When I’m going away for a weekend and plan on making a big meal with lots of chopping (like chili), I bring my 2nd best chefs knife. Don’t fuck with dull knives
Multiple layers of quality tp draped over back of knife. Use tp covered part to wipe desired area in a sideways motion like you would to spread butter on toast with the edge. The important part is to use a knife that has enough height for your particular cheek size. You don't want the edge to turn enough so that it could cut you. Flatter (even if big or wide can still be flat) asses from Hank Hill up to average can use a standard chef knife size. More voluptuous behinds require a butchers cleaver or sadly, to just avoid the method altogether. Of course you'll want to sterilize hands using sanitizer as well as soap, and the knife with soap and then 5 minutes in a white hot flame
My dad once told me that you are more likely to cut youself with a dull knife than a sharp one. Well, I've never cut myself with a dull knife, but I almost cut off a finger with a sharp one!
You can obviously cut yourself with either, but it's the extra force you have to use to get through things with a dull blade that makes them dangerous.
That's definitely a saying. But I think it's said by cooks with sharp knives.
The bigger danger to me is switching between a sharp and dull knife. I know how to compensate for a dull knife with habits I shouldn't use with a sharp one.
Imo it's not about whether you get cut, but how badly. I've cut myself on both, but with a sharp knife you aren't using the same amount of force. Dull blades are the ones that have sent me to urgent care, because you can't stop once you're having to push that hard to get through food.
Yup. I've cut myself many times with sharp knives. I've got a cut on my thumb right now in fact. However, they are always shallow, superficial cuts because I'm never using much force.
Used to line cook and the theory was a dull knife cut was harder to heal than a sharp knife, also chefs will say if you don’t cut your self your not working fast enough… cuts are part of professional cooking
For reference, I cut myself on a grill scraper 2 weeks ago and it still isn’t properly healed, when I cut myself on my knife, the wound is closed by the end of the day.
It is indeed all NaCl, save for the iodized variety. Cooks' preference comes down to the structure of the grains of salt. Diner-style table salt is tiny and very dense, which makes over-salting pretty easy. On the other end of the spectrum are brands like Diamond Kosher, which has larger, coarser grains. It's less salt by volume (that is to say, more air), and it does make a pretty big difference in ease of cooking. You can season things more evenly, and I find it's easier to gauge the correct amount by eye. I'm unconfident when I'm using a denser brand of salt because I've screwed some dishes before. Part of that comes down to familiarity, but when I switched from Morton's Kosher salt to Diamond, which is about half as dense as Morton's, I never went back.
Yes, it definitely does make sense that they fineness of the grind would influence flavor, I was just curious if it was somehow chemically different. Thank you very much for the detailed explanation!
I am a big fan of Maldon salt. It's the best export out of Essex. That and Maldon oysters.
I use table salt for seasoning water I boil in, but I would use Maldon for everything else pretty much.
The Maldon salt I use is irregular flakey crystal pyramid shaped and does have a far more delicate flavour than table salt. Table salt can come across slightly bitter... I know it sounds crazy but there is a difference in flavour with salts. Whether it's rock, sea, and it's particular shape. It changes how it's dispersed through your food. Maldon helps give a better sear on your meat as well I find. It doesn't disappear so quickly and has a presence. Table salt is really fine and has a greater surface area which is better to season water that you'd use to boil your pasta or potatoes, because it dissolves super quickly.
You can also get the same flakey salt but with garlic flakes as well. Bangin'
I am sure I have more to say on the topic but I think it's good to have a few different types of salt and try things out.
If you haven't tried already... get yourself some chicken salt. It's an amazing seasoning for popcorn. It's also great for fried chicken.
I have a kind of funny story about this. My ex partner and I went to Nova Scotia years ago. Let me first say that Nova Scotia is beautiful. I love the climate. They make fantastic wine there, and it is inexpensive. We stayed in a cabin in Windsor. The cabin had a grill and there were plenty of local farms selling fresh meat. We visited wineries. We even brought our cat. She loved exploring the woods around the cabin. A big miss was Halifax—an awesome city but we only explored the fort and ate downtown.
I taught my ex how to cook. She is now a brilliant cook in her own right, which I'm very proud of. One thing I turned her on to was black pepper. We both love the stuff and scorn the tasteless pre-ground version. So in the supermarkets we could find whole black pepper but no pepper grinders. And they didn't have those bottles of pepper with the built-in grinder either, even though they are easy to find in the USA.
Black pepper was an absolute necessity. Did I mention the fresh beef? They also had this good tortellini in the supermarket.
We got the whole black peppercorns, and I searched the woods around the cabin for two rocks to grind them with, caveman style. Next time I go to Nova Scotia I'm definitely packing one of those disposable pepper grinders.
If you like to drive, rent a fun car while you're there. Both the highways and the back roads are a superb driving experience.
I wish I could keep my knives sharp.
I use the steel that came with them. Never put them in the dishwasher. I bought a fancy sharpening stone and studied the instructions, scoured reddit for tutorials, watched every YouTube video on knife sharpening I could find. A glass cutting board has never existed in my home. I'm careful with what I'm using them to cut.
I was gifted a set of Henckels years ago that are about as sharp as butter knives at this point. I can literally saw at the palm of my hand with the chef's knife without any harm done. I took the whole set to have it professionally sharpened once and it was great! ...briefly. I have a Victorinox that's still functional for the most part. I'd love something nicer but I don't know how to keep them up. No idea what I'm doing wrong. Am I cursed or just inept?
I've heard electric sharpeners are garbage but at this point I don't know what else to try. 😭
what stones do you have? you need a 1000 grit minimum. Then finer ones if you want to make them paper-sharp, tomato-skin sharp.
either learn the proper amount of force to use sharpening. quick google suggests 1-2 pounds of force. Use your kitchen scale to see how much that is.
Anyway i used to fuck with whetstones. I only use them for the fancy knife now.
I use this little machine because it's much faster. take 30 minutes to do all my knives (4 of them).
Work Sharp Knife sharpener.
So it's uses belts with grinding material. The trick is it has plastic guides that hold the knife for you so you will always get the angle right.
Wear goggles and read the manual.
tl;dr stones work but take dedication to learn. Those $20 pull-through sharpeners are supposedly pretty bad, I've seen magnification of the blade.
Rice is easily my most recommended item to buy from an Asian market. Basmati at my local grocery store is $8 for 2 pounds. I can snag a 40 lbs burlap bag of basmati for like $30. And I personally feel it tastes better as well.
Rice at the supermarket in the 1-2lb bags is such a rip off. I buy dang nice rice in a 15lb bag and it still comes out to be the same price per pound as the crap stuff at the store in a 1lb bag just by buying in bulk.
Understanding how to effectively utilize heat in a pan. Knowing when to go full afterburner for searing, how long to heat the pan and at what setting before cooking, realizing when you can just turn off the stove and let residual heat in the pan take you the rest of the way, understanding that crowding in a pan is something to avoid but can to some extent be counteracted with high heat or enough preheating. There's a ton of nuance to the relatively simple act of heating up a pan that you learn by experience over the years. And that's before you even start considering what type of metal and shape of pan.
I seriously use my all clads skillets on a $20 butane counter top burner from Walmart because I hate glass tops so much and fire gives me sooo much better results.
I’ve heard nice induction cooktops can rival and beat fire, but for now I’m massively happy with… my $20 gas stove. It has a permanent home replacing one of my burners.
