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Kenji's channel and writing are great windows into how cooking does not need to follow rigid rules and precise measurements to make great food. He substitutes i

Kenji's channel and writing are great windows into how cooking does not need to follow rigid rules and precise measurements to make great food. He substitutes ingredients and uses what he has on hand all the time. Unless it's something like bread or pizza dough, where he needs the correct ratio between flour and water, he never measures or weighs anything. He frequently leaves something baking in the oven or simmering on the stovetop, promising to come back in X minutes, but it's usually Y minutes later because he's been off doing something with his wife/kid/dogs. It seems like he says things like "oops" and "but that's ok" a lot. Cooking shouldn't be intimidating. He shows how approachable and forgiving it can be.

gyc 5y ago
Yeah I got a kick out of watching his videos and seeing him every so often pull out some slightly wilted vegetables to make his dish. Quite the contrast to seeing all the pristine ingredients on TV cooking shows.
mabbo 5y ago
He has an episode in which he absolutely mangles his pizza and it looks horrendous. He literally says while recording "Doesn't matter, still pizza. Actually, that's what I'm going to name this episode." It doesn't matter that it was very not Instagram-worthy. What matters is that it's still pizza and he's still going to feed his family with it.
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
Yeah, something I like about Kenji's approach (and Pepin before him) is that while they know the "proper" way to do things they don't treat it as a straight jacket.
SamBam 5y ago
Yup, he articulated very clearly why I often like the US-style recipes which tend to deal with cups and tablespoons, which are far less precise than grams: sometimes having less precision is freeing. Don't get me wrong, I own a kitchen scale and it's indispensable for many baking tasks. But sometimes seeing a pasta sauce that calls for "one onion, 175 grams" I cringe, and just imagine someone delicately shaving off bits of their onion until it weighs right, or, worse, going back to the store because their onion was 162 grams, and they thought it mattered.
- SECProto 5y ago
  I love recipes that are written in grams specifically because I don't have to be precise: just shake in some flour til I hit roughly the requisite grams. Eyeball a quarter cup of oil by just watching the scale til it hits 50 or 60g. And at the end of the day, I don't have to wash a half dozen measuring utensils. As for the onion comment, I actually appreciate grams rather than recipes that call for "one large onion" - usually the onions I have are small, so then I just have no idea - could be equivalent to 3 small onions, could be 6. With grams, I can just chuck a couple on the scale to see how many I should dice up to get roughly the right amount.
- fknorangesite 5y ago
  > But sometimes seeing a pasta sauce that calls for "one onion, 175 grams" I cringe That's fair; but keep in mind that the size of "one onion" can vary drastically by region, so giving an objective measurement is still helpful. > someone delicately shaving off bits of their onion until it weighs right Maybe if you're just learning how to cook for the first time (and self-teaching); it doesn't take long for someone to graduate beyond 101 in this respect.

gyc 5y ago

Yeah I got a kick out of watching his videos and seeing him every so often pull out some slightly wilted vegetables to make his dish. Quite the contrast to seeing all the pristine ingredients on TV cooking shows.

mabbo 5y ago

He has an episode in which he absolutely mangles his pizza and it looks horrendous. He literally says while recording "Doesn't matter, still pizza. Actually, that's what I'm going to name this episode." It doesn't matter that it was very not Instagram-worthy. What matters is that it's still pizza and he's still going to feed his family with it.

jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago

Yeah, something I like about Kenji's approach (and Pepin before him) is that while they know the "proper" way to do things they don't treat it as a straight jacket.

SamBam 5y ago

Yup, he articulated very clearly why I often like the US-style recipes which tend to deal with cups and tablespoons, which are far less precise than grams: sometimes having less precision is freeing. Don't get me wrong, I own a kitchen scale and it's indispensable for many baking tasks. But sometimes seeing a pasta sauce that calls for "one onion, 175 grams" I cringe, and just imagine someone delicately shaving off bits of their onion until it weighs right, or, worse, going back to the store because their onion was 162 grams, and they thought it mattered.

SECProto 5y ago
I love recipes that are written in grams specifically because I don't have to be precise: just shake in some flour til I hit roughly the requisite grams. Eyeball a quarter cup of oil by just watching the scale til it hits 50 or 60g. And at the end of the day, I don't have to wash a half dozen measuring utensils. As for the onion comment, I actually appreciate grams rather than recipes that call for "one large onion" - usually the onions I have are small, so then I just have no idea - could be equivalent to 3 small onions, could be 6. With grams, I can just chuck a couple on the scale to see how many I should dice up to get roughly the right amount.
fknorangesite 5y ago
> But sometimes seeing a pasta sauce that calls for "one onion, 175 grams" I cringe That's fair; but keep in mind that the size of "one onion" can vary drastically by region, so giving an objective measurement is still helpful. > someone delicately shaving off bits of their onion until it weighs right Maybe if you're just learning how to cook for the first time (and self-teaching); it doesn't take long for someone to graduate beyond 101 in this respect.