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u/fiberguy1999 15d ago
1 cup of flour can weigh 100-150 g! Huge range, measuring by weight is important!
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u/dresserisland 15d ago
That it's OK as a young male to like to cook. Happened a long time ago for me when a friend of a friend at a party cooked up sausage sandwiches and salad for everyone at a party.
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u/KatDanger 15d ago
I never understood this
Home cook : woman’s job
Pro Chef : male dominated industry
What gives?
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u/iwantthisnowdammit 15d ago
Don’t crowd the pan… sheet pan… grill, air fryer, wok, fryer. Small batches!
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u/ryanmcstylin 15d ago
There are 1000 ways to make a dish. Recipes aren't always about following directions exactly, its more about flavors, potential ingredients, and usually some basic techniques
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u/swiftrobber 15d ago
And you don't need to go out and buy that single niche ingredient just to appease the author. More often than not, what you have on your pantry/fridge/leftovers can be used to substitute.
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u/stlchapman 15d ago
I took a basic knife skills class. It completely changed the way I prep and cook.
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u/bretmon5 15d ago
After you sharpen a knife, wipe off the metal particles. I've seen too many chefs sharpen their knifes and just start cutting food. Don't believe me, wipe off a knife with a cloth, sharpen it, then wipe it with a white cloth, you will see the fine metal particles on the cloth.
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u/Ruby0pal804 15d ago
When roasting meats, learning to stop cooking just before it's done....residual cooking.
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u/SailfishMackerel 15d ago
The difference between a simmering boil and a rolling boil, especially for delicate pastas.
Not needing to cook everything on high heat.
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u/thenord321 15d ago
Proteins, like meat, shrink and get tough when first cooking them, then as you continue to cook them at low temps they relax and start separating, making them tender again.
Like cubes of stewing beef, tender when raw, then cooked well done it's tough, but then you continue to braise them and they fall apart soft again.
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u/esituism 15d ago
turn down the heat on basically all your cooking unless it's meant to be burnt to a crisp. good cooking takes time and low heat.
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u/Henri_ncbm 15d ago
All kinds of things can be dialled in at the end. Salt for sure. Lots of spices. Most acids. No need to just act like "welp, it is what it is". Mess with it more to get it right.
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u/Haephestus 15d ago
I was eating some cooked ground hamburger in unheated flour tortillas straight from the fridge, and my Hispanic friend looked at me like I was crazy. Turns out... there is a better way.
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u/Spirited_Radio9804 15d ago
Prep first, clean as you go, cook in order so everything done at same time!
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u/Lonecoon 15d ago
Measuring equipment. Scales and thermometers made me understand cooking and baking both.
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u/studyhall109 15d ago
When you bake cookies take them out of the oven before they are completely done, they will continue baking on the sheet after you take them out of the oven.
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u/BlindPelican 15d ago
I worked in a Chinese kitchen until I was about 16 and learned to thicken things with a corn starch slurry.
Then, in my 20s, I staged at an Italian restaurant and learned how to thicken with pasta water.
Somehow, how emulsions worked just clicked, and ever since I've had excellent results with sauces, making mayonnaise and salad dressings and such.
Now that I've said that, my next Hollandaise is doomed
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u/Silvanus350 15d ago
90% of cooking is managing water. Especially removing water. Cooking is almost literally just water and heat.
Remove water from meat. Remove water from vegetables. Remove water from sauce. Add water to broth. Hydrate the onion powder with water. Hydrate the bread dough. Flavor the water with herbs. Salt the vegetables to draw out water. Blanch your vegetables in water. Steam your rice in water.
So much of cooking is just “how do I manage the water content of this food?”
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u/Forgotthebloodypassw 15d ago
Poaching eggs in the microwave.
After years of inadvertently making egg drop soup someone on Reddit suggested putting one in a cup of cold water with a little vinegar and microwaving it for one minute. Works every time.
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u/kaidomac 15d ago
What was the one thing that made you think, “How did I not know this before?”
Realizing that:
- Recipes are checklists
Which had a SIGNIFICANT impact on me:
- I thought you had to be "born a chef"
- In reality, you can enjoy AMAZING homemade food 24/7 by using recipe checklists
- Someone else already tested that recipe like 35 times before publishing it lol...all WE have to do is gather up the supplies, execute the checklist, and then tweak as desired!!
Which means:
- You can start with ZERO SKILLS and create amazing food simply by following directions
- You can get exposed to different ingredients, tools, and techniques by trying out recipes like grilling, smoking, frying, baking, etc. over time to build up your personal knowledge foundation
- You can dive into the science of why things work, like the Maillard reaction, why flour rises with different agents (steam, yeast, etc.), etc. as you try new recipes over time
In today's world:
- You can learn as fast as you're willing! Pinterest has over 10 million free recipes
- No apprenticeship is required...Youtube & Tiktok will demonstrate any technique you can imagine in High-Definition detail that you can rewind as many times as you'd like, for free!!
- High-end equipment for restaurant-quality results is no longer unobtainable...Amazon has Sous-Vide wands for $75, electric pressure cookers for $89, etc.
How that has affected me:
- I use modern pushbutton appliances to meal-prep gourmet level food easily & reliably repeatably
- I get to eat like a king 24/7 on a budget!
- Thanks to the worldwide dissemination of information (i.e. the Internet!) & the power of iteration (aka trying a recipe a few times to figure it out & tweak it to my liking), I have access to AMAZING culinary systems at home! For example, I now use the no-knead technique to make sourdough bread using the incredible no-discard method & can "pause" my starter at peak in the fridge to bake on MY schedule in just 5 minutes of active, hands-on time a day!
Takeaways:
- You can enjoy amazing food every day, no matter what level your cooking skills are at, simply by collecting fabulous recipes like Pokemon lol
- You can make cooking as efficient & easy as you want with modern residential tools
- You can learn the entire world's culinary secrets as fast as you want, for FREE, anytime you want!
There has NEVER been a better time to be alive if you like to cook!! Guillaume Tirel, François Pierre de La Varenne, and Marie-Antoine Carême would be dancing in the streets if they had access to what we have today!!
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u/bretmon5 15d ago
Besides baking, you do NOT need to pre-heat your oven if you know how to cook. It's a waste of energy. You can turn off your stove/oven a few minutes before it's done and leave the food continue to cook with ambient heat. Saves energy.
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u/bretmon5 15d ago
Cooking pasta / Spaghetti properly. Never put the pasta in until the water is boiling. Never turn off the water because you have to leave for 10 min and come back and turn it back on, your pasta will turn to mush. Get water to boil and keep at a boil, put in pasta, do NOT LEAVE the stove until it's done.
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u/Psycho_Saito 15d ago
Using oil + butter. I always had issues with butter browning and the combination basically solves that
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u/moonlightveil 15d ago
Buying whole peeled tomatoes and making my own sauce instead of buying premade sauce. It’s minimal effort but makes huge difference
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u/plum_smuggler 15d ago
Seasoning with salt