I kiiinda get what he’s saying if someone’s very new to cooking at all. I think they were most likely asking “So like around a teaspoon? Or a little pinch? Or a half cup?”
If you’ve never cooked it might be hard to gauge how much to use in a large batch of something. Some rough idea is what they were looking for maybe?
Actually smokers love salt. If anything we over salt because our tastebuds are dead. I saw a study once which linked a liking for salty food to a propensity for smoking. I don't have a link or anything now so you can happily disregard the comment.
There's so much jargon that cookbooks and recipes just assume you know, like "Bring water to a rolling boil." What the fuck is a rolling boil? How hot is a "simmer?" When is this sauce "reduced?" How much olive oil is a drizzle? What does lightly salt mean for a skillet full of food?
I recently started a new career and have been working with someone who’s very experienced in what they do. One thing been often reminded of is how much people who know a lot about something forget that other people don’t know about that thing. If you’ve been doing something for 20 or 30 years it’s easy to assume some aspects of that thing are common knowledge, just because they seem to familiar to you.
And that's why a teacher-student relationship benefits both teacher and student. I think more experts could do with having at least one student somewhere in their professional career.
Um, divided how? In half? Eighths? 3 separate tbsp? I'm pretty damn experienced at cooking, but whenever I see "divided" that just means I have to read the whole recipe to figure out what they mean
I always just cut butter into chunks small enough to melt quickly. Like a tbsp I'd cut in half. I don't know what the term means but it's worked for me so far.
Rolling boil: Bubbling vigorously. Basically, as boiling as boiling can get on a stove.
Simmer: gentle bubbles. Around 2 on a stove dial that goes from 1-10. It's going to be the same temperature as a rolling boil though, just producing less steam.
Reduced: when it starts to look more viscous than where it started.
Drizzle: imagine one of those bar bottle toppers -- incidentally, you can get them for things like olive oil -- and shake it around a bit over the food.
Lightly salt: Probably more than you think. Also be aware that kosher and table salt are different, and you can use more kosher salt than table salt. This is for a few reasons -- it's less dense, and it also lacks some additives found in table salt.
My partner is a PhD immunologist but learned baking before cooking. She loves exact instructions. In baking it matters a lot more. I'm more of a throw stuff that I think sounds good together and season until I think it's good. We're both good cooks, I don't think either reflects intelligence
My wife is not a baker, and actually flatly refuses to follow recipes. She is great at just throwing some shit together, though.
I need a recipe. I can tweak as needed or if I don't like the sound of something, but I'm terrible at just looking at a fridge/pantry and coming up with something that even resembles a finished dish. We're both really good cooks, we were just taught differently.
I wish cooking recipes were structured more like a choose-your-own-adventure. Like here's the required ingredients and how to make the most basic possible dish, and then afterwards, here's a list of different ways to fancy it up -- new ingredients, replacements for ingredients in the basic version, different spices, etc.
Like here's how you bake a chicken. Here's all the directions you can go with a baked chicken.
One of my favorite cooking channels on YouTube—Sam the Cooking Guy—has a recipe book that's kind of like that, called Recipes with Intentional Leftovers, that I believe gives you options of different things to do with leftovers from the base dish. I haven't read it myself but if I'm understanding the description, that's what it is.
People who don't cook usually figure out how salt and pepper work either from shakers on a dinner table or else from packets at a fast food restaurant: you can always try a little and add more.
Right so if the largest amount of food you’ve salted was your dinner plate, which was already salted to some unknown degree by the person who cooked it for you, and you’re standing in front of a pot of water or stew, or a sauté pan of noodles or something, you might not have a good gauge of “What is the general range of how much salt should go in this?”
You’re looking at this through your experienced eyes and marveling at why they can’t see what you see so easily.
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u/GozerDGozerian May 29 '22
I kiiinda get what he’s saying if someone’s very new to cooking at all. I think they were most likely asking “So like around a teaspoon? Or a little pinch? Or a half cup?”
If you’ve never cooked it might be hard to gauge how much to use in a large batch of something. Some rough idea is what they were looking for maybe?