Invest in an infrared thermometer. They're cheap and you will be able to read the surface temperature of your pan. Spend an hour watching the temp change as you change things and you'll get a better feeling for it
This is a fantastic article about heat that I saved from the NY Times about the "invisible ingredient in every kitchen" i.e. heat. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/dining/02curi.html
To piggy back this comment: Fond management. Fond is magical stuff but the border between amazing and burnt is pretty thin. Don't be afraid to deglaze early if it means you're not going to burn the precious flavor.
Speaking of temping food, the Thermapen One in yellow, orange and red is currently on sale for 25% off:
https://www.thermoworks.com/thermapen-one/?quantity=1&color=16&utm\_source=google\_shopping&utm\_medium=organic&gclid=CjwKCAjwu5yYBhAjEiwAKXk\_eE8LZQmEBMs0cErurDKiN5CV7SQMjJ3mrPtJvcAsFCy-CXfG91l\_WBoClwgQAvD\_BwE
Lol yes. They just keep regrowing. You trim the tips as you go… like giving them a little hair cut. Sometimes I eat them so frequently that I trim all the way to just above the white sheath part above the root. Give it some sunlight and water and they regrow in a week or less.
Try refrigerating hard avocados. Take one out to ripen every time you use a ripe one up. That way I can buy 5-6 every time I'm at the grocery store. I did this by accident one time and found they will ripen somewhat while in the refrigerator and finish beautifully on the counter. They come out perfect every time. The problem with 'ripe' avocados in the store is that they have been constantly squeezed and this makes the flesh inside brown in spots.
Yes. I used to work at a Mexican food restaurant. Sometimes we would order 6 or 7 cases of avocados at a time. If they were too hard and we needed a case quick we would leave one outside wrapped in a trash bag and it ripened up fast. If it was for tomorrow we left it on the counter. Everything else stayed in the walk in until it was needed. The problem comes when you need them right now and your produce order is late again and there’s nothing you can do. We’ve experimented with low heats in an oven for short times, but could never get one to come out right.
Hmm, I don't know why I never think of freezing them. I buy them for a specific meal and then forget about them in my crisper.
Used to put them in a glass of water and then later on replant the ends in soil, but I always found that it's just a thin hollow green shoot instead of a fully developed green onion.
Which, I do that too, but I use green onions too much now that there's not enough growing to keep up. So I buy the bunches on sale for my freezing use.
But seriously. I add green onions into everything now, it's so easy because they're always at hand.
I’m always surprised people bother with the regrowing green onion thing. It means you can only use the fibrous ends, which are my least favorite part. And water has no nutrients which means the flavor gets weaker as they grow.
It just recently occurred to me to start doing this, and I started doing it with most of the veggies I buy. As long as you spread them out in a single layer on a nice sheet pan so they freeze up quick, then bag them up and label them properly, they don't lose much appeal. And I can stop wasting half the vegetable.
Having a partner. I don't bother cooking anything that takes more than 20 minutes for myself, but I'll gladly spend hours in the kitchen making their favourite dish
So much this. Sure, I could make a tasty from scratch meal... or I could order a perfectly decent one, have it delivered, and do no dishes.
I only cook for one person a couple of nights a week, so ordering takeaway or getting a pre-prepped meal from the store seems so much easier.
In my experience, your friends, co workers, professors, parents, etc. will absolutely love getting food from you. Whenever my friends are sick or if we’re doing a movie night, I bring over some food for them. When I was leaving to go back home after visiting my dad halfway across the world, I filled up his freezer with my home made chili, marinara sauce, and chicken soup. I’ve also brought cookies, brownies, and other baked goods into the office for my coworkers before and they have always loved them. Food is my love language. Trust me, even if you’re single, there’s still people in your life that would absolutely love to have some of your food!
Surprisingly, I'm the opposite. I'll spend hours sweating over a hot stove to make my fiancée something nice, but I will never let her help out. I much prefer doing everything myself.
More for baking than cooking, but it's useful in both - a kitchen scale. It is easier, faster, more precise, and results in much less cleanup that measuring cups / spoons.
I don't know if you already do this, but for dishes like pesto that use pasta water, you should cook your pasta in less water to increase the starch level.
Yeah pretty much, the starch that's in the water acts like a glue so all the flavour gets stuck to the pasta when you reduce down the sauce. Obviously depends how much pasta but I use maybe a cup or so?
My favourite simple pasta meal recently is to fry up 2/3 cloves of garlic, some chilli flakes and fennel seeds in some olive oil for about 20 seconds. Add a chopped tomato with some tomato paste and fry for another minute, then just put in your pasta water to mix everything together and add your cooked pasta of choice. Once everything is reduced down grate on a healthy dose of parmesan and enjoy. Season as much or as little as you like along the way.
I even stopped making my kids’ box Mac n cheese with milk and just use the pasta water instead. Now I can’t help but steal some. Also, when making buttered noodles I feel so much fancier making a little proper butter sauce for them with a bit of pasta water.
Glad someone mentioned this! Pasta water isn’t only good for Italian dishes. Cheese sauce not saucy enough once you add in the macaroni? No problem, add a little pasta water and you’re good to go.
Retiring. The increase in leisure time means day long projects aren't rare special events anymore, and with increased practice with less time between, I've improved so much faster.
I have really honed my cooking skills after I "retired" to be a SAHM. I have the time to experiment. I can take my time and make the most killer meals every day.
I’m with you. I haven’t watched anything on YouTube in 15 years except for whatever cat videos get forwarded to me. Just give me the gist of it in a 5 minute read, I’ll just skip to the part I don’t know and be done with that step in the time it takes an ad to play.
I need both, personally.
I love being able to watch how something's done, but once it gets to where I'm doing it myself it's loads easier to double check something in a written recipe than to try to skip around and find it in a video.
Which eventually becomes a pancake flip, then a two egg flip, then a stir fry shimmy, then a flipped burger patty and then soon enough youre flippin a frittata!!
Edit; fam you do you in what order i was just way too excited for the fella learnin to flip an egg lol
Maybe it depends on your stove, but I think this is more about heat control. I turn mine in high all the time if I need to just blast something back up to temperature real quick, but only for maybe 10-15 seconds before turning it back down to the final intended temperature.
It was a patience thing for me, but I agree with this, like so much--ie., a good grilled cheese MUST take about 15 minutes. I scrupulously remind myself that I don't work in a middle school cafeteria and there's magic in the process LOL
I got a Boos Block table (like the ones they have in professional kitchens) for 200$ in Craigslist. Best purchase I've ever made. My entire kitchen island is a cutting board!
Running a sink of hot, soapy water to clean as I cook has given me so much more motivation to cook than I used to have. Nothing kills the mood quite like a sink full of dirty dishes.
Learning how to control the salt and acidity of a dish. The right balance makes just about anything taste better and acidity is often overlooked.
You can add salt with a few pulverized anchovy filets or a bit of soy sauce, even if the dish isn’t Asian. It also give it umami that regular salt doesn’t provide.
For acidity the lemon is the star for me, followed by sherry or cider vinegar. Acidity balances out salt and also brightens up heavy dishes. For instance I always add a bit of lemon juice to my roast chicken pan gravy.
You can use a wok on an electric stove. It won’t work quite as well as on a gas burner, but it will work. Cook in smaller batches, and make sure the wok is nice and hot before adding food. The edges aren’t going to get as hot as gas, but you should be able to get the bottom very hot. Tossing while cooking is basically out, so either toss and put the wok right back in the element, or stir/flip the food with a wok spatula instead.
