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Journal SolemnDragon's Journal: [cookery] Basic Skills 34

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On the subject of cooking illiteracy- i have to agree with pancho about the fact that people who honestly don't know, but are asking, are better off than those who don't know and don't care.

Although i know i can't substitute a peach for an egg in most recipes, in some, applesauce can be substituted, so it's not THAT far removed from reality...

I have a confession to make: i learned many of my cooking skills from pancho.

Tortillas, yes, but also how to use, and when to use, things like rosewater, onion, or different cheeses. I don't think i'd ever had monterey jack before i met you, pancho.

Yes, i'm serious.

Basic cooking is easier once you've seen it done, but my mum, when she started sending me recipes, started including instructions for what to do when i burnt it, undercooked it, or otherwise screwed it up in obvious ways.

This helped a lot.

And things like deglazing a pan took on meaning when i saw pancho do it.

So, here- talk about a basic cooking step, procedure, or otherwise, or ASK, if you have silly questions. I'm sure we can all arrive at an answer. I have one, in fact: Is it better to measure things like sugar by weight or by volume? I've had serious variation in recipes when doing it by volume, but all recipes are done that way in the US, so i've had to try following them.

And here's another: how come i see all kinds of dried beans- fava, kidney, etc., but never soybeans? Are they edible when dried? Do they make good soup the way others do?

We've got a lot of foodies here, and a lot of beginners. This should make for an interesting conversation.

How cooked should the eggs of an omelette be before you start piling ingredients into the middle? I can never get that right and always put the whole thing in the microwave at the end to get it cooked enough. I get cooked food, but dry eggs.

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[cookery] Basic Skills More

[cookery] Basic Skills

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  • And here's another: how come i see all kinds of dried beans- fava, kidney, etc., but never soybeans? Are they edible when dried? Do they make good soup the way others do?

    I have seen them, but not for cooking. What I have seen is soybeans in a snack bag with assorted different flavors (like barbeque and so on), and they are billed as a snack like sunflower seeds. Not bad, either.

  • I dislike it when people want to learn to cook, but don't LEARN the basics. Someone trying to make some fancy Vietnamese dish that doesn't know how to make meatloaf or roast a chicken. Without a foundation, meals tend to be missing a lot of flavors...
    Just my opinion, though.
    • meat loaf and vietnamese food aren't built on exactly the same set of basics. you could just as easily start with a plain vietnamese dish and work your way up.

      i'm not saying you're wrong. i'm just saying "normal" american food doesn't necessarily constitute "the basics." a good meat loaf is in my opinion quite an accomplishment. anyone can make bad meat loaf, which is probably why so many people don't think they like meat loaf.
      • I was in this category until my wife, who is a great cook (and no, that's not just the bias talking!), made one. Way good.

        I cook well enough that I am not embarressed serving my food to family and friends. But I am not great at it and I don't enjoy doing it the same as my wife does. I do like baking, however, and I am starting to learn the basics of bread making. It wasn't until after my first failed attempt [slashdot.org] that I did a thorough reading of the basics. My later efforts [slashdot.org] turned out much, much better.

    • Just because it's vietnamese, doesn't mean it's fancy. And just because it's basic, doesn't mean it's meat. In fact, far simpler than a meatloaf or roasted chicken breast (which is, by the way, much harder to get right than a lot of what you might consider "fancy" food), would be to learn how to make a basic rice or pasta dish.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Is it better to measure things like sugar by weight or by volume?

    I get better results when I measure things by weight.

    As for the question about beans - I don't cook with beans very much, but I do know that if you're going to make felafel, you soak the garbanzo beans (chick peas) but don't boil them.
    • In general (and I mean in GENERAL, not always)... Foods that do not compact and can conform to a container shape are usually measured in volume (such as salt, table sugar, liquids). Foods that compact (flour, powdered sugar) do not conform to the shape of their container well (some pastas, solid butter) are measured by weight.

      On a side note: Why do avacados taste so bad, yet guacamole tastes so good?

      -Ab
  • Thanks-- you've helped teach me that I actually know a thing or two, when many times I'd wondered if all that burning and food ruination in my past would ever amount to anything. They say you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, but the truth is, you can't make a good omelette without (risking) making a few BAD ones!

    You know, you're the first person I was ever able to _comfortably_ cook with in the kitchen. Everybody else either didn't care for it at all or got all underfoot. And nobody ev
    • Do try these at home. They're something else...

      First note the size of your pan. If it's about six inches, your minimum is two eggs. If it's about nine, your minimum is 3½ eggs (you can just about get away with three).

      Whisk your eggs in a seperate bowl, with salt, pepper, and some milk to lighten the omlette. All these (except the eggs) are optional.

      Put shit-loads of butter (!) in the pan. melt it [slashdot.org].

      Pour eggs into pan, whisking the butter in as you go. Save some for lubrication, or put mor

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Yeah, I saw a recipe for fresh tofu in Fine Cooking or some other such hoi-paloi magazine, and thought the article was making a big deal about what looked like a simple recipe. However, it was not lost on me how simple it was; I was grateful for the article mentioning how good it was supposed to taste, and I do expect to try it out sometime soon-- as soon as I can find me some soybeanz!

