I'd like to learn how to make better food

[omni550]

I'm finding that I'm learning to appreciate better food, likely from hanging around "foodie friends" and would like to 'up' my skill set.

I can cook simple things, although I often eat out (simply as it's easier for a single person on-the-go). Following recipes is not an issue for me either.

From reading various posts over time, I know there are some foodie folks here. I'm asking for your input/suggestions on how I can go about learning to make better food...is it skills, recipes, ingredients, spices, or what?

omni

 

[RetiredGypsy]

I think experience goes a long way, and everything else also matters. After a decade of cooking anything from simple to fancy, I've gotten a feel for what combines well with what. I'm sure there are culinary text books that break down flavor pallet combinations and why they work together, but since great taste is so subjective, you have to learn what works for you.

I use fresh ingredients every chance I get. Quality ingredients and knowing what to do with them make the meal.

Renting every Good Eats DVD set from the library wouldn't hurt either, along with checking out food blogs.

 

[MRG]

I've changing my diet in order to lose weight. Been using Clean Eating online magazine. Pinterest and All Recipes are great as well. As RetiredGypsy mentioned there many resources available, Good Eats is great very instructional.

There is a member recipe thread here too, it's been responsible for some great meal ideas.

 

[Meadbh]

Great question, omni. I asked the same question a few years ago. Since ER my culinary skills have blossomed. I now enjoy making most of my own meals and people look forward to sampling my creations at parties. I have recently been asked if I would give cooking lessons, which I find very amusing considering how clueless I used to be! Here are some of the contributing factors to my improvement:

1. I live in an area where an abundance of food is grown. Who needs stabilizers and preservatives when your food goes from farm to table?
2. My current home has a spacious kitchen with oodles of counter space. This makes it a pleasure to cook.
3. I have gradually upgraded my kitchen tools. Best investments so far: stainless steel pan set by Gordon Ramsay for Royal Doulton ($0 with Air Miles); a Wusthof chef's knife, a multitude of bowls and ramekins (mise en place means having everything chopped up and ready to go before you start), and a food processor (home made pesto, anyone?).
4. I took a couple of hands-on cooking workshops with a local chef. Not only was it fun, but I learnt the importance of having the right tools (see #3).
5. YouTube! I have accumulated many cookbooks over the years but as a visual learner I find it much easier to learn techniques by watching real people cook. I have added quite a few cooking vlogs to my favourites list. Here are a few:

Laura in the Kitchen (Italian)
Donal Skehan (Irish)
The Domestic Geek (Canadian and very healthy)
Joy of Baking (Canadian-American. Award winning very detailed videos with measurements in metric and imperial units)
Bake like a Pro (Canadian)
Chef Buck (Southern. He does amazing things in a tiny kitchen!)
Ochikeron (Create Eat Happy. Japanese)
Hot Thai Kitchen
Everyday Food (American)
Cooking with Alia (Moroccan)
Jamie Oliver's Food Tube (British)
French Guy Cooking
Byron Talbott (American)

 

[braumeister]

I think several people here recently took this course and enjoyed it a lot.

Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science
Top chefs and Harvard researchers explore how everyday cooking and haute cuisine can illuminate basic principles in physics and engineering, and vice versa.

 

[Meadbh]

I think several people here recently took this course and enjoyed it a lot.

Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science
Top chefs and Harvard researchers explore how everyday cooking and haute cuisine can illuminate basic principles in physics and engineering, and vice versa.

I audited this course but didn't do the homework. I enjoyed it, and I learnt a lot about the science of cooking, but not a lot about cooking per se. Some of the haute cuisine chefs were doing some interesting and no doubt very expensive chemical experiments with food.

 

[braumeister]

I audited this course but didn't do the homework. I enjoyed it, and I learnt a lot about the science of cooking, but not a lot about cooking per se. Some of the haute cuisine chefs were doing some interesting and no doubt very expensive chemical experiments with food.

Absolutely right. I was also just auditing it.