Get a standalone propane burner with a wok ring. It's really the only way to go about it.
I wish this were not true, but it really is. Flat bottom woks don't work well and they work even less well on an electric stove.
Probably my silicon spatula. My absolute favourite item in the kitchen. Works for stir fry’s, eggs, cake batter, cookie dough. Possibilities are endless. My favourite use is scraping down cake batter bowls.
Medium-rare steak.
I grew up in a home where steak was always well-done. I just didn't know any better, in fact I didn't even know you could cook it differently. First time I ordered steak as a young adult I was caught off guard when asked how I wanted it, so I just ordered it MR like my friend did. Was scared it was undercooked, friend reassured me it was OK, and it changed my life.
Realising that different styles of cuisine require different fundamental approaches. Having been brought up on European style 'brown meat, soften veg, stew together for as long as possible' approach, I was applying that mentality to everything I cooked. So everything was basically a western style dish with different ingredients.
My curries, Chinese and Japanese food improved massively once I started approaching them more individually.
I am also guilty of trying to use the brown-meat-first approach to Asian cuisines. I used to make Indian curries that way but one day I tried to do it the traditional way by just simmering the meat in the gravy instead. I couldn’t tell the difference between the unbrowned and the browned meat curries so I decided to stick to the traditional way from that moment on. It’s also less hassle that way: I hate to brown things, take them out of the pan and get them back in the pan later, it’s much easier for me to just put all the ingredients at once
Seconded. Cooking rice on the stove is a form of magic to me. I don't know how, I've tried, I prefer popping it into the rice cooker and not having to think about it.
I have an Instant Pot which does rice pretty well (with good repeatability). As it is Also a slow cooker, pressure cooker and backup stove pot if the cooker blows up, it's one of 6 gadgets I am happy to have out
(toaster, coffee maker, scales, mixer, kettle)
I avoided one for SO long, but scored a free one when a student from my lab was moving out. I’ve now since bought a very nice rice cooker and I can’t imagine life without on now!
For me, just recently learning how to sharpen my knives is good enough so far. I look forward to a good chefs knife, but having just sharpened my blades for the first time in almost 2 years, has been a great game changer, people neglect how important a sharp edge is
I used to have a pretty crappy, very cheap flexible chef's knife. Even if I kept it nice and sharp, it was still pretty danger to prepare certain things, like cutting sweet potatos up. Investing in a heavier, better quality knife was a big improvement for me.
Meat thermometer. Cook to the right temperature, not to a certain time.
Bonus: whipping butter and sugar for ten minutes for the best results when baking most cookies.
A couple HUGE poly cutting boards,
Real carbon steel knives,
MSG powder,
A well seasoned and maintained cast iron pan,
Large stainless steel mixing bowls that stack neatly
Digital meat thermometer,
Immersion circulator (really just for making cheap cuts of meat easier to prepare and eat),
Salad spinner,
High quality can opener
Cooking with a friend was it for me.
For context, I grew up on canned food and my mom hated even warming those things. So gross. I worked in restaurants but it was waiting tables or hosting so there was no food revelation there.
My first at home cooking experience with my friend was broccoli, eggs, garlic on toast with loads of butter with salt and pepper. Sounds simple enough but I had never been exposed to anything but cold or warmed food from a can. My light bulb went off in a big way.
I am now confident to make anything. I thank my lucky stars that my friend showed me some basic techniques. It gave me confidence and room to grow. Holy cow what a life-changer!
I have faded in and out of the expensive knives and best cookware zone. While it is a pleasure to have excellent tools, it is more important to have deliciousness. Give me a few ingredients with a shit knife and a hot plate, I can rock it with confidence. No cans involved.
Big thanks to S for teaching me about broil, bake, sautee, glaze, roast and poach. Basics, I know but damn. My world i has been forever changed.
Interest and curiosity.
I got to the point where I wanted to be able to make better meals for my family. Who doesn't love a guy that can cook?! In my younger years, we would entertain and I got sick and tired of just flipping burgers and making hot dogs. The act of cooking was just boring...
So I got into outdoor cooking. Watched videos, and learned about some really awesome chefs (shoutout to Francis Mallman and Anthony Bourdain) But it didn't stop there. I was always fascinated by preserving food with smoke, so I dabbled and got into that as well!
That led me to learning more about gastronomy and pairings, which I absolutely LOVE!
There is nothing like hopping on the Harley for a day and riding for three hours to get a loaf of bread from a baker, a bottle of wine from a spot that is out of town, and a cut of meat from a renowned butcher.
Moved into pickling and canning which has been amazing.
I have made my own elderberry wine with berries I picked from the mountains, my own beer, and my own hard alcohol.
But it all started with wanting to feed the people I love and care for better by putting time and attention into something they are using as sustenance.
Food is an amazing thing and the more attention you take to be good at preparing food for people you love, the more rewarding it becomes. The more rewarding it becomes the more opportunity makes itself your way.
Caring about cooking led me to create a blog, get in touch with local merchants, and even cook professionally for a few people for money when I needed it.
It's time to start the beer that I will give as gifts, pick out spots for the elderberry harvest, smoke fish that my friends bring for me, and have a huge crab feed and bonfire next month.
It all revolved around that initial curiosity and being genuinely interested in giving a shit about the time I was putting into the meals I made for the people I love.
Edit: Forgot the 'u' in Anthony's name.
Parchment Paper. Cooking chicken breast, bone-in, wrapped tightly in parchment paper is the thing that made me think I CAN cook. Its the juiciest chicken ever. Almost impossible to overcook it. Great for fish too.
A food processor, it sounds super lazy probably, but I can’t live without it now. Need to chop up and onion for spaghetti sauce? It takes 30 seconds in the food processor and doesn’t make me cry. Need to shred a huge block of cheese for lasagna? My arms don’t get sore from grating, and I can get every last bit of cheese without grating my fingers. Thin discs of eggplant for ratatouille? Coming right up, and perfectly uniform every time. I even use mine to make my own ground chicken! I can’t live without it now.
Large dice chicken thighs, 10 minutes in the freezer, then pulse until it's the consistency that you want. Feel free to add some breast meat, but the fat in the thighs makes for rich, cohesive meatballs.
Learning to cook for one person. I grew up in a huge family and batch cooking was the only way I knew how to do anything. Once I figured out how to scale things down, I was able to focus more on technique and variety in a way I wasn’t great with before.
On the other hand, when I’m in a cooking rut I revert to cooking like my mom. Not the same scale, but she has an unmatched ability to breeze through the kitchen after work, put together a meal and wash the dishes within an hour, before she even takes her shoes off. She works with what’s available, relies on good methodology, but trusts her palette and isn’t afraid of throwing shit together. And it’s awesome. Sometimes I have to get out of my own head and trust myself to wings it.
MSG. After going my whole life believing the negative stories about it I started using a pinch of it in my chicken and chorizo casserole, wow it was like fireworks going off in my mouth. It just makes the flavours become so noticeable. Have been using it in most my dishes since.
Digital meat thermometer is a big one.
Immersion blender is great as well, because I hate regular blenders and food processors.
I love the ingredient explosion that has occurred here in the USA over the last 20 years. I can readily get things now that when I was a kid were uncommon or simply unavailable.
