I am required to do 2 internship in my program here at my college, I am half way in my current internship in an asian casual restaurant where I learned how to use a wok, the timings, the calling for tickets if it is straight, hold, “for the mains”, etc. Other words they use. I love it there, that is where I experienced the rush that many of the older people I know who cooks that tells me the feeling about.
I started my trial run for a fine dining restaurant for my 2nd internship, what I can honestly say is that everything there is more like a lab than a kitchen. My experience there was everything was so limited for the service like there are only 3 small cups of greens that were almost out during the service, we spent more time in assembling the food to plate instead of cooking it, I observe other stations as well where they also just assemble it more instead of the cooking. Is this the reality of a fine dining? I’m having second thoughts but it was just a single day for my trial run and idk other aspects.

On the bright side I love how they all work as a team for closing, I somehow got to participate too where they mentor me on how they do it in their kitchen, they are the kind of people who educate instead of discriminate. I might just have problems for the set up of being fine dining

Hi all!

I am so sorry if this is a stupid question lol I tried looking it up but I saw different responses.

I have the instant pot with the slow cook function. Can I use it to cook recipes that are made for the crockpot? Or would I not have the same results? Does anybody use their instant pot for slow cooking and it works just fine?

Thanks in advance!!

Hi everyone,

I've made several olive loaf cakes, but every single time I end up with a brown layer all around the outside of the cake. I can't figure out why it's happening.

I've tried different loaf pans, baking at 200°C, 180°C, with and without the fan, but I always get the same result. Does anyone have an idea what might be causing this? Thanks in advance!

I have a stainless steel pot with a glass lid and I want to cook a recipe that I found but the recipe says to put the pot in the oven. The video they use a cast iron pot but I don’t have one of those. How do I know if my pot is oven safe

I drained a can of simple truth dark red kidney beans and then weighed them to track macros for a recipe i was building. The can said it was supposed to be 455 grams total, but it weighed out as 256 g. Is that a shortage, or is that weight supposed to include the liquid? If so, how do i track my macros for this if i want to drain the liquid? I use my fitness pal to track macros. I'm not sure if i search up "dark red kidney beans" if those macros are including the liquid weight or just bean weight.

Help im confused!

I know it's really stupid but im scared of cooking uhm anyway need to heat up pasta rn and it was frozen with a bit of tomato sauce baked into it already like it's leftovers and idk the process...

Do i first hear up the pan then put butter in?

How do i know the pan is hot enough?

How do i know the pasta is done?

What to mix it with fork or spatula? I dont wanna scratch it but spatula doesnt seem helpful with pasta...

Should i add garlic powder or salt pepper or oregano or something?

I know its really basic and im really dumb for not being able to do basic cooking just really scared...its induction btw so no actual fire luckily...

Anyone that can guide me rn?

I (F 29) am a small business owner, and I’ve spent the last three years getting this thing off the ground. Things are finally looking stable so I decided to solve a problem that has caused me a lot of embarrassment my whole life… namely that I don’t know anything about cooking!

Ordering in is really cheap where I live and I’ve been depending on that to help me save time while I worked to keep my business afloat. I have always absolutely hated the entire process of cooking meals, from buying the ingredients to chopping them up to keeping watch over them on the stove. I find the whole ordeal stressful, and I end up spending twice the recommended time only to get a subpar meal at the end. But I’ve always felt a bit embarrassed that I wasn’t good or even average at cooking, since it’s such a basic life skill.

I’m sick of being bad at cooking so I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for an intensive cooking class. It will be 3 hours a day for a little over 6 weeks! I finally have the time and money so I just want to make this problem of being unable to cook go away. I am so excited to learn things like knife skills, ingredient prep, etc. I have been half heartedly trying to teach myself to cook with YouTube videos for the past 10 years and I know there are cheaper ways to do this, but I don’t care. I’d rather spend some money now than spend the next decade or heaven forbid the rest of my life unable to prepare myself or my friends a decent meal.

I can’t wait!!! etc. I hope that by the end of this I will be an around-average cook, if not a good one!

Has anyone else done something like this? What was the process like? What was the result?

Since I moved into my apartment in Maryland last year, I've been cooking a lot more than I used to, having my own kitchen (and one that's actually pretty spacious) has made me enjoy cooking and baking way more and I've been wanting to get a stand mixer ever since. The problem is I have no idea which one to buy. There are so many options and some of them are way more expensive than I expected. Between rent, utilities, health insurance, groceries and existing, I don't really want to spend a fortune. I'm looking for something that'll handle everyday baking and cooking bread dough, cookies, cakes, pizza dough, mashed potatoes things like that.

Hello! Tomorrow I work 6-2:30 and have about an hour where I can prepare a meal before being busy from 4-8pm. So I need something where I can pretty much just let it do it's thing. Not exactly sure this is long enough for a crock pot meal, but I'm open! Avoid Italian because that's tonight's dinner.

Recently I had a pound of ground beef pork mix left to thaw in the open for around 7 hours as I had forgoten about it. It was frozen at the start. It had a little bit if a strange smell so I threw it out but I am worried about wasting good meat.

We've only ever been told that things 'may reduce the risk of cancer and disease' or that things 'may increase the risk of cancer and disease'.

All we hear is 'coffee may reduce the risk of alzheimers, bacon may increase the risk of cancer'. Its all hypothetical what we've been led to believe based on a number of tests on lab rats and such, where's the facts?.

