/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.6091473]

How do I learn to cook?

I never cooked in my life and I want to start, yet pretty much everything assumes you know how to generally cook and only teach certain recipes.

So is there a cooking guide online for newbies?

[Anonymous No.6091481]

>>6091473
Buy a beginners cookbook, buy the ingredients for the recipe, follow the instructions.

[Anonymous No.6091484]

>>6091473
>So is there a cooking guide online for newbies?

Sure, there's tons of beginner cooking programs on youtube: good eats with alton brown, gordon ramsay's ultimate cookery course, etc, etc. Just use the search tool.

>>yet pretty much everything assumes you know how to generally cook

Just read recipes and use Google. If you read a recipe and you come across a term you don't know then just google how to do it.

[Anonymous No.6091491]

>>6091473
Stop watching chinese cartoons and learn about real life.
>protip: Sailor Moon isn't real

[Anonymous No.6091518]

>>6091481

>buy

I'd rather not.
Seriously there aren't any cooking tutorials online for beginners?

[Anonymous No.6091528]

>>6091518
Didn't you see this post >>6091484

[Anonymous No.6091530]

>>6091473
So... at which point do you get stumped by simple recipes? Because I'm unsure what you mean, unless you're the kind of ass who just looks at cookers and is unwilling to even try following instructions because "I just don't know how!"

[Anonymous No.6091534]

>>6091491
>protip: Sailor Moon isn't real
them's fightin' words

[Anonymous No.6091553]

>>6091528

>good eats with alton brown
I'm looking at his vids, it seems cool but there are simply many things I don't know how to do

>and when it's done

How on earth do I determine when it's done?

Silly things like this make it impossible for me to follow

[Anonymous No.6091573]

>>6091553

Vegetables are done when they are no longer so crunchy they are unpleasant to chew, meat (except beef/steak) is done when it is no longer bloody. That covers about 95% of the issue.

[Anonymous No.6091588]

>>6091473
Just do it, fuck it up and figure out what you fucked up by heading to the Internet

Or research shit first time reduce fuck ups.

Do you like omlettes? If so, start there. There's no trickery worth them and if you fuck up you get scrambled eggs with stuff in them.

[Anonymous No.6091603]

>>6091573

OK, thanks

>>6091588

I tried making one but it was a bit burnt on the outside and practically liquid inside.

Seriously all these tutorials aren't explaining something and they make it look too easy

[Anonymous No.6091606]

Get 'How To Cook Everything,' 2nd ed.

After people like you complained that the first edition was still too technical ("WAAAAAHHH!!! I don't understand what X-term means because, even though the book provides an appendix and glossary in which I can look up the term, I am too lazy to do just that!!!!") Bitman rereleased an even more simplistic/simplified version with big, scary words like "sauté" and "julienne" swapped out for things like "toss it around in a little hot oil in a hot pan" and "cut into sticks."

[Anonymous No.6091607]

>>6091588
This is pretty much how I learned to cook.
Basically it's just get over it and do it. Get experience.

You can start by watching youtube videos on given dishes and try to cook the same thing. After a while you will realize what you might want to do in a different way, what you want to do additionally or just what you might want to leave out.

[Anonymous No.6091609]

>>6091603
If outside cooks faster than inside, you're cooking with too high a heat. You have to find a rate that'll let you get both, abs don't feel like you have to use one heat level the entire time.
for eggs you almost never want to go above medium.

[Anonymous No.6091613]

>>6091609

Ok, so not over medium for eggs.

Did you seriously learn this solely by trial and error?

[Anonymous No.6091619]

>>6091613
Kind of. What happens is over time you learn a few techniques and some ways to use certain ingredients. Then you start playing with what you know. You start subbing ingredients for different flavors, cooking things in different ways to get it more tender/make a crust on it/to learn a different way.

Over time, you master a few dishes and add in more techniques and more ingredients, and before you know it you're on the ball.

[Anonymous No.6091646]

I'm pretty much the same, OP, moved out a few months ago, pretty goddamn clueless. But by just following some simple recipes and trial and error, I'm slowly learning, I made pic related last week, it was easy as fuck and goddamn delicious.
I'd suggest creamy soups to start with, they're wonderful and really easy, since you can throw in whatever the fuck you want and it'll still be good, this is one of my favorites:
>chop up onion
>put pot on medium high heat, throw in some butter
>when it bubbled and the bubbles are gone, throw in the onion, stir well so everything is buttery
>put lid on, turn down heat to very low, let simmer for at least 10 minutes (if they turn brown the heat is too high, they should become a bit translucent if all is well)
>easymode stock: 2 stock cubes and 1l boiling water
>chop up ~5 whole tomatos (including the little green crown), 1~2 carrots, 1 or 2 stalks of leek, some celery
>chop up some garlic if you like (as much as you want), throw in with the onion
>1 minute after the garlic dump in the other veggies and the stock
>add a bit of water if needed, everything should be just barely covered
>stick in 3~5 thyme sticks if you like
>leave on low heat, with the lid on, for at least an hour or 2
>remove thyme, blend, add a bit of salt & pepper (little bits at a time and taste it if you're not sure how much)
>add cream to taste

[Anonymous No.6091676]

Start with ingredients or dishes that you like to eat.

Its a learning process, and you get better every time you cook a dish so don't become disenchanted if things come out flavourless or if you don't do something right the first time.

[Anonymous No.6091692]

>>6091613
Well, as long as you're not blindfolded, you look at it and think "oh, the outside is almost done but most of it is still raw, better slow it down."