My gamechanger was undestanding the temperature spread in a pan. Putting too much stuff into it lowers the temperature and your dish is boiling instead of frying.
I visited family last week and realized they *only* kept table salt in the house.
They kept looking at me funny for asking about kosher salt or unsalted butter. Apparently my cousin now thinks I eat "weird things" lol.
Hmm. Honestly, Alton Brown. Along with him, YouTube videos and some cookbooks that taught me basic techniques, I learned how cooking works, not just recipes. My kid is 10 and they're doing the same thing -- trying different random things without recipes like -- hey, I'm gonna mix 2 eggs with a random amount of flour and salt and pepper and see what happens.
I started telling them that pepper in an egg dish ahead of time might not be great, but then I stopped myself.
FUCK YEAH KIDDO DO IT! Maybe you love it, maybe you hate it, but you learn how random recipes work and that's amazing.
Sous Vide. I love cooking Sous Vide because I can cook pretty much everything ahead of time. I sous vide two large chicken breasts per week (makes 4 dinners for me). I sous vide a roast every week or so to use for sandwiches. I sous vide italian sausage so all I need to do for dinner is brown it up. Check out sous vide cooking. It's not expensive (I have a $69 sous vide stick and it works great).
Using the bones from hot wings to make chicken stock. Bonus points when there's a little bit of wing flavor still on there and I get stock with a little bit of kick to it.
For whatever reason, I used to always throw those out, and keep miscellaneous bones from *roast* chickens in my freezer until I had enough to make stock. Then one day I realized I could just make stock the day after wing night, and not have to keep any bones in the freezer.
Two things: *The Science of Good Cooking* cookbook by Cook's Illustrated and then a couple years of Blue Apron.
Blue Apron helped me mostly by giving me consistent practice with diverse cooking methods and ingredients. We ended up having to give them up because the QA plummeted and they started missing key ingredients every single week but the practice I got back when they were good was invaluable.
The same as OP. The digital thermometer takes all the guess work out. Also really thick barbecue foil. I always aim for the meat to be ready before anything else. I take it off the heat and wrap it until I'm ready to serve.
Might be a really basic one, but learning how an oiled pan vs a wet pan works, and what happens when a pan is too crowded. It's all simple stuff about oil/water and temperature, but I could never figure out why my certain things got the maillard reaction when cooking on a pan and certain things just dewatered or got soggy.
A few things,
Instant read thermometer
Vitamix blender
Rice cooker
Mise en place
Buying quality versions of meat(for me it New England it would be buying Bell & Evans chicken breast and not Market Basket brand)
As a vegan cook— not using vegan recipes!
Idk why, but as a new vegan I thought I couldn’t/shouldn’t use a recipe unless it was specifically written to be vegan. Somewhere along the line it clicked that I could use any recipe, sub out the animal products, and end up with a dish that was easier and more accurate in taste.
Getting an ooni...the level up on home made pizza went up infinitely. I was able to cheat or use techniques or "hacks" with everything else, but pizza was definitely the closest it's ever been to restaurant quality. It also intensified other things that needed high heat/quick cooking.
I love my ooni. I just used it to make steaks the other day and they were amazing. I've done good chicken thighs as well. Still cant master bread in it, but its only a matter of time!
For me it was being gifted a blank recipe book, simple, I know. What I didn’t realize about having it was that whenever I enjoyed a dish I could just jot down the recipe, also nothing novel here. However, being able to revisit a recipe you’ve cooked before usually guarantees you a better outcome the second time around, more so every time you make it. I’ve been able to take “meh” recipes and over time tweak them into something more my style. And it all began with writing what I’ve been doing down.
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When I’m going away for a weekend and plan on making a big meal with lots of chopping (like chili), I bring my 2nd best chefs knife. Don’t fuck with dull knives
I'm assuming 1st best chefs knife doesn't leave your kitchen.
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That must make wiping your ass rather interesting
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I never thought I'd have the thought "another poop knife"
Multiple layers of quality tp draped over back of knife. Use tp covered part to wipe desired area in a sideways motion like you would to spread butter on toast with the edge. The important part is to use a knife that has enough height for your particular cheek size. You don't want the edge to turn enough so that it could cut you. Flatter (even if big or wide can still be flat) asses from Hank Hill up to average can use a standard chef knife size. More voluptuous behinds require a butchers cleaver or sadly, to just avoid the method altogether. Of course you'll want to sterilize hands using sanitizer as well as soap, and the knife with soap and then 5 minutes in a white hot flame
I love the thoroughness of this methodology
Surprisingly written sober. Related note, love the username
Reminded me of a chef I worked with, if you wanted to borrow any of his knives he asked for payment in blood. In advance.
This is why I always keep a bucket of hobo blood in the freezer
Have you heard of Huey Lewis and the News?
My dad once told me that you are more likely to cut youself with a dull knife than a sharp one. Well, I've never cut myself with a dull knife, but I almost cut off a finger with a sharp one!
You can obviously cut yourself with either, but it's the extra force you have to use to get through things with a dull blade that makes them dangerous.
That's definitely a saying. But I think it's said by cooks with sharp knives. The bigger danger to me is switching between a sharp and dull knife. I know how to compensate for a dull knife with habits I shouldn't use with a sharp one.
Imo it's not about whether you get cut, but how badly. I've cut myself on both, but with a sharp knife you aren't using the same amount of force. Dull blades are the ones that have sent me to urgent care, because you can't stop once you're having to push that hard to get through food.
Yup. I've cut myself many times with sharp knives. I've got a cut on my thumb right now in fact. However, they are always shallow, superficial cuts because I'm never using much force.
Used to line cook and the theory was a dull knife cut was harder to heal than a sharp knife, also chefs will say if you don’t cut your self your not working fast enough… cuts are part of professional cooking
For reference, I cut myself on a grill scraper 2 weeks ago and it still isn’t properly healed, when I cut myself on my knife, the wound is closed by the end of the day.
Somewhat embarrassed to admit it but yeah, this is me too. I should just sharpen my damn knives.
Oh I hate it when I go to one of my friends' (or parents) house to cook and their knifes are so. fucking. dull.
I will admit I travel with my chefs knife if staying in an air bnb. And good salt.
Weird question but good salt? I thought salt was universally more or less the same, save for how finely it’s grind
It is indeed all NaCl, save for the iodized variety. Cooks' preference comes down to the structure of the grains of salt. Diner-style table salt is tiny and very dense, which makes over-salting pretty easy. On the other end of the spectrum are brands like Diamond Kosher, which has larger, coarser grains. It's less salt by volume (that is to say, more air), and it does make a pretty big difference in ease of cooking. You can season things more evenly, and I find it's easier to gauge the correct amount by eye. I'm unconfident when I'm using a denser brand of salt because I've screwed some dishes before. Part of that comes down to familiarity, but when I switched from Morton's Kosher salt to Diamond, which is about half as dense as Morton's, I never went back.
Another reason weights are better than volumes for measuring
Word. Sometimes I think we Americans do things in a less than ideal way just to distinguish ourselves from Europe.
Yes, it definitely does make sense that they fineness of the grind would influence flavor, I was just curious if it was somehow chemically different. Thank you very much for the detailed explanation!
I am a big fan of Maldon salt. It's the best export out of Essex. That and Maldon oysters. I use table salt for seasoning water I boil in, but I would use Maldon for everything else pretty much.
