6 ms·

The trick for me is to apply engineering to the kitchen. You can actually enjoy really elaborate meals if you simply make more each time and utilize pyrex+freez

The trick for me is to apply engineering to the kitchen. You can actually enjoy really elaborate meals if you simply make more each time and utilize pyrex+freezer. Why make only 6 servings of spaghetti when there's still 50% free space available in your instant pot? (that 'max fill' line is but a polite suggestion :D) Planning ahead, logistics, etc. can make all the difference in the world. Imagine spending one hour in the kitchen to only feed yourself one time. That would be peak insanity to me today. I used to live it for about a decade myself. Ate out about every other day as a consequence. Ordered in a pizza once a week. Today, I eat out about once a month. I haven't ordered a pizza in 3+ years. I absolutely hated cooking until I learned about terms like "mise en place" and realized that manufacturing/lean/six sigma principles work just as well in my kitchen as they do on a factory floor. Also, tools like the humble pressure cooker can take your 2 hour process cycle down to 20 minutes. It arguably tastes better in many cases too. Cooking is not a mystical process. Much of it (not all) is science and engineering. You can robotically produce incredible meals. And I argue you should - The food on America's shelves and restaurants is only worsening in my estimation.

mrob 3y ago
The importance of the "max fill" line in an electric pressure cooker depends on what you're cooking. If you're cooking legumes, you should respect it, because they can foam and make a huge mess if you try to cook too much at once. But I've never had a problem cooking steamed vegetables past the line.
- didgeoridoo 3y ago
  In my experience, going past the max fill line is mostly a problem when using the “rapid pressure release” on a recipe with lots of liquid. Pressing the release button can emit a a superheated geyser of soup with enough force to hit the ceiling.
  - hombre_fatal 3y ago
    What's nice is when this happens by itself while it's cooking and it spackles your counters, cabinets, and maybe even ceiling with salsa and food debris while you're away.
  - MengerSponge 3y ago
    When the timer goes off and the cooker switches off, the contents are still under pressure. That pressure shifts the liquid's boiling point, which is why pressure cookers cook hotter. If you vent the pressure vessel, the liquid inside will rapidly boil as it dumps that excess thermal energy to steam and your kitchen. It'll carry bits of liquid and cooked food with it. Another thing you know but may not have connected: this is exactly the same process that can make water "explode" if you reheat it in a microwave.
    - didgeoridoo 3y ago
      I think the microwaving water issue is slightly different. It does indeed become superheated, but not of course from pressure; if the vessel lacks nucleation sites (imperfections) for bubbles to form, the water can heat quite a bit higher than 100C as it’s not losing energy to the steam phase change. Eventually when a bubble does spontaneously form (or the vessel is jolted), a huge amount of water is instantly converted to steam. You don’t want to be nearby when this happens.
      - MengerSponge 3y ago
        Pretty much everything inside the pressure cooker is a nucleation site, so if you could make the lid just disappear, the superheated contents would explode. Water is only converted to steam while there's energy for it, so only a fraction of the water actually boils*. The risk is that it's a rapid process that propels a lot 100C water outside of the vessel. *) I haven't done the full calculation, but I'm pretty sure the upper bound is something like 10%, with 2-4% being the best most normal people could accomplish in a microwave.
      - rootusrootus 3y ago
        On a somewhat related note, I actually had this happen recently on the stove. I've done it a few times over the years in the microwave, and I didn't even think it was really possible to have happen on the stove. Plain stainless steel pot, small, good condition but still a couple years old. You'd think plenty of nucleation sites, right? Filled it with 195F water from the insta-hot tap, and put it on my induction stove and turned it on high to push it up to a roiling boil. But after 30 seconds -- nothing. Not a single bubble in the pan, which is weird all by itself. And at this point the range is pumping a fairly ridiculous amount of energy into what is already hot water. So I thought "it can't really be superheating, right? on the stove??" and then grabbed the pot and swished it really good while stepping back. Sure enough, it instantly erupted into a furious boil. I'd guess I'm unlikely to ever run into that situation again. The stars had to align pretty well, I think.
