4 ms·

If I only had an hour, i'd focus on a simple intros of really fundamental techniques kinda like the OP indicated, and not necessarily cooking everything in that

If I only had an hour, i'd focus on a simple intros of really fundamental techniques kinda like the OP indicated, and not necessarily cooking everything in that time. Knife skills. Keep them sharp. Mise en place. The importance of salt and pepper. Searing techniques for cooking meat and how not to do it. Roasting vegetables 101. The basics of finishing pastas and reducing sauces. The fact that you can make your own dressing in no time. You can probably cover all of that quickly and in enough time to ask the right questions moving forward and begin your jorney - IF you had a curriculum. If it's self study it takes longer to figure out what you don't know :) For me it all started with "why does my Grilled Cheese suck? This should be easy" and it's been all downhill. The Food Lab by Kenji Lopez-Alt was a big window into this for me because of the approach around time and temperature, and the book takes you through all of this stuff by section.

reubenswartz 7y ago
Love The Food Lab. (And I think my grilled cheese is pretty decent, at least according to my kids, which is saying something.) ;-) Agree with everything you are saying here, but I'll add that salads often have a bad reputation (I avoided them for years), but I can't think of an easier, healthier, more enjoyable thing to eat, assuming you can get good ingredients.
hnick 7y ago
> Knife skills. Keep them sharp. Cooking for over 15 years at home and still only learned this recently despite already knowing about it. I had to grind out a chip from one of our knives, and I realised when I was done it was much sharper than I usually get them. I hadn't been doing it quite right all this time. > Mise en place Asian wok-based cooking is great for learning this. You don't have time to mess around. It's something I've been trying lately (my frying pan stir-fry was always pathetic so I never made it at home, but now that I have a wok I can do a decent one).

reubenswartz 7y ago

Love The Food Lab. (And I think my grilled cheese is pretty decent, at least according to my kids, which is saying something.) ;-) Agree with everything you are saying here, but I'll add that salads often have a bad reputation (I avoided them for years), but I can't think of an easier, healthier, more enjoyable thing to eat, assuming you can get good ingredients.

hnick 7y ago

> Knife skills. Keep them sharp. Cooking for over 15 years at home and still only learned this recently despite already knowing about it. I had to grind out a chip from one of our knives, and I realised when I was done it was much sharper than I usually get them. I hadn't been doing it quite right all this time. > Mise en place Asian wok-based cooking is great for learning this. You don't have time to mess around. It's something I've been trying lately (my frying pan stir-fry was always pathetic so I never made it at home, but now that I have a wok I can do a decent one).