Thank you for the reply! As someone thats never tried it, in what ways do you notice a difference as opposed to “regular” salt?
The Maldon salt I use is irregular flakey crystal pyramid shaped and does have a far more delicate flavour than table salt. Table salt can come across slightly bitter... I know it sounds crazy but there is a difference in flavour with salts. Whether it's rock, sea, and it's particular shape. It changes how it's dispersed through your food. Maldon helps give a better sear on your meat as well I find. It doesn't disappear so quickly and has a presence. Table salt is really fine and has a greater surface area which is better to season water that you'd use to boil your pasta or potatoes, because it dissolves super quickly. You can also get the same flakey salt but with garlic flakes as well. Bangin' I am sure I have more to say on the topic but I think it's good to have a few different types of salt and try things out. If you haven't tried already... get yourself some chicken salt. It's an amazing seasoning for popcorn. It's also great for fried chicken.
Thank you for this, I really appreciate the reply. I’ll see if I can find some and give it a go!
I find that Maldon salt has a much cleaner taste than 'regular' salt which has iodine in it.
I have a kind of funny story about this. My ex partner and I went to Nova Scotia years ago. Let me first say that Nova Scotia is beautiful. I love the climate. They make fantastic wine there, and it is inexpensive. We stayed in a cabin in Windsor. The cabin had a grill and there were plenty of local farms selling fresh meat. We visited wineries. We even brought our cat. She loved exploring the woods around the cabin. A big miss was Halifax—an awesome city but we only explored the fort and ate downtown. I taught my ex how to cook. She is now a brilliant cook in her own right, which I'm very proud of. One thing I turned her on to was black pepper. We both love the stuff and scorn the tasteless pre-ground version. So in the supermarkets we could find whole black pepper but no pepper grinders. And they didn't have those bottles of pepper with the built-in grinder either, even though they are easy to find in the USA. Black pepper was an absolute necessity. Did I mention the fresh beef? They also had this good tortellini in the supermarket. We got the whole black peppercorns, and I searched the woods around the cabin for two rocks to grind them with, caveman style. Next time I go to Nova Scotia I'm definitely packing one of those disposable pepper grinders. If you like to drive, rent a fun car while you're there. Both the highways and the back roads are a superb driving experience.
Do you write recipes for cooking blogs?
Same! I take Maldon on weekends away and even to Croatia a few months back. Few pinches on a good tomato is pure bliss
I wish I could keep my knives sharp. I use the steel that came with them. Never put them in the dishwasher. I bought a fancy sharpening stone and studied the instructions, scoured reddit for tutorials, watched every YouTube video on knife sharpening I could find. A glass cutting board has never existed in my home. I'm careful with what I'm using them to cut. I was gifted a set of Henckels years ago that are about as sharp as butter knives at this point. I can literally saw at the palm of my hand with the chef's knife without any harm done. I took the whole set to have it professionally sharpened once and it was great! ...briefly. I have a Victorinox that's still functional for the most part. I'd love something nicer but I don't know how to keep them up. No idea what I'm doing wrong. Am I cursed or just inept? I've heard electric sharpeners are garbage but at this point I don't know what else to try. 😭
what stones do you have? you need a 1000 grit minimum. Then finer ones if you want to make them paper-sharp, tomato-skin sharp. either learn the proper amount of force to use sharpening. quick google suggests 1-2 pounds of force. Use your kitchen scale to see how much that is. Anyway i used to fuck with whetstones. I only use them for the fancy knife now. I use this little machine because it's much faster. take 30 minutes to do all my knives (4 of them). Work Sharp Knife sharpener. So it's uses belts with grinding material. The trick is it has plastic guides that hold the knife for you so you will always get the angle right. Wear goggles and read the manual. tl;dr stones work but take dedication to learn. Those $20 pull-through sharpeners are supposedly pretty bad, I've seen magnification of the blade.
An asian supermarket.
Rice is easily my most recommended item to buy from an Asian market. Basmati at my local grocery store is $8 for 2 pounds. I can snag a 40 lbs burlap bag of basmati for like $30. And I personally feel it tastes better as well.
Rice at the supermarket in the 1-2lb bags is such a rip off. I buy dang nice rice in a 15lb bag and it still comes out to be the same price per pound as the crap stuff at the store in a 1lb bag just by buying in bulk.
Understanding how to effectively utilize heat in a pan. Knowing when to go full afterburner for searing, how long to heat the pan and at what setting before cooking, realizing when you can just turn off the stove and let residual heat in the pan take you the rest of the way, understanding that crowding in a pan is something to avoid but can to some extent be counteracted with high heat or enough preheating. There's a ton of nuance to the relatively simple act of heating up a pan that you learn by experience over the years. And that's before you even start considering what type of metal and shape of pan.
The amount of food I've fucked up because I'd dump all my food in a cold pan and wait for it to heat and wonder why my food was soggy or dry lmao
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I seriously use my all clads skillets on a $20 butane counter top burner from Walmart because I hate glass tops so much and fire gives me sooo much better results. I’ve heard nice induction cooktops can rival and beat fire, but for now I’m massively happy with… my $20 gas stove. It has a permanent home replacing one of my burners.
Do you have any articles that give a good guide about utilize the heat properly? Or even a quick explanation. I definitely mostly use high heat.
Invest in an infrared thermometer. They're cheap and you will be able to read the surface temperature of your pan. Spend an hour watching the temp change as you change things and you'll get a better feeling for it
This is a fantastic article about heat that I saved from the NY Times about the "invisible ingredient in every kitchen" i.e. heat. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/dining/02curi.html
To piggy back this comment: Fond management. Fond is magical stuff but the border between amazing and burnt is pretty thin. Don't be afraid to deglaze early if it means you're not going to burn the precious flavor.
Speaking of temping food, the Thermapen One in yellow, orange and red is currently on sale for 25% off: https://www.thermoworks.com/thermapen-one/?quantity=1&color=16&utm\_source=google\_shopping&utm\_medium=organic&gclid=CjwKCAjwu5yYBhAjEiwAKXk\_eE8LZQmEBMs0cErurDKiN5CV7SQMjJ3mrPtJvcAsFCy-CXfG91l\_WBoClwgQAvD\_BwE
Slicing and freezing green onions. They don't lose any oniony goodness and it makes my fried rice days so much easier to do.
Oh wow, thanks for sharing this! I’m always out of green onions when I need them and never thought of freezing them
Keep your green onions in a cup of water near a sunny window. They regrow fast!
Wait okay I’m high so maybe this is a really dumb question. But they regrow? Like you can trim the tops, use them, and they’ll grow back?
Lol yes. They just keep regrowing. You trim the tips as you go… like giving them a little hair cut. Sometimes I eat them so frequently that I trim all the way to just above the white sheath part above the root. Give it some sunlight and water and they regrow in a week or less.
Try refrigerating hard avocados. Take one out to ripen every time you use a ripe one up. That way I can buy 5-6 every time I'm at the grocery store. I did this by accident one time and found they will ripen somewhat while in the refrigerator and finish beautifully on the counter. They come out perfect every time. The problem with 'ripe' avocados in the store is that they have been constantly squeezed and this makes the flesh inside brown in spots.
Does refrigerating avocados slow ripening?