  - fprotthetarball 3y ago
    This is also my experience. I regularly fill up my 8 qt as high as I'm able to, as long as I think I can carry the pot without spilling. It takes 30-45 minutes to cool down enough to depressurize, but the lid is always clean so the food is likely staying in the pot.
  - Arrath 3y ago
    That must have been an entertaining few minutes when you first made that discovery
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  You can add a tablespoon or so of oil to keep the foam down
janwillemb 3y ago
Alternatively, one can enjoy cooking and don't mind spending time in the kitchen. Freezing food degrades the taste imo. But in my country eating out is considered a luxury activity, homecooking is the norm (the Netherlands)
- fragmede 3y ago
  I think it should be noted that it is not universal. In other places, having the time, the space, the electricity or gas, to home cook a meal is the luxury, and eating out is the default.
  - Melatonic 3y ago
    Where is this the case ?
    - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
      To be fair to that point there are maybe a hundred million people around the world living in tiny places without much more than a hotplate or rice cooker, or working in factory dormitories and having no control over the food they eat.
    - HAMSHAMA 3y ago
      Large Chinese cities are like this. So many street vendors are both a cause and an outcome of this state.
    - doix 3y ago
      I'm now staying in a condo in Bangkok that is like that. Even if I wanted to cook, it would be extremely inconvenient. There's just enough tabletop area for one of the following: coffee machine, rice cooker, portable stove, dish rack. I keep the coffee maker there permanently. There is also a huge disconnect between prices in supermarkets and takeaway food. It's cheaper to order food than to try and cook it, at least in my area.
      - 3y ago
madmax108 3y ago
"Imagine spending one hour in the kitchen to only feed yourself one time. That would be peak insanity to me today." YMMV. For me, spending time cooking is a great way to take a break from my computer and spend time away from a screen. And like showering, the process of cooking is now mechanical enough that it allows me to focus on broader tangents in whatever I'm working on and set myself up for the next session of coding/building stuff, and now with a full tummy. I life in a country where fresh produce is readily (and cheaply) available, so I find things like weeklong mealprep (especially, pre-chopping veggies for the week), and eating microwaved food from the freezer ridiculous, both from a taste as well as a health perspective. Honestly, I think the trick is to have a set of a 12-15 recipes that you can fall back to, and once you have a hang of it, it's easy to create interesting variations with your food! Of course, YMMV "Much of it (not all) is science and engineering. You can robotically produce incredible meals. And I argue you should" - This I agree with 100% with you on!
- flyinghamster 3y ago
  One thing I've noticed: cooking for myself and my parents feels like less of a chore than cooking only for myself. That's a big part of why, for just myself, I'd rather cook up a big batch and freeze portions for later, aside from recipes not always scaling down well.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Cooking for other people can be something of an event. Cooking for yourself after a busy day for yourself can be a chore you're sort of resigned to so that you can get some necessary calories in your body even if, in general, you like cooking. That's where it's nice to be able to mindlessly pop something in the oven or microwave that dish you've previously made or even just bought.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I agree with all that. I'll eat leftovers. For somethings they're great like a big pot of chili. For some things they're awful. For others, it's somewhere in between and/or some leftovers can be incorporated into a new dish. Cooking a company meal can be an all-day affair but, especially when I was commuting into an office every day, I had a fairly standard set of recipes that I could whip up in very little time and with very little effort. It really wasn't worth preparing a larger quantity that I would have to reheat for a less good result.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