[Anonymous No.6092393]

>>6091692

How can you do it without cutting it open?

[Anonymous No.6092400]

>>6092393
Don't fully wrap it closed

When I do omlettes, honestly, what I do is wait until it is half done before adding filling, then I don't fold it until it is almost done.

[Anonymous No.6092403]

>>6092393
Oh, and after you do it enough, you get a feel for the timing.

[Anonymous No.6092412]

>>6091473
Have fun, try new foods, and don't burn your house down.

[Anonymous No.6092424]

>>6091573
>meat (except beef/steak) is done when it is no longer bloody
Most meat is drained during slaughter...

The juices you see are purge, water from the muscle tissue combined with iron-tingued pigmentation that allows the cells to hold oxygen.

But seriously, blood would coagulate into a nasty gel-like substance before you even got around to cooking it. There is almost zero blood in any of your meat foods.

[Anonymous No.6092433]

>>6092400

I know I probably sound like idiot but how do I know It's half done without cutting it open.

[Anonymous No.6092434]

OP, most people on this thread are far too kind. Your attitude towards all this is unbelievably childish. You sound like the kind of fuck that's never had to make an effort in their life. If you can access this website, you have access to millions of sources from which to learn how to cook. You JUST started learning, and already, you are half-assing your way through this. You don't want to learn. You want to know. In the kitchen, you don't stop every two seconds to ask "will it work?". You make it work. Stop pussyfooting by playing it so safe. If right now you are so afraid of fucking up your eggs, you will never make it anywhere. Go buy two dozens of eggs, a bottle of thick cream, and make as many omelettes as you can. If you still haven't figured it out, try again.

[Anonymous No.6092445]

>>6092434
I have been nice because I can kind of feel op. I can cook almost anything on the planet with one glaring failure: baking.

I get frustrated as fuck at descriptions like "you want the dough to be slightly sticky". Wtf is sticky and the difference between sticky and slightly sticky? How can I tell the dough had been worked enough?

I've figured out I'll go broke wasting ingredients figuring this out in my own and learning online isn't going to work... basically I need to find someone who knows to do it in front of me and let me feel what each thing is supposed to feel like.

[Anonymous No.6092447]

>>6092433
You look at it... when about half of the runny bits aren't runny, you're about halfway there.

[Anonymous No.6092456]

Cooking is fucking easy.
Just take really basic flavor combinations.

You can then fuck up in one of three ways.

Get the ingredients wrong
Overcook
Undercook

If you pay attention you can avoid each.
Super easy.

[Anonymous No.6092472]

>>6092433
half the egg is solid, half is liquid. Jiggle the pan a little bit.

Some more tips:
-cook onions first until translucent, add greens last
-cover things with a lid to trap moisture/slow heat loss
-preheat your goddamn pan
-don't be afraid to fuck up. Analyze every single thing you make, and try to figure out what could be improved and how

If you need help, feel free to ask more specific questions.

[Anonymous No.6092475]

I don't cook, but I would assume you just pick something you like to make, look up the recipe, and make it. Over time, through making abunch of different foods, I guess you would just learn

[Anonymous No.6092480]

>>6092475
Honestly, learning technique is far more important.

If you know how to braise, you can apply that to a ton of different meats with great results. You might have to look up what temperature a given meat is done at, but you know how to get any meat there.

Granted there are differences between cuts and types of meat you eventually will learn/figure out, but that's talking about taking ok to good or good to great.

[Anonymous No.6092493]

> how do I learn to cook?

Srs, on other websites.

[Anonymous No.6092556]

I take on a new project every week and if the recipe is a keeper, I write it out on a notecard like an old grandma. Usually the projects are either shit I've had in the past (at a restaurant or something) and look it up, or a thing I saw on /ck/.

For christmas I got America's Test Kitchen book thats supposed to be for "cooking for two," so I'll probably do one of those recipes once a week.

Protip: Don't try Onigiri until you're ready.

[Anonymous No.6092633]

>>6092434

This isn't a computer where there no consequences for fucking up.

I wasted a carton of eggs trying to figure out myself how to open an egg, only to find out later there is a good way to do it and if I knew about it I wouldn't have wasted a dozen eggs.

[Anonymous No.6092658]

>>6092393
Actually, you can tell if an omelette is still wet inside even if you are literally blind. Have you ever tried touching things OP? Or are you some sort of damaged AI construct?

[Anonymous No.6092660]

>>6092445
Nah, this is the equivalent of asking how to mix dough ingredients because you can't figure out what to do with this bunch of wet and dry stuff you have. He's barely trying.

[Anonymous No.6092678]

itt: autists

[Anonymous No.6092789]

>>6092445
>wtf is the right mix of flour and water?

This.

Have you ever noticed that flour/water mixtures is the one thing in the world, (besides how much oil to fry with) that is consistantly wrong in recipies?

[Anonymous No.6092826]

>>6091606
this

[Anonymous No.6092941]

>>6092678

I like to think that /ck/ is 80% middle aged housewives who still shitpost and call eachother autistic and manchildren.

[Anonymous No.6093944]

>>6092941
Wouldn't surprise me that much really, middle aged stay at home moms can be fucking vicious online.

[Anonymous No.6093951]

>>6091473
If you have money, just start doing it. I took a cooking class in high school, then just started watching cooking shows and emulating it and throw away the shit that doesn't work.
If you don't have money to burn and want to learn technique etc, go enroll in a community college class.
Though that still assumes you aren't flat broke.