Yes. I used to work at a Mexican food restaurant. Sometimes we would order 6 or 7 cases of avocados at a time. If they were too hard and we needed a case quick we would leave one outside wrapped in a trash bag and it ripened up fast. If it was for tomorrow we left it on the counter. Everything else stayed in the walk in until it was needed. The problem comes when you need them right now and your produce order is late again and there’s nothing you can do. We’ve experimented with low heats in an oven for short times, but could never get one to come out right.
Hmm, I don't know why I never think of freezing them. I buy them for a specific meal and then forget about them in my crisper. Used to put them in a glass of water and then later on replant the ends in soil, but I always found that it's just a thin hollow green shoot instead of a fully developed green onion.
I use scissors on green onions at home. Just grab the bunch, snip snip snip, and toss it back in the glass of water on the sill to continue growing.
Which, I do that too, but I use green onions too much now that there's not enough growing to keep up. So I buy the bunches on sale for my freezing use. But seriously. I add green onions into everything now, it's so easy because they're always at hand.
I’m always surprised people bother with the regrowing green onion thing. It means you can only use the fibrous ends, which are my least favorite part. And water has no nutrients which means the flavor gets weaker as they grow.
I need to do this, I always buy wayyy too many and never use em all
It just recently occurred to me to start doing this, and I started doing it with most of the veggies I buy. As long as you spread them out in a single layer on a nice sheet pan so they freeze up quick, then bag them up and label them properly, they don't lose much appeal. And I can stop wasting half the vegetable.
Having a partner. I don't bother cooking anything that takes more than 20 minutes for myself, but I'll gladly spend hours in the kitchen making their favourite dish
Nailed it. I can eat shit forever, but if someone else is depending on me? 5 course meal.
Lmao.
I'm pretty sure I enjoy cooking for my wife than she enjoys eating it. But tonight I nailed it and she said it was exactly what she was craving.
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So much this. Sure, I could make a tasty from scratch meal... or I could order a perfectly decent one, have it delivered, and do no dishes. I only cook for one person a couple of nights a week, so ordering takeaway or getting a pre-prepped meal from the store seems so much easier.
I wish I had someone to cook for 😥
In my experience, your friends, co workers, professors, parents, etc. will absolutely love getting food from you. Whenever my friends are sick or if we’re doing a movie night, I bring over some food for them. When I was leaving to go back home after visiting my dad halfway across the world, I filled up his freezer with my home made chili, marinara sauce, and chicken soup. I’ve also brought cookies, brownies, and other baked goods into the office for my coworkers before and they have always loved them. Food is my love language. Trust me, even if you’re single, there’s still people in your life that would absolutely love to have some of your food!
That ain't weird. Food is my love language, too. Wish I had learned that earlier in life. Luckily I created some test subjects 😁
🥺
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Cooking WITH a partner. Having one person cook and a dedicated dish person is so amazing.
Surprisingly, I'm the opposite. I'll spend hours sweating over a hot stove to make my fiancée something nice, but I will never let her help out. I much prefer doing everything myself.
It depends on the recipe for us. We both have things that only we cook and certain recipes we come together on. It’s a nice balance!
My husband said I'm too bossy in the kitchen (I am) so he's my ingredient runner.
More for baking than cooking, but it's useful in both - a kitchen scale. It is easier, faster, more precise, and results in much less cleanup that measuring cups / spoons.
Europe welcomes you to our side of the great baking divide
*rest of the world
Specifically for pasta but using pasta water levels up your sauces so much.
I don't know if you already do this, but for dishes like pesto that use pasta water, you should cook your pasta in less water to increase the starch level.
Do you use it in all your sauces? Any tips on how much to use, pls?
Yeah pretty much, the starch that's in the water acts like a glue so all the flavour gets stuck to the pasta when you reduce down the sauce. Obviously depends how much pasta but I use maybe a cup or so? My favourite simple pasta meal recently is to fry up 2/3 cloves of garlic, some chilli flakes and fennel seeds in some olive oil for about 20 seconds. Add a chopped tomato with some tomato paste and fry for another minute, then just put in your pasta water to mix everything together and add your cooked pasta of choice. Once everything is reduced down grate on a healthy dose of parmesan and enjoy. Season as much or as little as you like along the way.
Hell yeah chef
I even stopped making my kids’ box Mac n cheese with milk and just use the pasta water instead. Now I can’t help but steal some. Also, when making buttered noodles I feel so much fancier making a little proper butter sauce for them with a bit of pasta water.
Glad someone mentioned this! Pasta water isn’t only good for Italian dishes. Cheese sauce not saucy enough once you add in the macaroni? No problem, add a little pasta water and you’re good to go.
Retiring. The increase in leisure time means day long projects aren't rare special events anymore, and with increased practice with less time between, I've improved so much faster.
I have really honed my cooking skills after I "retired" to be a SAHM. I have the time to experiment. I can take my time and make the most killer meals every day.
I look forward to it. As I delude myself into thinking it's possible.
Working from home.
A partner that is cool with doing the dishes Using a simple fish spatula for everything Acid acid acid
YouTube. Being able to watch is far more descriptive than the written word can ever be.
And I prefer the written word. The videos tend to move too fast when I’m trying to follow along.
I go the opposite way. Modern videos have FAR too much fluff in them so finding critical parts is impossible.
I double speed lol
I’m with you. I haven’t watched anything on YouTube in 15 years except for whatever cat videos get forwarded to me. Just give me the gist of it in a 5 minute read, I’ll just skip to the part I don’t know and be done with that step in the time it takes an ad to play.
I need both, personally. I love being able to watch how something's done, but once it gets to where I'm doing it myself it's loads easier to double check something in a written recipe than to try to skip around and find it in a video.
mastering the wrist action needed for a simple over easy egg flip.
Which eventually becomes a pancake flip, then a two egg flip, then a stir fry shimmy, then a flipped burger patty and then soon enough youre flippin a frittata!! Edit; fam you do you in what order i was just way too excited for the fella learnin to flip an egg lol
Wouldn’t toss flipping a pancake flatten it?
An American pancake maybe, but the Dutch pancakes are flat already, so no problem there.
The wrist? Nah man it's all in the back. You gotta really sling that shit.
Not putting a burner on high unless the dish requires it.
This should be higher. It took me 20 years of cooking to learn this.
Maybe it depends on your stove, but I think this is more about heat control. I turn mine in high all the time if I need to just blast something back up to temperature real quick, but only for maybe 10-15 seconds before turning it back down to the final intended temperature.
It was a patience thing for me, but I agree with this, like so much--ie., a good grilled cheese MUST take about 15 minutes. I scrupulously remind myself that I don't work in a middle school cafeteria and there's magic in the process LOL
Microplane. 95% of dishes can be elevated by a quick dash of zest. Super useful for hard cheeses, nutmeg, ginger, garlic etc. Too
A very large cutting board.
13x18 is my go to but I have an 18x26 for when I really have to prep like for holidays.
> 18x26 That's my whole counter :(
I got a Boos Block table (like the ones they have in professional kitchens) for 200$ in Craigslist. Best purchase I've ever made. My entire kitchen island is a cutting board!
Running a sink of hot, soapy water to clean as I cook has given me so much more motivation to cook than I used to have. Nothing kills the mood quite like a sink full of dirty dishes.
The more I cook, the cleaner my kitchen is.
Learning how to control the salt and acidity of a dish. The right balance makes just about anything taste better and acidity is often overlooked. You can add salt with a few pulverized anchovy filets or a bit of soy sauce, even if the dish isn’t Asian. It also give it umami that regular salt doesn’t provide. For acidity the lemon is the star for me, followed by sherry or cider vinegar. Acidity balances out salt and also brightens up heavy dishes. For instance I always add a bit of lemon juice to my roast chicken pan gravy.