flyinghamster 3y ago
> I haven't ordered a pizza in 3+ years. Even building a pizza up from a prepared crust is way better than frozen. My mother needs gluten-free, and there was a GF frozen pizza we liked that a local store carried. But then it disappeared, and I decided to try building my own from a GF crust. The home-built pizza was so much better that there's no going back - not to mention the opportunity to try different toppings.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I haven't done it in a while but the flatbread pizza crusts/naan that at least in the stores around me make a good base for a superfast pizza that's definitely better than the frozen pizzas I very periodically try and am disappointed in. Using sliced through French bread is another good option.
- jjudge 3y ago
  My wife and one of my daughters have a gluten allergy (celiac) — would love to see your GF pizza crust recipe that you’ve perfected, if possible.
  - flyinghamster 3y ago
    I was using a prepared crust (Schär) for my home-builts - and I would heartily recommend it if you're not up to making one from scratch.
- kragen 3y ago
  are communion wafers girlfriends
  - nick-of-time 3y ago
    Fun fact! No. God hates celiacs, apparently. * https://theconversation.com/why-the-catholic-church-bans-gluten-free-communion-wafers-81062 https://theconversation.com/why-the-catholic-church-bans-glu...
netfortius 3y ago
You had me at "pressure cooker". I don't even want to remember how [cooking] life was before I discovered the InstantPot, and the world of options such opened in kitchen.
slothtrop 3y ago
This is increasingly difficult as you have more mouths to feed. Not only would you need to produce a very high yield, you need the space for it. The balance for us is to make only 2-3 separate dinner meals per week and have leftovers. That way we have some variety but don't have to cook every night (plus when we do cook, we don't mind spending the extra time for a delicious meal. If you're cooking on a time constraint you want a super-fast one-off). Breakfast for me is a solved problem, I just have overnight oats with fixings. Lunch is whatever, usually eggs, legumes, sardines, tofu.
- MengerSponge 3y ago
  It's increasingly difficult to prep more meals. The difference between one and two or three is vanishingly small though. For me (active adult male) I can prep up to six meals at a time. More than that would require a larger pressure cooker and a lot more fridge space.
Melatonic 3y ago
Agreed. I know someone who refuses to cook at all under the guise of "anxiety" and I do not understand how some people are fine with not being able to provide for themselves on a very basic level. Automate your cooking and meal prep as much as possible and the process becomes quick and easy and you always have tons of food on hand.
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  If you have not experienced food or diet-related anxiety, try not to write it off as being "fine with not being able to provide for themselves on a very basic level". There are several kinds of anxiety/phobia/disorder that leave people unable to cook, and I am sure their anxiety at some level encompasses exactly the thing you think they haven't noticed.
- gabereiser 3y ago
  What about those that get anxiety when they are in the kitchen due to past trauma or something? To brush them off as “fine with not being able to provide for themselves” is shaming them for having said anxiety. Maybe the last time they were in the kitchen was with Mom when she had her stroke and her face plant into your eggplant is a memory you get every time you see your mixing bowl? Everyone has something, so be kind to those who suffer.
- kragen 3y ago
  anxiety can be very disabling, and can indeed leave people unable to provide for themselves at a very basic level; they will, as you seem to have correctly inferred, die without support fortunately most of us live in a society, so we don't have to be robinson crusoe or the man of the hole to survive
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    > they will, as you seem to have correctly inferred, die without support Is there ever an instance of this happening? Seems to me the issue veers into ptsd/trauma territory if one somehow finds themselves incapable of feeding themselves. Anxiety is an almost banal way to describe it, and I've had an anxiety attack.
