/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Learn how to properly and slowly sauté finely chopped onions into olive oil, on low heat. Take in the godly flavours.
That is the basis of everything in cooking.
t. Mediterranean

>>10917615
youtube videos. Watching FoodWishes (with chef John) is a great way to start. marco pierre white also has videos, but what ever you do don't actually use the knorr stock cubes to season your food

Just google some recipes.

Cooking in general is easy unless you're going out of your way to make something complicated or you're on a diet like veganism.

>>10917615
buy some of those cheap recipe books

>>10917654

correct answer. Don't burn the shit out of all your food. Cooking is chemistry, not temperature rape.

>>10917615
Use parchment paper for baking stuff, OP. No additional oils and fats (unless you want that then do it).

>>10917615
taste as you go

I used to cook, put that shit on a plate and then taste it the first time
Taste the ingredients, season everything and check for seasoning as often as possible

>>10917654
>>10918342
but sear is the objective best way to cook an onion
??

>>10918360
Good God I would have saved myself so much trouble if I would have been doing it from the beginning.

Don't be afraid to try out new things. Learning which flavors go well together from existing recipes makes it easier to figure out what a dish is missing or what you could add to something to spruce things up.

>>10918387

Some things need serious heat, not everything. Pizza needs 800 degrees. Steak needs 600 degrees, soup doesn't.

>>10918391

Not only do you make better food, you learn what makes food better. So your instinct gets better.

Not OP, and this might sound gay but is there like a site or app where there's a system of progression from "basic" or easy recipes to more advanced dishes? Like, this week we'll try this recipe, and from there you now have the technique to try these recipes, etc.?

Here are a few ingredients I wish I had found sooner when I started cooking:
>Lard
You cannot make tortillas without this, you can also make pastry with it, as an aside learn how to make pastry. It's also an amazing fat to cook potatoes in.
>Buttermilk/Kefir
Required ingredient in biscuits, pancakes, and you can use it to marinate chicken to make it more tender
>Sesame oil
THIS IS A FLAVORING OIL. Use this sparingly in asian dishes
>Chinese style light soy sauce
Please for the love of god stop using Kikkoman to make stirfry etc. Go to your local asian market and find light soy sauce, it's much less salty so you can use enough of it to deglaze your pan/wok without killing yourself with sodium.

>I can't cook

Honest fucking question, How is this even humanly possible? I know people who are engineers, Mathmetiicns, complex medical/electric technicians, and they all say the same goddamn this. "I can't cook".

Bull. Fucking. Shit. Cooking is a science, it's all about experimentation. How hard is it to read a flipping recipie, follow it, and use the proper tools, and cooking methods to achieve the desired result? This is high-school level stuff here, not fucking rocket science.

You can say "i'm bad at cooking" that's fair. but to say "I can't cook" is a load of crock. You're just a lazy fatass who doesn't even want to try. Just admit that much.

>>10918550

>buy a ton of ingredients that you don't have for a recipe
>fuck it up because you're bad
>get discouraged because that was a huge waste of money
>stick to basic shit/eat out until you try your hand at it again another two years down the line

>>10918492
I want this too.

>>10918565

>>10918387
no? barbecue

>>10918407
>pizza needs 800 degrees

Do Americans really?

>>10918963
600 will cook it really slowly. 800 is optimal. Well, if you're using one of those real pizza ovens.

>>10918502
Do you need butter milk? I always use some butter and milk for mine. But I haven't tried buttermilk.

>>10917615
>>10918492
>>10918702
This is an okay starting guide

Focus on fundamentals and realise cooking is a skill and what you "know" doesn't mean shit if you aren't doing it frequently. Learn how to keep your equipment in good condition.
Learn to poach, bake, fry, and steam. Learn the different sizes of cuts. Learn to bake bread (super cheap and delicious).

As to saving cash. Make bigger meals and set them in the freezer in portions to reheat later. You save money buying in bulk and save time for doing other shit.

Spices that are essential IMO
>Cumin
>Coriander
>Cayenne pepper
>Basil
>Black pepper
>Paprika

With these you can make cheap food like Mexican dishes very easily and they will taste better.

>>10919839
>Learn to bake bread (super cheap and delicious).

And a waste. A loaf of bread is like 99 cents these days. The cost of flour, the baking pans, and the wasted time to bake a fresh loaf is just plain silly in this day and age, unless you plan to bake multiple.

>>10917654
You know, this is actually great advice. It's actually where I can trace to the starting of my learning to cook on my own, despite not really summing it up that simply.

Once you're able to realize the effect of heat and oil into transforming ingredients into food, then you can start to understand at a base level what you're trying to do.

>>10918407
What the fuck even?

>>10918492
>mfw people now need apps to literally just learn

All these fuckers are missing a vital part of cooking, making sure the food you cook doesn't make you sick or worse kill you.
Learn the basics like safe temperatures for cooked meats such as chicken and pork and how to correctly store food.

Once you know how to cook safely it's all up to preference, what you think tastes good.

>>10919939
This is teaching a person to cook, not a retard.

>>10919901

You don't cook.. do you? Go read some shit if you don't want to sound like an asshole. Search pizza oven temperature 800f in your googlely.

>>10917615
Get a sharp knife. I just bought a 4 pk of razor sharp tramontinas at Costco for 1/ bucks.

Learn to effectively dice onions. Same with garlic. Buy or make broth.

Grow herbs and get badia spices. Then just start making mistakes.

>>10919852
I see your point and if you are just looking to save cash that's true but a gourmet loaf of proper bread had far more nutrition than a loaf of 99c shit tier bread and it tastes fat far better. Baking bread is also a good way to get good at baking as this guy said he wants to learn to cook.

>>10917654
Saute is high heat, you can't saute slowly

>>10917654
>>10920822
Also you can't turn onions into olive oil over any kind of heat

Have the right tools -> have a recipe -> buy everything you need for that recipe.
Now you're making better food than most people.

>>10917615
Toss a bunch of stuff in a pot of boiling water and eat them later on. Don't worry about spices. They're for people who need to disguise the taste of food.

>>10918986
it's not 100% necessary but it gives a really nice tang to things like pancakes

>>10920950
The purpose of buttermilk in pancakes is to assist the leavening agent. It helps them get extra fluffy. I've never used so much that it adds any noticeable taste.

>>10917615
You need some basic utensils - what I found as a bare minimum for everyday cooking is more or less the following:
Two decent sharp knives - a big one (chef's knife) and a smaller one (paring knife)
Cutting board of generous size
Big frying pan or wok, non-stick is easy to work with. If you get a lid for it, the better.
Two saucepans, one smaller, one bigger, with lids.
Baking tray and an oven-proof casserole (if you have big oven-proof saucepan, you can skip the casserole).
Some bowls (for storing chopped ingredients, making salad etc.). Could be tuppers with lids, they are handy for storing leftovers in fridge.
Laddle, big spoon and a wooden or hi-temp plastic spatula or spoon (that will not scratch the non-stick surface of the pan).
Grater (the 4-sided one with different size holes is handy).
Can opener, potato peeler (if you need one).

That should allow you to do most of kitchen work with reasonable comfort.

As far as recipes go, there are many youtube videos that are easy to follow, just pick up some easy recipes for starters. Mediterranean cuisine tends to be simple, not overly expensive and tasty,

>>10920963
>assist the leavening agent.
Only if you use baking soda I think, for baking powder it shouldn't matter