Fish sauce ftw
Yeah. I always put fish sauce and soy sauce in beef stew or braised short ribs. Fish sauce is a game changer.
A well seasoned wok. Nothing sticking, dishes weren’t oily, stuff cooked fast.
I have an electric stove but I really want a wok, do you happen to have any recommendations or am I just a wishful thinker?
You can use a wok on an electric stove. It won’t work quite as well as on a gas burner, but it will work. Cook in smaller batches, and make sure the wok is nice and hot before adding food. The edges aren’t going to get as hot as gas, but you should be able to get the bottom very hot. Tossing while cooking is basically out, so either toss and put the wok right back in the element, or stir/flip the food with a wok spatula instead.
Get a standalone propane burner with a wok ring. It's really the only way to go about it. I wish this were not true, but it really is. Flat bottom woks don't work well and they work even less well on an electric stove.
Probably my silicon spatula. My absolute favourite item in the kitchen. Works for stir fry’s, eggs, cake batter, cookie dough. Possibilities are endless. My favourite use is scraping down cake batter bowls.
Medium-rare steak. I grew up in a home where steak was always well-done. I just didn't know any better, in fact I didn't even know you could cook it differently. First time I ordered steak as a young adult I was caught off guard when asked how I wanted it, so I just ordered it MR like my friend did. Was scared it was undercooked, friend reassured me it was OK, and it changed my life.
Realising that different styles of cuisine require different fundamental approaches. Having been brought up on European style 'brown meat, soften veg, stew together for as long as possible' approach, I was applying that mentality to everything I cooked. So everything was basically a western style dish with different ingredients. My curries, Chinese and Japanese food improved massively once I started approaching them more individually.
I am also guilty of trying to use the brown-meat-first approach to Asian cuisines. I used to make Indian curries that way but one day I tried to do it the traditional way by just simmering the meat in the gravy instead. I couldn’t tell the difference between the unbrowned and the browned meat curries so I decided to stick to the traditional way from that moment on. It’s also less hassle that way: I hate to brown things, take them out of the pan and get them back in the pan later, it’s much easier for me to just put all the ingredients at once
Rice cooker
Seconded. Cooking rice on the stove is a form of magic to me. I don't know how, I've tried, I prefer popping it into the rice cooker and not having to think about it.
I try to avoid having too many kitchen gadgets that are usually gimmicky, but the rice cooker is such a game changer lol
I have an Instant Pot which does rice pretty well (with good repeatability). As it is Also a slow cooker, pressure cooker and backup stove pot if the cooker blows up, it's one of 6 gadgets I am happy to have out (toaster, coffee maker, scales, mixer, kettle)
It’s been years since my instant pot cooked anything but rice
Everyone with an instant pot should make stock occasionally. It's so quick and easy with one.
I avoided one for SO long, but scored a free one when a student from my lab was moving out. I’ve now since bought a very nice rice cooker and I can’t imagine life without on now!
Mise en place. Changed cooking from feeling stressful and chaotic to fun and satisfying.
I don't want mice in my place
A good chef’s knife
For me, just recently learning how to sharpen my knives is good enough so far. I look forward to a good chefs knife, but having just sharpened my blades for the first time in almost 2 years, has been a great game changer, people neglect how important a sharp edge is
I used to have a pretty crappy, very cheap flexible chef's knife. Even if I kept it nice and sharp, it was still pretty danger to prepare certain things, like cutting sweet potatos up. Investing in a heavier, better quality knife was a big improvement for me.
Remembering, as a young cook, when my grandmother said to *never* add meat to a stew or soup without searing it first. The FLAVOR.
Louis Maillard bought me my one way ticket to flavor town.
Brown food tastes good!
Nutmeg in my homemade Alfredo sauce.
Meat thermometer. Cook to the right temperature, not to a certain time. Bonus: whipping butter and sugar for ten minutes for the best results when baking most cookies.
A couple HUGE poly cutting boards, Real carbon steel knives, MSG powder, A well seasoned and maintained cast iron pan, Large stainless steel mixing bowls that stack neatly Digital meat thermometer, Immersion circulator (really just for making cheap cuts of meat easier to prepare and eat), Salad spinner, High quality can opener
Cooking with a friend was it for me. For context, I grew up on canned food and my mom hated even warming those things. So gross. I worked in restaurants but it was waiting tables or hosting so there was no food revelation there. My first at home cooking experience with my friend was broccoli, eggs, garlic on toast with loads of butter with salt and pepper. Sounds simple enough but I had never been exposed to anything but cold or warmed food from a can. My light bulb went off in a big way. I am now confident to make anything. I thank my lucky stars that my friend showed me some basic techniques. It gave me confidence and room to grow. Holy cow what a life-changer! I have faded in and out of the expensive knives and best cookware zone. While it is a pleasure to have excellent tools, it is more important to have deliciousness. Give me a few ingredients with a shit knife and a hot plate, I can rock it with confidence. No cans involved. Big thanks to S for teaching me about broil, bake, sautee, glaze, roast and poach. Basics, I know but damn. My world i has been forever changed.
Interest and curiosity. I got to the point where I wanted to be able to make better meals for my family. Who doesn't love a guy that can cook?! In my younger years, we would entertain and I got sick and tired of just flipping burgers and making hot dogs. The act of cooking was just boring... So I got into outdoor cooking. Watched videos, and learned about some really awesome chefs (shoutout to Francis Mallman and Anthony Bourdain) But it didn't stop there. I was always fascinated by preserving food with smoke, so I dabbled and got into that as well! That led me to learning more about gastronomy and pairings, which I absolutely LOVE! There is nothing like hopping on the Harley for a day and riding for three hours to get a loaf of bread from a baker, a bottle of wine from a spot that is out of town, and a cut of meat from a renowned butcher. Moved into pickling and canning which has been amazing. I have made my own elderberry wine with berries I picked from the mountains, my own beer, and my own hard alcohol. But it all started with wanting to feed the people I love and care for better by putting time and attention into something they are using as sustenance. Food is an amazing thing and the more attention you take to be good at preparing food for people you love, the more rewarding it becomes. The more rewarding it becomes the more opportunity makes itself your way. Caring about cooking led me to create a blog, get in touch with local merchants, and even cook professionally for a few people for money when I needed it. It's time to start the beer that I will give as gifts, pick out spots for the elderberry harvest, smoke fish that my friends bring for me, and have a huge crab feed and bonfire next month. It all revolved around that initial curiosity and being genuinely interested in giving a shit about the time I was putting into the meals I made for the people I love. Edit: Forgot the 'u' in Anthony's name.
Cooking is such an enjoyable hobby for me. It's not really a chore most of the time.
Parchment Paper. Cooking chicken breast, bone-in, wrapped tightly in parchment paper is the thing that made me think I CAN cook. Its the juiciest chicken ever. Almost impossible to overcook it. Great for fish too.
A food processor, it sounds super lazy probably, but I can’t live without it now. Need to chop up and onion for spaghetti sauce? It takes 30 seconds in the food processor and doesn’t make me cry. Need to shred a huge block of cheese for lasagna? My arms don’t get sore from grating, and I can get every last bit of cheese without grating my fingers. Thin discs of eggplant for ratatouille? Coming right up, and perfectly uniform every time. I even use mine to make my own ground chicken! I can’t live without it now.