fatfingerd 3y ago
For a sauce sure, but developing a process for reheating spaghetti that results in good spaghetti sounds a lot more complicated than taking 10 minutes for fresh spaghetti, or really no additional minutes given the sauce has to heat up from frozen.
dfinninger 3y ago
Something that I picked up after watching one of J. Kenji López-Alt’s videos was chaining ingredients. Specifically the difficult ones and not necessarily just reusing the rest of the green onion in the bottom of the fridge. So, now I give myself a budget of one or two “difficult/time consuming” ingredients. This can be Demi-glacé or some other homemade reduction, soy-marinated eggs, slow-cooked brisket, etc. And I make more of it than I need to. Then I make and eat the meal I was planning on, but I now have a leftover ingredient. Then for my next meal, I can re-use that ingredient and choose another difficult one. It helps with inspiration and effort level. An example would be: make homemade tomato sauce then make Spaghetti. Next make dough and reuse the sauce into some homemade pizza. Then use the rest of the dough for garlic bread next to a salad (and maybe there’s a little red sauce left for dipping). Etc. Of course, I’m not doing this for individual meals, I’m batching it up into 3-4 servings each.
- ebiester 3y ago
  Have you seen Adam Ragusea's cheater demi? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WLUMS7Ung https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WLUMS7Ung It's about 80% as good as the real thing but that's pretty useful to have.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    You can also buy concentrated stock packages and just bring them to a simmer with however much water you want to use for the consistency. I basically never bother with doing it from scratch these days.
    - ebiester 3y ago
      Where are these concentrated stock packages? I've had better than bullion and added gelatin to that, and I think I've seen heinz demi, but what concentrate stock packages to you have available?
      - ghaff 3y ago
        I use something called More than Gourmet Glace de Veau Gold. (They have other varieties as well.) www.morethangourmet.com
jshprentz 3y ago
As an engineer, I enjoyed the recipe presentation at Cooking for Engineers [1], which has been discussed here on HN 16 years ago [2], 12 years ago [3], and again last year [4]. In addition to typical step-by-step instructions with photos, the nearly 100 recipes each show a diagram combining an ingredient list (in the order needed) with a timeline showing operations to perform (see [5], for example). Sadly, there have been no updates for about seven years. [1] https://www.cookingforengineers.com https://www.cookingforengineers.com [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79856 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745687 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30797907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30797907 [5] https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/268/Buffalo-Chicken-Chili https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/268/Buffalo-Chick...
Chris2048 3y ago
> pyrex + freezer but a lot of foods taste terrible defrosted. Freezing can really dry up ingredients, or render them soggy. that said, I buy pre chopped frozen ginger and garlic, I can't really tell the difference between that and cooked fresh. Jury's still out on frozen chopped onion. > the humble pressure cooker Pressure Cooking can easily turn the stuff you put into it into bland mush, where all the flavours meld together too much, so it's good for one aspect of your meal (maybe the base soup / mush) but not all.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  We vacuum seal chicken to avoid frost and freezer burn. The thawed meat turns out ok, still not quite as good as fresh but not bad.
sowbug 3y ago
If you're an engineering-process junkie, then cooking can feel like the most interesting parts of engineering stripped down to their essence. We strive for an ideal of immortality in our reusable, flexible code components, never quite attaining it and always bemoaning the amount of duplication in effort. But cooking is all process, with the best possible outcome being not durability but an immediate destruction of the results -- I made a dish, and my family ate it all! And then the real challenge reveals itself: they loved the dish, but can I make it again the exact same way next week?

