5 ms·

Line by line, my disagreements: - You don't need cookbooks. The internet is better in terms of 'MVK', and the best cookbook is the one you make yourself. - G

• ironchef 14y ago
  Ditch the whisk? A whisk is perfect for controlled aeration of a substance. A fork lacks the necessary dispersion area. What else would you suggest using to cream whites or eggs that is in his list (if you're also getting rid of the stand mixer)?
  • notJim 14y ago
    Seconding this, I skipped the whisk for my kitchen, and it's fucking impossible to whisk stuff with a fork.
    • mattmaroon 14y ago
      Out of curiosity, why would one skip a whisk? They're cheap. They take up very little room. I use one so much I bought a second.
      • notJim 14y ago
        I didn't know I would need it, and was buying only the very minimum number of things. (For example, I also didn't get a garlic masher which is small and cheap—less useful, but again I didn't know how useful a whisk was yet.)
  • jules 14y ago
    I have a whisk but I always cream whites with a fork because it works better. Whisks do work better for other things though (e.g. batters, mayonaise). Also, if you're doing any baking then one of those rubbery plastic spatulas are invaluable (and cheap).
    • tptacek 14y ago
      I don't know what "creaming egg whites" means, but if you're going to have any electrics, have one that does a good job of whipping egg whites and don't waste time doing it by hand.
      • jules 14y ago
        I was taking over his terminology, but you're right whipping is the correct term. It depends on what you need it for. With my electric mixer it's easy to overwhip. It's probably just silly nostalgia and habit though (my grandmother used to whip cream with a fork).
      • bhousel 14y ago
        Interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meringue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meringue There's way more to meringue than I realized.
        • tptacek 14y ago
          If that's what creaming whites means (adding cream of tartar for meringue), I probably just missed it because I think meringue is yucky. :)
          • jules 14y ago
            That's not what I meant at least. For meringue you definitely want a mixer, especially for the Italian variety.
• varikin 14y ago
  Ditch the whisk? Whisks are almost as important as spatulas. Also, what is wrong with the steel bowls for mixing? What do you call a regular bowl, a rice bowl? I need something that will hold several cups of flour. And I need three because I need to actually to mix different things at the same time. Also, why get rid of the dutch oven, but keep the cast iron? A dutch oven is cast iron. I am confused.
• wpietri 14y ago
  I'm mostly with you, but I think almost anybody who needs a guide to buy kitchen basics also needs a couple of cookbooks. Fishing for recipes on the Internet is an advanced skill. You need to know how to cook reasonably well in order to evaluate the recipes and adjust each one to your situation. In contrast, something like Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" gives a lot of basic advice, has a set of consistent recipes with clear variations, and is carefully designed to avoid confusion. And for the nerdy, the Bittman book is available in a Kindle version, so it need not take up any physical space.
  • mattmaroon 14y ago
    I agree. The net is quite useful for some very specific things. For instance I once wanted to know how to make a pumpkin pie with heavy cream rather than condensed milk and found a thread on chowhound about how to substitute. Or how much sugar/gelatin/alcohol you need to use to get your sorbet to the right consistency. But as far as going to AllRecipes and following instructions, you can do it, and you'll end up with something edible, but you're not learning to cook properly doing so.
  • tptacek 14y ago
    Bittman's got a bit of a shaky reputation. Good writer. Not super authoritative, though. If you're going to do the "one cookbook only" thing, I strongly recommend the Cooks Illustrated books. One nice thing about them: they publish new ones every year, so you can get one a few years old for very cheap. If you want to be "interesting" about this: get Ruhlman's Twenty (which is 20 core techniques with sample recipes) and Ratio, and then use the Internet for everything else. If you read Twenty, you'll probably be able to spot bullshit on the Internet.
• marquis 14y ago
  Missing the whisk renders any good kitchen disabled - you need a good whisk to make sauces, egg whites etc.
• kscaldef 14y ago
  Counterpoints: Cookbooks: he's recommending specific cookbooks which he thinks will make you a better cook. As he says, lots of them are crap, as are lots of the recipes and tutorials on the internet. You're paying for curation here more than the content itself. Pots: Keep in mind that a "10 piece" pot set is really one 5 pots or pans, which is not that much. Having the correct size pot or pan for the quantity of food that you're heating makes a big difference in how things turn out. (For example, when sauteing onions & vegetables you really want a fairly full single layer.) Whisk: I'm sorry, but it really is an essential tool Ice Cream Maker: I completely agree, and I'd be inclined to ditch the whole "desserts" section. Note, that I think there's some debate about what "minimum viable" means here. The stand mixer falls in this grey area, I think. You can probably get away with a good hand mixer (as he acknowledges) but the stand mixer is more versatile and time saving.
