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A lot what separates good and bad cooking is tacit understanding that can't be explained in words. You need to practice to detect the nuances in flavor. It's r
by marginalia_nu 3y ago
A lot what separates good and bad cooking is tacit understanding that can't be explained in words. You need to practice to detect the nuances in flavor. It's really basic and doesn't make good edutaninment content.
I'd say 90% of being a competent chef is just down to knowing how to balance the basic flavor components; and to figure out how these things change during the cooking process.
With practice and experimentation you can learn to infer what is lacking by taste and make anything go from bland to amazing.
Spices and ingredients are much less important. They aren't unimportant, but they aren't what makes something decent into something great. You can make a head cabbage more delicious than most what you'll find in a cookbook if you get this right.
- tayo42 3y agoYeah agree with this Reading "Salt, fat acid heat" demonstrates this really well. Maybe almost to well, it takes away some of the mystery I guess between cuisines. Everything is the same, just different aromatics/spices added That book changed how I approach cooking, I always wondered how people just make recipes, and now I can mostly do it
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- corinroyal 3y agoI found the flavor combinations and techniques easier to grasp than timing. That's what always gets me. Juggling two or three dishes with their own timing and requirements such that they all come out around the same time and one is not burning while stirring the other trips me up. After I practice a recipe a few times I get better at anticipating what it'll need when, but I'll never make the mistake again of cooking all new recipes for a dinner party and have each one fail spectacularly.
- LeChuck 3y agoWhat works for me is figuring out which dishes (or partly completed dishes) can wait. Either on or off the flame. Most of the time only 1 or 2 dishes require exact timing. The rest can be (partially) prepared beforehand and reheated/finished at the end.