mrob 3y ago

The importance of the "max fill" line in an electric pressure cooker depends on what you're cooking. If you're cooking legumes, you should respect it, because they can foam and make a huge mess if you try to cook too much at once. But I've never had a problem cooking steamed vegetables past the line.

didgeoridoo 3y ago
In my experience, going past the max fill line is mostly a problem when using the “rapid pressure release” on a recipe with lots of liquid. Pressing the release button can emit a a superheated geyser of soup with enough force to hit the ceiling.
- hombre_fatal 3y ago
  What's nice is when this happens by itself while it's cooking and it spackles your counters, cabinets, and maybe even ceiling with salsa and food debris while you're away.
- MengerSponge 3y ago
  When the timer goes off and the cooker switches off, the contents are still under pressure. That pressure shifts the liquid's boiling point, which is why pressure cookers cook hotter. If you vent the pressure vessel, the liquid inside will rapidly boil as it dumps that excess thermal energy to steam and your kitchen. It'll carry bits of liquid and cooked food with it. Another thing you know but may not have connected: this is exactly the same process that can make water "explode" if you reheat it in a microwave.
  - didgeoridoo 3y ago
    I think the microwaving water issue is slightly different. It does indeed become superheated, but not of course from pressure; if the vessel lacks nucleation sites (imperfections) for bubbles to form, the water can heat quite a bit higher than 100C as it’s not losing energy to the steam phase change. Eventually when a bubble does spontaneously form (or the vessel is jolted), a huge amount of water is instantly converted to steam. You don’t want to be nearby when this happens.
    - MengerSponge 3y ago
      Pretty much everything inside the pressure cooker is a nucleation site, so if you could make the lid just disappear, the superheated contents would explode. Water is only converted to steam while there's energy for it, so only a fraction of the water actually boils*. The risk is that it's a rapid process that propels a lot 100C water outside of the vessel. *) I haven't done the full calculation, but I'm pretty sure the upper bound is something like 10%, with 2-4% being the best most normal people could accomplish in a microwave.
    - rootusrootus 3y ago
      On a somewhat related note, I actually had this happen recently on the stove. I've done it a few times over the years in the microwave, and I didn't even think it was really possible to have happen on the stove. Plain stainless steel pot, small, good condition but still a couple years old. You'd think plenty of nucleation sites, right? Filled it with 195F water from the insta-hot tap, and put it on my induction stove and turned it on high to push it up to a roiling boil. But after 30 seconds -- nothing. Not a single bubble in the pan, which is weird all by itself. And at this point the range is pumping a fairly ridiculous amount of energy into what is already hot water. So I thought "it can't really be superheating, right? on the stove??" and then grabbed the pot and swished it really good while stepping back. Sure enough, it instantly erupted into a furious boil. I'd guess I'm unlikely to ever run into that situation again. The stars had to align pretty well, I think.
- fprotthetarball 3y ago
  This is also my experience. I regularly fill up my 8 qt as high as I'm able to, as long as I think I can carry the pot without spilling. It takes 30-45 minutes to cool down enough to depressurize, but the lid is always clean so the food is likely staying in the pot.
- Arrath 3y ago
  That must have been an entertaining few minutes when you first made that discovery
selimthegrim 3y ago
You can add a tablespoon or so of oil to keep the foam down

janwillemb 3y ago

Alternatively, one can enjoy cooking and don't mind spending time in the kitchen. Freezing food degrades the taste imo. But in my country eating out is considered a luxury activity, homecooking is the norm (the Netherlands)

fragmede 3y ago
I think it should be noted that it is not universal. In other places, having the time, the space, the electricity or gas, to home cook a meal is the luxury, and eating out is the default.
- Melatonic 3y ago
  Where is this the case ?
  - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
    To be fair to that point there are maybe a hundred million people around the world living in tiny places without much more than a hotplate or rice cooker, or working in factory dormitories and having no control over the food they eat.
  - HAMSHAMA 3y ago
    Large Chinese cities are like this. So many street vendors are both a cause and an outcome of this state.
  - doix 3y ago
    I'm now staying in a condo in Bangkok that is like that. Even if I wanted to cook, it would be extremely inconvenient. There's just enough tabletop area for one of the following: coffee machine, rice cooker, portable stove, dish rack. I keep the coffee maker there permanently. There is also a huge disconnect between prices in supermarkets and takeaway food. It's cheaper to order food than to try and cook it, at least in my area.
    - 3y ago

madmax108 3y ago

"Imagine spending one hour in the kitchen to only feed yourself one time. That would be peak insanity to me today." YMMV. For me, spending time cooking is a great way to take a break from my computer and spend time away from a screen. And like showering, the process of cooking is now mechanical enough that it allows me to focus on broader tangents in whatever I'm working on and set myself up for the next session of coding/building stuff, and now with a full tummy. I life in a country where fresh produce is readily (and cheaply) available, so I find things like weeklong mealprep (especially, pre-chopping veggies for the week), and eating microwaved food from the freezer ridiculous, both from a taste as well as a health perspective. Honestly, I think the trick is to have a set of a 12-15 recipes that you can fall back to, and once you have a hang of it, it's easy to create interesting variations with your food! Of course, YMMV "Much of it (not all) is science and engineering. You can robotically produce incredible meals. And I argue you should" - This I agree with 100% with you on!

