitment that it costs...


If I'm too lyrical, then I apologize. It's both the cognac I am having (before a home-made pizza...) and the fact that this type of cooking seems to be more valued in my old continent than here.

I hope people will try. (cognac and cooking-company-time)

 

[Riverbanks]

Company is the best part of a meal, manja is a word I remember growing up" let's eat", I think the last time I had fresh pasta was at mama leones in Manhattan, and I'm going way back in time on that one

 

[mcdougy]

Bacon, exhaust hood, and cook from frozen stuffed butterball turkeys

 

[Vg3200p]

Cast iron.
Wood fired smoker
Anything hunted or home grown

 

[GrumpyDad]

The cooking thread got me thinking what are the three things that improved my cooking the most.

In no particular order

1. Ethnic market. You can’t cook what you can’t get and substitutions only go so far. Any maybe it’s about about finding new foods or flavors you really like.

2. Cooking equipment. My giant wok and 200k btu burner and my kamado grill have truly transformed how I cook for the better. The right tool for the job is important.

3. good how to resources. I’m not talking about a recipe (they are helpful) but more of a deeper cooking tutorial. I rarely follow a new recipe to the T. I might not have all the ingredients or know my family’s preferences better than the recipe (garlic has its own space on my family’s food pyramid). A good resource doesn’t just teach you how to cook one thing but gives you knowledge that you can apply to many things.

I’m not a foodie. I just like good food. So what has improved your cooking?

Evan

Covid.
I learned to make filets the proper way. Sear one side fairly low, for awhile, say a few minutes, the sear the thin sides, then the flat side that hasnt been seared, flip to that side and immediately pop it into the oven running at 400 degrees. Occasionally take it out to test temps either with the feel method if you are good at that or better, use a thermopop from thermoworks to take guess work out. When testing, also baste with butter and if you want a sprig of rosemary should be in there cooking next to the steaks for some added flavor you wont notice but it will bring up the flavor a bit. Take the steaks out when they are still rare in temp, rest for 7 minutes then serve immediately.

I also have a decent pizza dough recipe for a standard home oven. But just about any will do. The trick is to roll it out thin, use a pizza peel and learn the art of spreading out dough, topping it, and transfering it to a pizza peel. Slide the pizza into a pizza stone that has been preheating inside your oven as the oven heats to the highest temperature it will go. Assuming a standard oven, likely 575. Bake until the bottom has some brown spots. Not dark, this isnt neopolitian pizza. Try to avoid having the cheese turn brown as well. Orangish just means your cheese has alot of filler oils and is cheap. Try to find quality mozzarella, low moisture. Never over top. Less is more. If you want supreme, precook the ingredients. When the pizza bottom is done, slide a pizza peel under it and hold it above the pizza stone with the ovens broiler on if you have a top broiler heating element in your oven. When those ingredients brown remove, rest for a couple minutes then cut and serve.

Anyone have a donut recipe/method? We made the best looking donuts that tasted like oil.

EDIT: The thermometer I mentioned from Thermoworks has been a bit of a blessing. If you cook a brisket on a smoker and dont own a decent thermometer you are wasting your time. Many big box store thermometers will work, but they get wonky after a bit for some reason and while they will read accurate in certain ranges, it never fails that they seem to misread the temps you need the most like when smoking a brisket or cooking a filet rare.

 

[ispinwool]

@GrumpyDad ...I would think that there are as many good donut recipes as there are bakers in the world. If I may suggest, use your recipe but fry them in good old fashioned lard and let them cool on paper towels to soak up any excess.
(that being said, I have my mom's recipe that I'd be happy to share--but I'm betting the oily taste you had can be fixed with the lard.)

 

[GrumpyDad]

@GrumpyDad ...I would think that there are as many good donut recipes as there are bakers in the world. If I may suggest, use your recipe but fry them in good old fashioned lard and let them cool on paper towels to soak up any excess.
(that being said, I have my mom's recipe that I'd be happy to share--but I'm betting the oily taste you had can be fixed with the lard.)

we tried it in the deep fryer to the temp required. I think the lard idea sounds better and probably in a cast iron skillet maybe?

When we tried the donuts, we are pretty surprised with the taste. Kinda like expecting to drink spite but drinking vinegar instead.