For a much more comprehensive and practical reference for that stuff, you can't possibly beat the classic work in the field:

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee

 

[Big_Hitter]

I stick to the basics and have gotten really good at them:


fried turkey/wings (hard to mess those up)
chili
gumbo
jambalaya
red beanz and ryce
grilling - meats, fajitas, veggies, etc

 

[braumeister]

I stick to the basics and have gotten really good at them:

Similarly, I've never taken anything off my Big Green Egg that wasn't wonderful.

 

[BBQ-Nut]

Even 'fool proof' recipes need practice in your home on your stove, oven, or grill using your utensils.


You need to know your kitchen as well as the ingredients & the recipe for any given meal.


Then it's a matter of just doing it and getting better each time. Just go for it!

 

[prose3589]

I love cooking. Hoping to explore more of the same when I semi retire. May even take a class or two.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[Big_Hitter]

Similarly, I've never taken anything off my Big Green Egg that wasn't wonderful.

I wish I could afford one of those...

 

[braumeister]

You need to know your kitchen as well as the ingredients & the recipe for any given meal.

Interesting point. The first lesson in that course I mentioned had an exercise where you calibrated your oven. I was surprised to find that mine reads about 10% higher than its actual temperature.

For those who might want to try this, it's easy:
Preheat your oven to 350°F (177°C) for 15 minutes.
Take a piece of aluminum foil (aluminium for our Canadian members) and place about a half teaspoon of sugar on it.
Place it in the center of the oven for 15 minutes to stabilize.
If the sugar doesn't melt, raise the temperature in the smallest increments and wait 5-10 minutes each time for stabilization.
Keep doing this until the sugar melts.

When your sugar melts, you know that the oven is at or above the melting point of sugar, which is 366°F (186°C).

So your calibration curve is now a known factor.
T = Tdial + 366 - Tmelt (for Fahrenheit)
or
T = Tdial + 185 - Tmelt (for Celsius)

Let's say your sugar melted at 400°F according to your oven. You now know that when your oven says 400, it's actually 366 (or very slightly higher).

Real world commentary:
We recently moved, and I used this technique to calibrate the oven in our new condo. DW had expressed surprise that something she was used to baking had turned out underdone. I gave her the correction and the next time she had perfect results.

 

[braumeister]

I wish I could afford one of those...

The only way IMHO to buy a Big Green Egg is at an EggFest.

Watch the schedule to find one close to you, then contact the organizer to pre-order one.

The way this works is that the dealer gets a large number of BGEs for the EggFest. Each one is used that day to prepare some food for the attendees.
At the end of the day, those Eggs (which have been used exactly once) are sold to those who pre-ordered them at (at least) a 20% discount from new.

EGGfests - Big Green Egg - The Ultimate Cooking Experience

 

[Big_Hitter]

^ everyone here uses traegers - are those similar?

 

[braumeister]

^ everyone here uses traegers - are those similar?

Tough question.
Both are really great IMHO, but not very similar.
My vote is for the Egg, mainly because it will last forever. Traegers generally start to deteriorate noticeably after a few years. But both will produce some awesome dinners.

 

[Big_Hitter]

Tough question.
Both are really great IMHO, but not very similar.
My vote is for the Egg, mainly because it will last forever. Traegers generally start to deteriorate noticeably after a few years. But both will produce some awesome dinners.

I use one of these cause I'm cheap and I can leave it out in the rain

PK Classic Charcoal Grill and Smoker | Portable Kitchen

 

[braumeister]

I use one of these cause I'm cheap and I can leave it out in the rain

PK Classic Charcoal Grill and Smoker | Portable Kitchen

Nothing wrong with that; I'm sure it works well.

But I can set my BGE at a temperature and it will maintain that temp for many hours. Essential for something like ribs, brisket, pork
butt, etc.

The key is that the BGE is very thick ceramic that holds the heat.

 

[NW-Bound]

Earlier posters mentioned Alton Brown's Good Eats show. This was my favorite cooking show on cable when I first learned to cook, some 12 years ago.

Once I learned the basic techniques, I have been picking up recipes from the Web or youtube. One channel on youtube I like is Food Wishes by Chef John.