flyinghamster 3y ago
One thing I've noticed: cooking for myself and my parents feels like less of a chore than cooking only for myself. That's a big part of why, for just myself, I'd rather cook up a big batch and freeze portions for later, aside from recipes not always scaling down well.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Cooking for other people can be something of an event. Cooking for yourself after a busy day for yourself can be a chore you're sort of resigned to so that you can get some necessary calories in your body even if, in general, you like cooking. That's where it's nice to be able to mindlessly pop something in the oven or microwave that dish you've previously made or even just bought.
ghaff 3y ago
I agree with all that. I'll eat leftovers. For somethings they're great like a big pot of chili. For some things they're awful. For others, it's somewhere in between and/or some leftovers can be incorporated into a new dish. Cooking a company meal can be an all-day affair but, especially when I was commuting into an office every day, I had a fairly standard set of recipes that I could whip up in very little time and with very little effort. It really wasn't worth preparing a larger quantity that I would have to reheat for a less good result.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

flyinghamster 3y ago

> I haven't ordered a pizza in 3+ years. Even building a pizza up from a prepared crust is way better than frozen. My mother needs gluten-free, and there was a GF frozen pizza we liked that a local store carried. But then it disappeared, and I decided to try building my own from a GF crust. The home-built pizza was so much better that there's no going back - not to mention the opportunity to try different toppings.

ghaff 3y ago
I haven't done it in a while but the flatbread pizza crusts/naan that at least in the stores around me make a good base for a superfast pizza that's definitely better than the frozen pizzas I very periodically try and am disappointed in. Using sliced through French bread is another good option.
jjudge 3y ago
My wife and one of my daughters have a gluten allergy (celiac) — would love to see your GF pizza crust recipe that you’ve perfected, if possible.
- flyinghamster 3y ago
  I was using a prepared crust (Schär) for my home-builts - and I would heartily recommend it if you're not up to making one from scratch.
kragen 3y ago
are communion wafers girlfriends
- nick-of-time 3y ago
  Fun fact! No. God hates celiacs, apparently. * https://theconversation.com/why-the-catholic-church-bans-gluten-free-communion-wafers-81062 https://theconversation.com/why-the-catholic-church-bans-glu...

netfortius 3y ago

You had me at "pressure cooker". I don't even want to remember how [cooking] life was before I discovered the InstantPot, and the world of options such opened in kitchen.

slothtrop 3y ago

This is increasingly difficult as you have more mouths to feed. Not only would you need to produce a very high yield, you need the space for it. The balance for us is to make only 2-3 separate dinner meals per week and have leftovers. That way we have some variety but don't have to cook every night (plus when we do cook, we don't mind spending the extra time for a delicious meal. If you're cooking on a time constraint you want a super-fast one-off). Breakfast for me is a solved problem, I just have overnight oats with fixings. Lunch is whatever, usually eggs, legumes, sardines, tofu.

MengerSponge 3y ago
It's increasingly difficult to prep more meals. The difference between one and two or three is vanishingly small though. For me (active adult male) I can prep up to six meals at a time. More than that would require a larger pressure cooker and a lot more fridge space.

Melatonic 3y ago

Agreed. I know someone who refuses to cook at all under the guise of "anxiety" and I do not understand how some people are fine with not being able to provide for themselves on a very basic level. Automate your cooking and meal prep as much as possible and the process becomes quick and easy and you always have tons of food on hand.

bemusedthrow75 3y ago
If you have not experienced food or diet-related anxiety, try not to write it off as being "fine with not being able to provide for themselves on a very basic level". There are several kinds of anxiety/phobia/disorder that leave people unable to cook, and I am sure their anxiety at some level encompasses exactly the thing you think they haven't noticed.
gabereiser 3y ago
What about those that get anxiety when they are in the kitchen due to past trauma or something? To brush them off as “fine with not being able to provide for themselves” is shaming them for having said anxiety. Maybe the last time they were in the kitchen was with Mom when she had her stroke and her face plant into your eggplant is a memory you get every time you see your mixing bowl? Everyone has something, so be kind to those who suffer.
kragen 3y ago
anxiety can be very disabling, and can indeed leave people unable to provide for themselves at a very basic level; they will, as you seem to have correctly inferred, die without support fortunately most of us live in a society, so we don't have to be robinson crusoe or the man of the hole to survive
- slothtrop 3y ago
  > they will, as you seem to have correctly inferred, die without support Is there ever an instance of this happening? Seems to me the issue veers into ptsd/trauma territory if one somehow finds themselves incapable of feeding themselves. Anxiety is an almost banal way to describe it, and I've had an anxiety attack.

