/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>9196236

this text is sacred

Cooking (at least cooking savory things that don't involve baking/leavening ingredients or food science techniques) as a whole is mostly a skill that doesn't rely on formulaic recipes but instead a feel for how something should taste, what it's lacking, and how to fix it.

The overall goal is to have a balance of flavors, but having something that ends up being too balanced is also not particularly delicious or memorable.. Therefore you need to have a single thing, or a combination of multiple things that form a coherent focal point, stick out.

You can accentuate the desired flavors by manipulating the basal taste sensations, which are sweetness/acid/salt/fat. "umami" is intentionally left out because i'll get to that later.

anyway, here are the flavor cheat codes:

>sweetness

pure maple syrup is easily the most versatile way to apply sweetness to anything.. everything from grits to pan sauces to marinades, salad dressings, glazes, whatever.

honey is a distant second but not really comparable.

>acid

sherry vinegar can be added to literally (L I T E R A L L Y) anything that tastes ok but not spectacular and it will make it taste spectacular; it's the thing you've always needed but never knew you weren't using.

>salt

salt, obviously. kosher salt.. kosher salt and also cured meats can work really well to achieve the same goal.

soy sauce/tamari is a close second, followed by miso as a slightly less versatile soy variation.

>fat

butter. butter is definitely the most superior form of fat. i mean, there are tons of great plant oils out there that have specific uses as well as tons of animal fats/tallow, but butter is hands down the most useful of them all.

discuss, and add to the list if you have any suggestions.

>>7870787

i'm sure there are tutorials on how to develop knife skills.

get whole animals (chickens, fish) or get un-broken down pieces of cow/lamb/pig and look up online how to break them down

learn what a roux is

learn the mother sauces

learn about what a consomme is and learn how to make one

learn about different oils/fats and their different uses

learn what an emulsion and how to emulsify things, as well as what causes emulsions to break

learn how to sear/baste proteins with butter and herbs in a pan

learn everything about the egg and how to cook them in different ways

learn about mire poix, sofrito, etc

taste everything you make at multiple stages throughout the cooking process

taste your ingredients (within reason) before using them, always be on the lookout for new things to try

learn to clean as you go and always have your mise en place before even starting to cook

that's probably a pretty good start. also, pic related is a really great resource.