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As an ex chef, escoffier as a basis, then salt fat acid heat by Samin nosrat. Recipes are a guide for unfamiliar, but once you learn the profiles of each ingre

As an ex chef, escoffier as a basis, then salt fat acid heat by Samin nosrat. Recipes are a guide for unfamiliar, but once you learn the profiles of each ingredient you can expand greatly. I know it's a bit off your comments and I certainly search myself for new basis to play with, but I hope it helps :-)

esafak 3y ago
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat opened my eyes; it showed me an insightful way to deconstruct flavor and therefore the building blocks to construct it. Highly recommended!
mvdtnz 3y ago
Respectfully this is obnoxious advice for the majority of home cooks. We just want to know what to cook and how.
- spdif899 3y ago
  Yeah those books are definitely great and the building blocks Nosrat provides are crucial for any home chef that wants to take a scientific approach to decision making in the kitchen. But most of the time, I just want to pick a recipe as a starting point
- gumby 3y ago
  It’s the opposite. There’s nothing wrong at all with “cook by numbers” and it’s especially great if you didn’t learn to cook as a child. It’s like learning at a coding boot camp where you learn to write some simple business logic based on a spec, or learning algebra in grade 8: basically syntactic transforms with no theory. But Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach you to look in the fridge when you’re hungry but unmotivated and quickly make something from what happens to be there that isn’t boring, faster and cheaper than ordering junk food delivery. Yes you could turn into a fancy chef but the suggested advice is great for someone like me, who doesn’t really care particularly about food.
  - pinkcan 3y ago
    1. that comment is not about you 2. don't tell people their perception of things is wrong, instead consider why they're perceiving things that way, and if you can, do something* that may change their perception * here, you can't
  - Spivak 3y ago
    In fact I would go further and say that this stuff is more fundamental. Online recipes make cooking look mysterious and complicated when they're actually "cook each ingredient in the obvious way, measure with your heart, combine the things that go together, and assemble the final dish." It's not "easy just re-derive the formula when you need it" like you see in maths, it's that most dishes you don't need a recipe at all. Baking is the only thing that requires some science know-how but it has its own building blocks [1] that demystify overly complicated recipes. There aren't that many "shapes" of dishes. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416571728 https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/...
  - testacct22 3y ago
    This is true for me. Been making a lot of soups and soup like dishes, most have a similar profile: 1. Saute aromatic base (like onion, garlic, pepper, celery etc) 2. Deglaze 3. Add meats, non aromatic vegetables (e.g. carrot, potato) 4. Add broth, simmer 5. Garnish
- spaceman_2020 3y ago
  I used to think like that but then I expanded my skills during the pandemic. I now have a much better grasp of ingredients and spices and how they all interact with each other. All it took was asking “why” a specific ingredient was used at a specific stage in the recipe. You get a lot of answers from that.
- naet 3y ago
  For me personally as a home cook I do best when I learn some of the concepts and then I can use whatever I have instead of trying to get a bunch of specific ingredients. For example one of my staples is braised chicken and vegetables. I know I can use any of certain vegetables I might have (mushrooms, onions, celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussel sprouts, potatoes or sweet potatoes, shallots, etc), any of a couple liquids (water, chicken or vegetable stock, red or white wine, beer, etc) and spice it up with (heavy cream, fresh or dried herbs, mustard, garlic, pepper, bacon, butter, lemon, etc). And I know roughly how I want to cook it: flour the chicken and cook until brown and crispy in a pan, take it out and brown any firmer vegetables, add some spices, add the rest of the vegetables and my cooking liquid and bring to a small boil, put everything in a big oven dish, pop the chicken on top, bake at around 400 for 30-50 minutes until the chicken seems done, add any last things that might burn like cream in the final 5 minutes and then plate up and eat. Now I don't have to go to the store and look for anything, don't have to worry too much about measuring ingredients, don't have to worry about cook time or technique. I can whip up a big family dinner pretty quickly with whatever I have on hand and experiment a bit with different flavors with confidence that it will turn out good.
- timacles 3y ago
  It’s not even just obnoxious. It’s also just terrible advice even master chefs need to be exposed to a recipe to to know which ingredients to combine… to expect a home-cook to just come up with recipes at Homefr f is ridiculous. They’re just gonna end up cooking the same three or four things that they’ve been exposed to.