About the BGE, I only learned of it on this forum. The high temperature it produces makes for good grilling no doubt, but for casual and everyday use I like the convenience of my lowly propane grill.

 

[Big_Hitter]

yeah the PK can be a challenge to keep at one temp for a long time

 

[braumeister]

About the BGE, I only learned of it on this forum. The high temperature it produces makes for good grilling no doubt, but for casual and everyday use I like the convenience of my lowly propane grill.

I think the key factor here is that many people tend to confuse barbecuing and grilling in their minds without quite realizing it. Most seem to use them interchangeably, but they are quite different.

Grilling (what most of us do in the back yard) is cooking over direct heat, usually at hotter temperatures than barbecuing. Grilling is normally done using gas, charcoal, or wood as the heat source. Hot dogs, burgers, chicken parts, veggies. A quick process taking from 5 to 30 minutes.

Barbecue, OTOH, is meat that is slow cooked over wood or charcoal for a long period of time. Ribs, brisket, pork butt, etc. With this technique, the smoke produced by the wood/charcoal is of huge importance.

The advantage of the BGE for me is that I can do either or both technique, or even combine them.

 

[BBQ-Nut]

I think the key factor here is that many people tend to confuse barbecuing and grilling in their minds without quite realizing it. Most seem to use them interchangeably, but they are quite different.

Grilling (what most of us do in the back yard) is cooking over direct heat, usually at hotter temperatures than barbecuing. Grilling is normally done using gas, charcoal, or wood as the heat source. Hot dogs, burgers, chicken parts, veggies. A quick process taking from 5 to 30 minutes.

Barbecue, OTOH, is meat that is slow cooked over wood or charcoal for a long period of time. Ribs, brisket, pork butt, etc. With this technique, the smoke produced by the wood/charcoal is of huge importance.

The advantage of the BGE for me is that I can do either or both technique, or even combine them.

I think we've dived off the OP's original question, but I will say that you can get very tasty 'q using a propane grill if you know how. As long as you can do indirect (leaving off some burners), have good temp control (digital probes/thermometer), and can get smoke on your meat (check out amazen pellet tube smoker), you can get really good ribs, pulled pork, smoked salmon, even brisket.

Hands down best 'q is with a traditional smoker - no doubt. But I've done 'q on a propane grill, low and slow, and friends and co-workers have rated my ribs as beating some places on Diners Drive-ins and Dives that they have been to.

 

[omni550]

Thanks everyone for the many suggestions and recommendations. Now I have an idea on where I need to start focusing my attention.

This may sound odd, but how do you remember everything...like what "tweaks" you made to raise the taste level a notch, etc.?


omni

 

[NW-Bound]

Grilling (what most of us do in the back yard) is cooking over direct heat, usually at hotter temperatures than barbecuing. Grilling is normally done using gas, charcoal, or wood as the heat source. Hot dogs, burgers, chicken parts, veggies. A quick process taking from 5 to 30 minutes.

Barbecue, OTOH, is meat that is slow cooked over wood or charcoal for a long period of time. Ribs, brisket, pork butt, etc. With this technique, the smoke produced by the wood/charcoal is of huge importance.

The advantage of the BGE for me is that I can do either or both technique, or even combine them.

Yes.

The true BBQ'ing, I have not done, but would use a traditional smoker. I am too cheap to get a BGE.

 

[rodi]

I've had a few foodie roommates along my road of life and picked up a desire to try new recipes from them. At first I'd just follow the recipe - then as I got more confident (due to practice) I started modifying the recipes - or just scanning recipes ahead of time and then winging it. The key thing is to practice.

I agree with the suggestion that fresh ingredients is a key starting point.

Every few months I challenge myself to "master" something new. It varies on what it is - a few years ago it was to learn to make a butter pie crust from scratch - lots of not-so-great pie crusts before I figured out and mastered the technique of not overworking the dough, not adding too much ice water, etc. Another challenge I gave myself was to learn to make more beans/rice/quinoa dishes from scratch... Playing around with spices etc... Now I know, without looking it up, how long to soak beans for, what spices my family likes, etc.

The key is to try new recipes - and then experiment with changing them once you've got them down.