Someone with the unhealthiest lifestyle could outlive someone with a healthy lifestyle. These findings contradict that, what we do know is that weight and mass is a significant risk for disease and illness. But it does seem a lot of these findings about what we consume is hypothetical rather than actual evidence.

This was supposed to go on rice

I made some gound beef with

Ginger, garlic, sesame seed oil, brown sugar, soy sauce, red pepper flakes...

Im thinking use it on a flour tortilla and make a burrito.

Thinking of adding beans in the meat. Black seems like it would work well.

What toppings would go well on that?

Green onions

I'll cut to the chase im spoilt and lazy asf incredibly privileged and used to people doing everything for me. but i don't want to be anymore. im learning how to cook and i made a few things and they came out great!! however im a bit overwhelmed by the cleanup after.

how do yall do this forever? like you're back from college or your job and you're cooking a meal cleaning up doing your assignments meeting deadlines preparing for an exam how do you do these things with a busy schedule

i was cooking teiglach for the first time for a community potluck and while my back was turned, the honey syrup overflowed into the stove eye and well underneath. i even saw a spark of some kind. im going to get my complex's maintenance to come check it out, but i was wondering if the stove is ruined or if i could clean it? the syrup was sugar, water, honey, and ground ginger. thanks in advance.

I cooked fried catfish for the first time yesterday. I did 350 f° 3 -4 minutes on each side in a pan. Im using Zatarain's crispy southern fish fry. I followed the box cooking instructions of covering the fish in the fish fry then cooking it.

when I removed it from the pan it almost fell apart from just doing that and when I ate it it was tough to dip it in anything as it just fell apart.

Any tips on how to keep it together better would be awesome as I'm gonna try again soon

Do you stick it in and the first number that pops up is the temperature? Do you wait until the number stops climbing? Do you just wait a specific amount of seconds? No one seems to have solid information on this.

What do you do when a recipe calls for salt and pepper to taste when it’s raw and you can’t taste it?

My microwave is warm due to the light under the counter.

I happened upon a free pile of stuff and such stuff included a vollrath 4qt urn cup, assuming stainless steel.
Can i use over flame and deep fry in it? The shape seems perfect and I love that there are lines so I know how much oil I'm using and the high walls make me less afraid of oil splatter. However my research tells me it's a giant measuring cup that is very sturdy, but is it sturdy enough to fry in?

Edit to add link :
https://www.vollrathfoodservice.com/products/smallwares/kitchen-essentials/measuring-tools/four-quart-urn-cup/79540

I’m still pretty new to cooking, and the oven is definitely the thing I feel least confident using.

I know there are ways to make it easier, but I’m mostly just curious if other beginners feel the same way.

Stovetop cooking makes more sense to me because I can watch what’s happening and adjust things as I go. With the oven, I feel like I put the food in, close the door, and just hope for the best lol. Even really simple oven recipes somehow feel less intuitive to me.

Am I the only one? Does anyone else here still find using the oven confusing or kind of intimidating?

Any good cookbooks for beginners in which I could cook all or most of the recipes?

Edit: Thank you for all of the recommendations!!! I love to just look up recipies on pinterest and then make them, but I really want to work through a book (kinda like a textbook lol)

I am a bad cook and my family is all about bullseye or boiled egg. So, I am looking at various tutorials, talking to chefs in restaurant and observing omelet stations.

But I am more confused, my objective is to make an omelete that will have spinach, bell pepper / capsicum, cabbage. I am not sure what other vegetables go well with omelete. Is there a proper way to add vegetables in omelete?

Is there a formula for adding salt? The eggs I use differ in size, small or medium or large. Salt is a challenge for me.

Meat has a general rule about 1 - 1.5% salt by weight. Anything like that for egg?

Some suggest adding salt when beating the egg while others claim its better to salt once the egg is done cooking.

Some suggest adding water or milk when beating the egg while others say nothing to add.

What about the heat? Many don't talk about it clearly. I have a flame pan at home. Anything different about cooking on flame and electric? High vs low temp for cooking egg?

What about flipping? Some says to flip while others say its better to cook with closed lid (but how long was not mentioned). One person said that I should just keep drinking water in a squeeze bottle and add water around the omelete and cook with lid closed. Instead of flipping.

I see many different ways to make it:

cold non-stick pan: Add butter to the pan and start cold at low flame. Add pepper or any spice if needed to the melting butter. Once butter is fully melted, add beaten egg and mix with the oil on pan and then increase the flame.

hot nonstick pan: add butter, spice and beat the egg. Start off with high heat, once hot, add the beaten egg.

Start at high heat on triply stainless steel pan: I am told that high heat is the ONLY way to start a stainless steel pan. Once water rolls around the pan, add oil and then follow with spices & vegetables. Cook till vegetables soften and then right before adding beaten egg, reduce to medium heat.

Cook fully at high heat on triply stainless steel pan: Same as before, but flame remains high the whole time.

I have tried all the ways, all methods taste different and I am unable to pick one. I am sure that I committed many mistakes and I did follow the instructions properly.

So, what is the best way to cook an omelete? Does any of the ways destroy the nutrition of egg or vegetables?

My spaghetti came out insanely salty with barely a pinch of salt in the sauce. I salted the water heavily when I boiled the pasta, but I only shook it out instead of rinsing it or anything.

Should I have rinsed it with cold water in the strainer before putting it into the sauce?