  • mattmaroon 14y ago
    Well, the point was minimum viable kitchen for cooking gourmet food. The way I defined it, I felt I couldn't exclude desserts and a stand mixer and get there, though I'll be honest I didn't go through all 300 pages of the book and count. You certainly could leave those out and still cook most of the stuff in the book. Also internet recipes are a minefield for someone learning to actually cook. I'd say at least 90% of them are garbage, and I might be spotting them a 9.
• henrikschroder 14y ago
  > You don't need cookbooks. The internet is better in terms of 'MVK', and the best cookbook is the one you make yourself. You're talking about recipe collections, not cookbooks, and for those you are probably right. But a good cookbook doesn't just contain recipes, it contains basic cooking knowledge, it contains general recipes that you can use to make actual meals. And you'll be using those guidelines over and over again when cooking.
• notJim 14y ago
  Maybe it's because I'm confused about what a "regular bowl" is (I assume you mean salad/cereal bowl), but I don't understand how you can cook without mixing bowls. I use mixing bowls for all kinds of things from pancake batter to tossing veggies for roasting to putting stuff in as I prepare it. I also sometimes use it as sort of a crappy double boiler for melting stuff at low temperatures. I would want at least two so I can do more than one thing, and really three so I can have a couple different sizes.
• philstephenson 14y ago
  If you've ever spent some time reading some of the really good cookbooks you'll realize just how valuable they can be. While a 'minimum viable kitchen' may be a misleading title, the author is focusing an audience interested in more gourmet, high quality cooking. The difference between the recipes found in a cookbook by say Thomas Keller or David Chang and those found at recipes.com or even foodnetwork.com are significant for the 'foodie' cooks. I also think a standing mixer is a luxury, but I've upvoted everyone who's said you cannot ditch the whisk. Whisks are important. Enough said. Many comments on this thread have been about knives. I've owned quite a few knives over the span of years of professional cooking. A really good chef knife will really only be appreciated by those who cook either professionally or really seriously as a hobby. A soccer mom who chops onions once or twice a week to cook dinner very likely won't know/feel the difference between a 50$ Whustoff or Henckel vs a $250 Shun. The other important thing to know about knives is if you do decide to spring for a good quality blade, maintaining it is really important. Sharpening with a whetstone with the appropriate grit and honing the blade before each use will keep your sharp edge for much longer. All in all the article is good. All-clad is hands down the best quality and most durable cookwear out there. Although I don't think using a dutch oven to make sauces is a great idea.
• tvon 14y ago
  FWIW, the lid of the Lodge dutch oven functions as a 10" pan if you flip it... I'd guess that would work with any dutch oven with a flat top (and for all I know it's commonplace).
• tptacek 14y ago
  * The Internet is full of terrible cooking information, and if you don't have any authoritative sources at all, it's hard to separate the good from the bad. You should have one trustworthy cookbook. * You will be unhappy if your only cooking surface is cast iron. I agree that you can do without the dutch oven but it is the "pan you can do without" that is the most valuable; it is the immediate runner up to the the "list of must-have pans". * Strong disagree on your mixing bowl point. You need lots of mixing bowls. I have 8 and wish I had more. For instance: muffins and pancakes both want two mixing bowls at a minimum, and three if you don't want to use a service bowl to separate eggs. Sautees want a mixing bowl for proteins and mixing bowl for prepped vegetables. Dinner prep usually wants one mixing bowl just to throw onion skins and wrappers in. Mixing bowls are lightweight, stackable, cheap, and supremely useful, and it makes no sense to chintz on them. * I don't even know how to respond to "ditch the whisk" unless you're one of those old French guys who can make a hollandaise with a fork. You need a whisk.
  • w1ntermute 14y ago
    > The Internet is full of terrible cooking information, and if you don't have any authoritative sources at all, it's hard to separate the good from the bad. The internet is full of terrible information in general. That's why PageRank was invented. Is there something unique about cooking information that means PageRank won't work with it?
    • tptacek 14y ago
      YES. Recipes are a long-tail topic. The sites that do best in PageRank are the ones with the most recipes. The sites with the most recipes tend to either be overtly user-generated or slyly repackaged UGC. Moreover, as Patrick will explain, most people who search for prepared dishes aren't actually going to prepare them, which means Google has little incentive to ensure the tops of the SERPs are good. I'll find the eHow "how to cook a steak" that was pegged to the top of a SERP in a bit. Another counterexample to your belief about the miracle of PageRank: try searching for symptoms some time.
      • 14y ago