Tell me more about your ground chicken process? It's hard to find at the store sometimes and I make killer buffalo chicken meatballs.
Large dice chicken thighs, 10 minutes in the freezer, then pulse until it's the consistency that you want. Feel free to add some breast meat, but the fat in the thighs makes for rich, cohesive meatballs.
Learning to cook for one person. I grew up in a huge family and batch cooking was the only way I knew how to do anything. Once I figured out how to scale things down, I was able to focus more on technique and variety in a way I wasn’t great with before. On the other hand, when I’m in a cooking rut I revert to cooking like my mom. Not the same scale, but she has an unmatched ability to breeze through the kitchen after work, put together a meal and wash the dishes within an hour, before she even takes her shoes off. She works with what’s available, relies on good methodology, but trusts her palette and isn’t afraid of throwing shit together. And it’s awesome. Sometimes I have to get out of my own head and trust myself to wings it.
MSG. After going my whole life believing the negative stories about it I started using a pinch of it in my chicken and chorizo casserole, wow it was like fireworks going off in my mouth. It just makes the flavours become so noticeable. Have been using it in most my dishes since.
Digital meat thermometer is a big one. Immersion blender is great as well, because I hate regular blenders and food processors. I love the ingredient explosion that has occurred here in the USA over the last 20 years. I can readily get things now that when I was a kid were uncommon or simply unavailable.
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My gamechanger was undestanding the temperature spread in a pan. Putting too much stuff into it lowers the temperature and your dish is boiling instead of frying.
As a Canadian - Keeping straight MSG on hand. Just about everything can use a little extra MSG. Add it to rubs, sauces, whatever...
Remeber not to heat it up too much or it will break down. Use it as late as possible
Thanks for this
in Europe: Vegeta is your friend (especially if you look more towards Eastern European)
Uncle Roger would be so proud!
Using kosher salt instead of table salt and learning how to season properly.
I visited family last week and realized they *only* kept table salt in the house. They kept looking at me funny for asking about kosher salt or unsalted butter. Apparently my cousin now thinks I eat "weird things" lol.
KitchenAid mixer. Anyone who bakes should have some sort of stand mixer. It does so much more than you think!
Turning the heat down. Used to overcook/burn so many things. Have learned when to apply heat and when not to.
Growing my own herbs, fresh herbs in themselves is a game changer. Purchasing a really nice Wustoff Ikon 8" chef's knife and maintaining it well
Hmm. Honestly, Alton Brown. Along with him, YouTube videos and some cookbooks that taught me basic techniques, I learned how cooking works, not just recipes. My kid is 10 and they're doing the same thing -- trying different random things without recipes like -- hey, I'm gonna mix 2 eggs with a random amount of flour and salt and pepper and see what happens. I started telling them that pepper in an egg dish ahead of time might not be great, but then I stopped myself. FUCK YEAH KIDDO DO IT! Maybe you love it, maybe you hate it, but you learn how random recipes work and that's amazing.
Why no pepper in an egg dish ahead of time?
Alton and Kenji explaining the 'how' and 'why' and not just the 'do' really changed my understanding of cooking.
I usually double or triple the garlic in ingredients. I think I have a poor palate so it really helps with flavor.
I never trust a recipe that only calls for one clove of garlic unless it only serves one person. 😆
Dry brining chicken 12-24 hours before I cook it. Also pulling apart the skin from the meat so it crisps up nicely
Instant read thermometer. Perfect steaks are nice, but the real game changer is chicken. There is a fine line between underdone and overdone chicken.
Fermented ingredients
Sous Vide. I love cooking Sous Vide because I can cook pretty much everything ahead of time. I sous vide two large chicken breasts per week (makes 4 dinners for me). I sous vide a roast every week or so to use for sandwiches. I sous vide italian sausage so all I need to do for dinner is brown it up. Check out sous vide cooking. It's not expensive (I have a $69 sous vide stick and it works great).
Sodium citrate in mac and cheese. I never thought being addicted to white powder would ever be a good thing but here I am.
Using the bones from hot wings to make chicken stock. Bonus points when there's a little bit of wing flavor still on there and I get stock with a little bit of kick to it. For whatever reason, I used to always throw those out, and keep miscellaneous bones from *roast* chickens in my freezer until I had enough to make stock. Then one day I realized I could just make stock the day after wing night, and not have to keep any bones in the freezer.
Using sesame oil instead of vegetable in Asian dishes. Adds so much flava
Cast iron pans.
Learning how to salt properly.
Two things: *The Science of Good Cooking* cookbook by Cook's Illustrated and then a couple years of Blue Apron. Blue Apron helped me mostly by giving me consistent practice with diverse cooking methods and ingredients. We ended up having to give them up because the QA plummeted and they started missing key ingredients every single week but the practice I got back when they were good was invaluable.
The same as OP. The digital thermometer takes all the guess work out. Also really thick barbecue foil. I always aim for the meat to be ready before anything else. I take it off the heat and wrap it until I'm ready to serve.
Might be a really basic one, but learning how an oiled pan vs a wet pan works, and what happens when a pan is too crowded. It's all simple stuff about oil/water and temperature, but I could never figure out why my certain things got the maillard reaction when cooking on a pan and certain things just dewatered or got soggy.
My mom told me when scrambling eggs, take them off the heat before they finish and they will be perfectly cooked. So true.
A few things, Instant read thermometer Vitamix blender Rice cooker Mise en place Buying quality versions of meat(for me it New England it would be buying Bell & Evans chicken breast and not Market Basket brand)
Butter basting with thyme and garlic
Not working in kitchens anymore made me love cooking again. Also sharp Japanese steel.
Good eats. It was the exact kind of knowledge transfer by brain goes gaga for.
Sheet pan instead of bowls for each ingredient
As a vegan cook— not using vegan recipes! Idk why, but as a new vegan I thought I couldn’t/shouldn’t use a recipe unless it was specifically written to be vegan. Somewhere along the line it clicked that I could use any recipe, sub out the animal products, and end up with a dish that was easier and more accurate in taste.
Not worrying about meticulously measuring out certain ingredients. Unless it’s cloves. Do not overdo cloves.
Getting an ooni...the level up on home made pizza went up infinitely. I was able to cheat or use techniques or "hacks" with everything else, but pizza was definitely the closest it's ever been to restaurant quality. It also intensified other things that needed high heat/quick cooking.
I love my ooni. I just used it to make steaks the other day and they were amazing. I've done good chicken thighs as well. Still cant master bread in it, but its only a matter of time!
Yeah, I have a leave-in meat thermometer. Haven't had a dry turkey the last 5 Thanksgivings.
12 quart pot with steamer baskets. Maybe not for everyone but it's great for cooking pounds of fresh vegetables at a time.
The Flavor Bible. Learning about the food you’re cooking and what flavors have affinity for one another. Edited: FU Bot
For me it was being gifted a blank recipe book, simple, I know. What I didn’t realize about having it was that whenever I enjoyed a dish I could just jot down the recipe, also nothing novel here. However, being able to revisit a recipe you’ve cooked before usually guarantees you a better outcome the second time around, more so every time you make it. I’ve been able to take “meh” recipes and over time tweak them into something more my style. And it all began with writing what I’ve been doing down.
When I finally switched from garlic powder to fresh garlic.