        :^)

  • i really like the way alton brown describes the significance of the different stages of the cooking process. i like how he describes the different parts starches, fats, etc. play and how to keep them in balance.
    • Understanding the chemistry of cooking has allowed me to take it from a mechanical process to closer to an art. I know that if I don't have lemon juice for instance, I can use other things such as orange juice to balance out the acidity and sour in the particular dish (or if I wish to adjust the dish in certain ways, to make it more sweet without throwing off the balance of other flavours, a change of one ingredient is usually enough).

      Thanks to Alton, I've designed my own recipies. Using my mom's Tuna Sal
      • i like watching him on iron chef because alton explains the purpose of the creative things the chefs are doing. i also like to see master chefs working hard. i like to see the way they use their tools. it's a great chance to see the way things are supposed to be done.
  • "I don't cook; I know how to feed myself"

    Most of it comes from living a solitary home life: generally I'm the only person who spends time in my apartment. If I'm going to eat with others, we go out. So if I have to cook, it's cooking for one. And that's complicated by my elastic eating habits. Sometimes I don't eat a big lunch (like today. I had a soft pretzel) saving for a big dinner or vice versa. Or I'll get hooked into eating out for two days. Or I can subsist on cheese and crackers for a weeken
  • Although i know i can't substitute a peach for an egg in most recipes, in some, applesauce can be substituted, so it's not THAT far removed from reality...

    The most bizarre one I've found is being able to substitute Ritz crackers[1] and lemon juice for stewed apple. I didn't believe it until I tried it and it really does work. Strange...

    [1] I believe you call them Graham crackers over there.

    • Graham crackers = digestive biscuits (I think)

    • Ritz Crackers is a brand, and available on both sides of the pond. Graham Crackers are different, similar to ginger (or windmill) cookies, but sweeter.

      The Ritz/Lemmon Juice pie (a/k/a Mock Apple Pie) recepie was made popular during the rationing of WWII.

    • The wierdest recipe/recipe substitute I've ever heard of is corn-cob jelly, which was made popular during the Great Depression, as a way to squeeze a bit more food out of a part usually thrown away. As the name suggests, it's a jelly made from corn cobs.

      Like the mock-apple pie recipe, it was actually developed quite early; earliest accounts peg the mock-apple pie originating at about the 19th century, and corn-cob jelly's even older.

      I've never had it before, and am quite curious at how it would taste, espe
  • I find that there's a lot of difference between cooking to just feed yourself and really cooking. I can cook a fairly good meal for myself and my wife (which is good because she can burn water). I would not, however, consider myself a great cook. For example, what the heck does it mean to "deglaze" a pan? On the other hand, given the time I tend to make good pasta from scratch, especially manicotti (I will one day die from heart failure from eating too much pasta and cheese, at least I will be happy bef
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Deglazing a pan...well, it's only how you make the best gravy and sauces!

      Okay, so you cook up a steak in a skillet, say a cast-iron one (as long as it's not non-stick!) and the pan's got this burned-on layer of seared meat bits and darkened grease...that's what's known as fond (them burned bits), and it's soooo good for making sauces!

      First, if there's any oil or grease left in the pan, pour out all but one tbsp or so of it (you don't want like 1/4 cup of grease). if you want to make a thick, stick to your
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • yes, but if you cut the onions first, don't you then have to pick onion skin off diced-up onion?

      *eyes you suspiciously for signs of the more-work fairy*
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • yes, but if you cut the onions first, don't you then have to pick onion skin off diced-up onion?

        I halve onions, then remove the skin/first layer. How I halve them is important though - cut through the root and stalk. That way dicing them is dead easy. Leave the root intact and make parallel cuts almost all the way to the root. The root will hold the bits together as you chop your way through.

        Urk. That doesn't sound right. This site [allrecipes.com] shows pretty much how I dice onions. It's easy once you try...
  • I've got essentially no sense of smell, and consequently virtually no palate. So the nuance of flavor is something I've not experienced in over a decade now, and anything I make stands a chance of having something rancid (or at least "off" in some way) in it because I can't tell. So for everyone else's health, someone else cooks.

    It's kind of like Bender from Futurama. Maybe I could be a great chef if I had a vial of pure water, with LSD in it.
    • a step-relative of mine had this problem, and mocked me for years because he didn't realise how extensive the damage was, and would complain that my food was bland and tasteless.

      I have an EXCELLENT sense of taste, and so i don't use a lot of sharp, strong flavourings. I can taste it just fine. I love cabbage, and peas, and broccoli, and eggs- to me they have powerful, lovely tastes.

      But he never grasped that, so i wasn't allowed to cook much until out on my own.

      Blinder has an excellent sense of smell/taste,
      • I remember offending someone who cooked a meal which I attended. I usually don't use positive adjectives like great, superb, or splendid. They didn't realize this so when I complemented the meal by saying it was palatable, she got upset. I didn't immediately realize that I upset her until someone else told me. So I apologized to her and told her palatable was pretty much the top of the scale for flavor evaluation.

        I have an EXCELLENT sense of taste

        I envy you. Pretty much the only flavors I get are things tha
  • Soy has gotten a bad name from its overuse in the form of "textured vegetable protein". As a result, they made up a new name when they started selling the beans themselves. What you want to ask for is "Edamame".

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