28 ms·
Great tool to improve the dismal experience of searching recipes online. To intrepid cooks I encourage getting a good cookbook, e.g. from Julia Child or Mark B
by tonymet 5y ago
Great tool to improve the dismal experience of searching recipes online.
To intrepid cooks I encourage getting a good cookbook, e.g. from Julia Child or Mark Bittman – where you can learn cooking fundamentals and techniques aimed to teach you how to cook self-sufficiently.
Break away from recipes and you’ll be dancing around your kitchen to your own culinary tune instead of recreating mediocre click bait.
- cushychicken 5y agoMy latest favorite is Cook it in Cast Iron from Cook's Country. No recipe in it has been bad. One or two have been "too much work to be worth it", but on average, the food has been good to excellent. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X2E308K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X2E308K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- tonymet 5y agoAmerica's Test Kitchen, which Produces Cooks Illustrated and Cooks Country – is my single favorite publishing resource. A perfect balance of technical information & pragmatic recipes for the amateur cook to be very productive in the kitchen with minimal tools & ingredients.
- cushychicken 5y agoI've come to like Cook's Country a little more. Cook's Illustrated is great, and the food is always excellent, but it always seems to me that it's more work than you strictly need to do to get that quality. Cook's Country recipes are about 90% as good for about 80% less work, in my opinion.
- john-tells-all 5y agoThis! Cookbooks have editors, and the recipes are tested so they can be made with common ingredients. They want cooks to be successful! Oddly I've found cookbook recipes to ALWAYS be better than online recipes. Book recipes tend to be shorter, clearer, and more successful. Online recipes are okay but sometimes don't come out the way I'd expect, they're more fiddly. It's great to have options!
- Mikeb85 5y agoThe barrier to publishing online is lower, so recipes are always hit or miss. Really depends on the author.
- hinkley 5y agoThe ecosystem of publishing also has people who have to exhibit their value to the process or get eliminated. Online publishing removes both technical and social friction for putting half-baked ideas out there. We haven't invented a good way to have one but not the other yet.
- tonymet 5y agoOnline content is optimized for (a) SEO and (b) immediate visual appeal. Most ranking signals are not coming from actual cooks testing the recipe. Your'e right, I've found some good content online. e.g. Chef John / Food Wishes has great recipes and videos. He also conveys some good tips & technique.
- hinkley 5y agoThere is something to be said for cooking shows as well. Certain activities take time, and they end up editorializing things that they wouldn't think of with just the written word. What order to mix things. Common substitutions. How to avoid pitfalls (use this tool for this step, not this other one) and fix problems. Example: too much salt in your soup? Add a little potato starch.
- klondike_klive 5y agoI highly recommend Ratio by Michael Ruhlmann. So far I've only used it for basic doughs, cakes, biscuits. Learn the ratios, and why they're like that. Very liberating.
- Mikeb85 5y agoThis is basically all professional baking/pastry, also cooking in ultra-high end restaurants. And yes, it's a much better way of doing things, plus helps you to think about the effect of each ingredient on the outcome.
- tonymet 5y agoA corollary to this is to purchase an affordable ($20) food scale. Despite appearances, a scale advances your skills by making it easier to measure ratios correctly, memorize them and reduce the # of utensils needed. All your ingredients are measured in a single bowl instead of using multiple measuring cups & spoons which each need washing