esafak 3y ago

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat opened my eyes; it showed me an insightful way to deconstruct flavor and therefore the building blocks to construct it. Highly recommended!

mvdtnz 3y ago

Respectfully this is obnoxious advice for the majority of home cooks. We just want to know what to cook and how.

spdif899 3y ago
Yeah those books are definitely great and the building blocks Nosrat provides are crucial for any home chef that wants to take a scientific approach to decision making in the kitchen. But most of the time, I just want to pick a recipe as a starting point
gumby 3y ago
It’s the opposite. There’s nothing wrong at all with “cook by numbers” and it’s especially great if you didn’t learn to cook as a child. It’s like learning at a coding boot camp where you learn to write some simple business logic based on a spec, or learning algebra in grade 8: basically syntactic transforms with no theory. But Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will teach you to look in the fridge when you’re hungry but unmotivated and quickly make something from what happens to be there that isn’t boring, faster and cheaper than ordering junk food delivery. Yes you could turn into a fancy chef but the suggested advice is great for someone like me, who doesn’t really care particularly about food.
- pinkcan 3y ago
  1. that comment is not about you 2. don't tell people their perception of things is wrong, instead consider why they're perceiving things that way, and if you can, do something* that may change their perception * here, you can't
- Spivak 3y ago
  In fact I would go further and say that this stuff is more fundamental. Online recipes make cooking look mysterious and complicated when they're actually "cook each ingredient in the obvious way, measure with your heart, combine the things that go together, and assemble the final dish." It's not "easy just re-derive the formula when you need it" like you see in maths, it's that most dishes you don't need a recipe at all. Baking is the only thing that requires some science know-how but it has its own building blocks [1] that demystify overly complicated recipes. There aren't that many "shapes" of dishes. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416571728 https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/...
- testacct22 3y ago
  This is true for me. Been making a lot of soups and soup like dishes, most have a similar profile: 1. Saute aromatic base (like onion, garlic, pepper, celery etc) 2. Deglaze 3. Add meats, non aromatic vegetables (e.g. carrot, potato) 4. Add broth, simmer 5. Garnish
spaceman_2020 3y ago
I used to think like that but then I expanded my skills during the pandemic. I now have a much better grasp of ingredients and spices and how they all interact with each other. All it took was asking “why” a specific ingredient was used at a specific stage in the recipe. You get a lot of answers from that.
naet 3y ago
For me personally as a home cook I do best when I learn some of the concepts and then I can use whatever I have instead of trying to get a bunch of specific ingredients. For example one of my staples is braised chicken and vegetables. I know I can use any of certain vegetables I might have (mushrooms, onions, celery, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussel sprouts, potatoes or sweet potatoes, shallots, etc), any of a couple liquids (water, chicken or vegetable stock, red or white wine, beer, etc) and spice it up with (heavy cream, fresh or dried herbs, mustard, garlic, pepper, bacon, butter, lemon, etc). And I know roughly how I want to cook it: flour the chicken and cook until brown and crispy in a pan, take it out and brown any firmer vegetables, add some spices, add the rest of the vegetables and my cooking liquid and bring to a small boil, put everything in a big oven dish, pop the chicken on top, bake at around 400 for 30-50 minutes until the chicken seems done, add any last things that might burn like cream in the final 5 minutes and then plate up and eat. Now I don't have to go to the store and look for anything, don't have to worry too much about measuring ingredients, don't have to worry about cook time or technique. I can whip up a big family dinner pretty quickly with whatever I have on hand and experiment a bit with different flavors with confidence that it will turn out good.
timacles 3y ago
It’s not even just obnoxious. It’s also just terrible advice even master chefs need to be exposed to a recipe to to know which ingredients to combine… to expect a home-cook to just come up with recipes at Homefr f is ridiculous. They’re just gonna end up cooking the same three or four things that they’ve been exposed to.