fatfingerd 3y ago

For a sauce sure, but developing a process for reheating spaghetti that results in good spaghetti sounds a lot more complicated than taking 10 minutes for fresh spaghetti, or really no additional minutes given the sauce has to heat up from frozen.

dfinninger 3y ago

Something that I picked up after watching one of J. Kenji López-Alt’s videos was chaining ingredients. Specifically the difficult ones and not necessarily just reusing the rest of the green onion in the bottom of the fridge. So, now I give myself a budget of one or two “difficult/time consuming” ingredients. This can be Demi-glacé or some other homemade reduction, soy-marinated eggs, slow-cooked brisket, etc. And I make more of it than I need to. Then I make and eat the meal I was planning on, but I now have a leftover ingredient. Then for my next meal, I can re-use that ingredient and choose another difficult one. It helps with inspiration and effort level. An example would be: make homemade tomato sauce then make Spaghetti. Next make dough and reuse the sauce into some homemade pizza. Then use the rest of the dough for garlic bread next to a salad (and maybe there’s a little red sauce left for dipping). Etc. Of course, I’m not doing this for individual meals, I’m batching it up into 3-4 servings each.

ebiester 3y ago
Have you seen Adam Ragusea's cheater demi? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WLUMS7Ung https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WLUMS7Ung It's about 80% as good as the real thing but that's pretty useful to have.
- ghaff 3y ago
  You can also buy concentrated stock packages and just bring them to a simmer with however much water you want to use for the consistency. I basically never bother with doing it from scratch these days.
  - ebiester 3y ago
    Where are these concentrated stock packages? I've had better than bullion and added gelatin to that, and I think I've seen heinz demi, but what concentrate stock packages to you have available?
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I use something called More than Gourmet Glace de Veau Gold. (They have other varieties as well.) www.morethangourmet.com

jshprentz 3y ago

As an engineer, I enjoyed the recipe presentation at Cooking for Engineers [1], which has been discussed here on HN 16 years ago [2], 12 years ago [3], and again last year [4]. In addition to typical step-by-step instructions with photos, the nearly 100 recipes each show a diagram combining an ingredient list (in the order needed) with a timeline showing operations to perform (see [5], for example). Sadly, there have been no updates for about seven years. [1] https://www.cookingforengineers.com https://www.cookingforengineers.com [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79856 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745687 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30797907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30797907 [5] https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/268/Buffalo-Chicken-Chili https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/268/Buffalo-Chick...

Chris2048 3y ago

> pyrex + freezer but a lot of foods taste terrible defrosted. Freezing can really dry up ingredients, or render them soggy. that said, I buy pre chopped frozen ginger and garlic, I can't really tell the difference between that and cooked fresh. Jury's still out on frozen chopped onion. > the humble pressure cooker Pressure Cooking can easily turn the stuff you put into it into bland mush, where all the flavours meld together too much, so it's good for one aspect of your meal (maybe the base soup / mush) but not all.

slothtrop 3y ago
We vacuum seal chicken to avoid frost and freezer burn. The thawed meat turns out ok, still not quite as good as fresh but not bad.

sowbug 3y ago

If you're an engineering-process junkie, then cooking can feel like the most interesting parts of engineering stripped down to their essence. We strive for an ideal of immortality in our reusable, flexible code components, never quite attaining it and always bemoaning the amount of duplication in effort. But cooking is all process, with the best possible outcome being not durability but an immediate destruction of the results -- I made a dish, and my family ate it all! And then the real challenge reveals itself: they loved the dish, but can I make it again the exact same way next week?