/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>12189857
they're hit and miss, sadly. The beginner-oriented ones are good. So are the ones about French and British cooking. The rest of it? very iffy.

Pic related is a god-tier beginner cookbook IMHO. It's great for many reasons: step-by-step photos for every recipe. it won't teach you bad habits like using box mixes, etc. none of the recipes require specialized equipment, expensive or hard-to-find ingredients. get a hardcopy, pdf, whatever.
(btw, don't waste your time with any other Jamie Oliver cookbooks--they suck. This one is fucking great though)

>>12033814
Best noob cookbook ever written right here.

>>11926182
Take a pick:
1) Get a beginner oriented cookbook and do what it says. I highly recommend pic related, it's great. It has step by step photos for everything, it doesn't require expensive or hard to get ingredients, and it teaches real cooking.

or

2) Pick a dish you know and like. Search for recipes for that dish. Follow directions. If it came out good, repeat with a different recipe tomorrow. If it didn't, try and figure out what you did wrong and try again.

>>11902780
it would help if I remembered the pic.

>>11768109
it would help if I didn't forget my pic like a fucking tard

>>11566784
Whoops!

>>11433130
Right here. Yeah, the author is a first rate fagotron but this is a fantastic noob cookbook. Step-by-step photos for everything. No weird ingredients or expensive tools needed.

>>11310904
Read this book. Do what it says.

Or, if you prefer to be spoonfed, go watch "Good Eats" with Alton Brown.

I can't think of any better advice for noobs.

>>11233284
for beginners? This one.

>>11192177
>but it's still somehow too complex for me to grasp
you don't have to understand it. All you have to do is copy what he is doing onscreen.

A big part of your problem might be getting distracted. Are fiddling with your phone or watching TV or whatever while you're cooking? Stop that. Focus on one thing at a time.

I can also recommed pic related as an excellent noob cookbook. It has step-by-step photos for every recipe, and the recipes are simple and don't require expensive or hard to find ingredients. Excellent noob cookbook, I have given many copies as gifts.

>>11117104
Your'e a fucking millenial, appfag.

You don't need an app, you need a cookbook. I suggest pic related, it's fantastic for noobs.

>>11090002
Buy a cookbook. Follow directions. I suggest this one, it's god-tier for newbies.

>>11071193
>Also I'm new to cooking so need more details than in your post.

What you need is a good beginner cookbook as opposed to a website.

>>11071327
That's because you don't need one. you need pic related--a newbie cookbook.

>>11023399
Sure. Get this. Follow directions. If you can't into books, go watch Good Eats w/ Alton Brown.

>>11006845
I suggest beginner cookbooks for noobs. The reason is that it keeps things from being overwhelming when you first start. If you jump on the internet you can easily get confused with conflicting directions & too much information. Plus there's an awful lot of shit advice online and as a noob you can't filter it out from the legit info.

Pic related is fantastic. I have bought many of these to give as gifts, it's the ideal beginner cookbook IMHO. Step-by-step photos for everything so it's easy to follow along. No hard-to-get or expensive ingredients. Covers all the fundamentals. Most of this guy's cookbooks are pretty shitty but this one is great.

>>10921864
This is a fantastic beginner cookbook, easily the best I have ever seen. And that's shocking to me because generally this dude's cookbooks are shit. But this one is great. I can't think of anything better for noobs:
-Step-by-step photos for every recipe
-Calls for no exotic or expensive ingredients
-Is actual from-scratch cooking
-covers all the basics

I have bough many of these as gifts for friends who wanted to learn cooking.

>>9515187
forgot pic

>>9503033
>Where do I even begin with learning how to cook from scratch again?
I suggest buying a beginner cookbook and following along.

I highly recommend this one. Most the dude's books are crap but this is a fantastic beginner cookbook. It checks all the important boxes:
-from scratch
-step by step photos for everything
-nothing too hard
-no special or expensive equipment needed

I have bought many copies to give as gifts to friends who were getting into cooking.

>>9446367
My mother was obsessed with that guy for years and accumulated many of his cookbooks.

I've read them all, made a few things out of them, and honestly most of his stuff (IMHO) is nothing special. Plus he's known more for being an activist and TV personality than being any kind of real expert. He was a bit odd because unlike most people who went from established pro chef to TV personality he was sort of the opposite. When he was first on TV his experience was nothing more than working in a pub owned my his family. He didn't have the same kind of background as most well known TV chefs.

That said, I do think that his beginner-oriented cookbook (pic related) is fantastic. I have bought more than a dozen copies over the years to give as gifts to friends getting into cooking. It's easily the best beginner oriented cookbook I have seen.

Beyond that though? Meh.

>>9418401
Pic related is a god-tier beginner cookbook.

Also check out Good Eats - Alton Brown. That's another good resource for noobs.

>>9160286
Yeah, I know the author is fag central, but this is a fantastic beginner cookbook.

Other good choices are:
-Joy of Cooking, especially the older editions (the modern ones cut a lot of stuff out)
-The Professional Chef. This is a textbook for the CIA (cooking school, not spies). The current edition is expensive but you can get used copies of earlier editions for pennies on the dollar. I paid $11 for my copy. It's incredibly good value for money and covers everything from food safety, budgeting, how to break down ingredients, knife technique, and it has a boatload of recipes.
-Jacques Pepin's La Methode and La Technique, or the later version "Complete Techniques".

>>9105200
Yeah, I forgot it like a retard.
Here we go.

Julia Child is great. I have that exact same book. But I don't think it's that good for a beginner since many of the recipes are labor intensive and it lacks photographs.

Pic related is nice for several reasons:
1) every recipe has a full set of step-by-step photos.
2) it's simple enough for beginners, yet at the same time it's not dumbed down to a ridiculous level.

>>9068345
>Is there any place/book/youtube channel that teaches the very basics of cooking to people who are borderline retarded?

Sure. Good Eats with Alton Brown. Pic related is also a fantastic beginner cookbook.

>>they don't tell me how much water to put in it
That's because it doesn't matter. As long as there is enough to completely contain the food you're boiling it will work.

>>foamy thing
That's protein that's come out of the meat. You throw it out.

>>fire should be high medium or low
High heat at first (you don't want to sit around waiting a long time for the water to start boiling, right?). Once it starts to boil then you lower the heat to maintain a nice low simmer.

>>and after it was done they put water over it and covered it with a lid for like 10 minutes, but I thought you weren't supposed to put water over hot oil?

Yep. You identified someone doing a bad job of cooking. There's a lot of that out there.

>>Any general tips/advice
When you're a noob I'd avoid using the internet as much as possible. Stick to using it to look up terms you don't understand, or to watch/read beginner cooking info. There's an awful lot of bullshit online (either deliberate trolling or people who mean well but are honest fuckups). When you're a noob the massive amount of info can be overwhelming, and you're not experienced enough to separate the BS from the legit stuff. Stick with a beginner cookbook or cooking program. Once you've gotten some experience then you can branch out.

>>8904857
Pic related is a fantastic beginner cookbook.