oh it is good sir. I order my seasoning packs from gold star chili an just manipulate to my liking. the flavor is just incredible an the 5 way is off the hook. everythin in cincy just like memphis (my hometown) has just a distinctive flavor to it… from shake (udf) to potato chips ( grippos best fuccin bbq potato chips ever!) to chili… to pizza… i give cincy they props for holdin down the midwest outside the normal steak, ribs, an pizza notaries the midwest typically gets.
Yeah it’s what made me want to be a cook in the first place. Also I’ve found a new show which is basically “Advanced Good Eats, Dungeons and Dragons” It’s called In the Search of Perfection with Heston Blumentals. If you like science and food, this guy would fucking tickle your dick.
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OC
One thing you’re going to learn about cooking is that to never take shortcuts. I’m not saying not to be lazy, if you find shortcuts within the cooking realm that’s great. Like using a mandolin slicer to make perfect julienne vegetables. However pre-made shit that isn’t backed somehow by a more genuine article, is shit. It’s homogenized, it’s lowest common denominator, it’s there to sell and not to taste good.
Koop’s stuff I can trust because I trust Koop and I know that it’s from a company that isn’t fucking around, however a lot of things can be done with minimal time and effort. The reason why there is such a rise of all this pre-made shit is that people had more things to do in order to participate in life. I feel that since people nowadays are even more efficient than when these pre-made things first appeared on the market, we have the time to go back and enjoy cooking in the kitchen. Cooking in the kitchen was for the simple life, until it got complex. But with all our technology making our lives simple, there is no fucking reason we shouldn’t spend more time in the kitchen.
OC
what station that comes on OC… alton is like my professor in the kitchen… i pay very close attention when he speaks.
plus by cooking it yourself you can monitor what goes into it and eliminate a lot of artificial stuff as well as sup-par ingredients.
It’s on the BBC, but I don’t know if either Food Network (canada or US) has picked it up yet. I’m sure you can find it online somewhere. It’s kind of depressing to watch sometimes because it kind of shows the limits of access to what we have for food. Fuck…the roasted potatoes…even that depresses me that Elsewhere they have like at least a Dozen variety whereas in North America we have Russet, Red and Yellow (basically the same thing but with different colours) and new potatoes. I nearly shat my pants when we got Kennenbecs.
OC
OC i must say im lucky cause we have a store here called wegmans that has all kinds of stuff from not only regions but sections of the world which is really really cool. especially the tomatoes that ive never seen before but they are grown in italy… u should see if you have any grocery stores that import internationally…
awesome! I need to see if I can torrent this show.
Same here man. I’ve made his baked macaroni, his roasted tomato sauce and various other recipes and have never been disappointed. I think on his anniversary special they summed up Good Eats very well by saying it’s a 1 part Julia Child, 1 part Mr. Wizard, and 1 part Monty Python. It’s good to see other Good Eats fans on SRK.
protip: think of cooking as knowledge and execution of different techniques and applications
educate yourself about different ingredients and learn basic technique and you should be able to cook anything you want with random shit laying around your house
don’t ask how to cook “lemmon pepper chicken”, learn how to cook a piece of chicken, learn what approaches you can apply to chicken and how to season something.
fundamentals!
have you ever noticed that after you gained solid knowledge of fundamentals in sf you were able to fuck around with other characters/play other games a little better? spacing, footsies, anti-airs… all basic fundamentals
searing, braising, roasting, poaching, … all different techniques but once you have a solid understanding of them the possibilities of your cooking are endless
don’t learn to cook with a recipe, that’s like learning sf from a flowchart or playing a matchup extremely textbook. treat recipes as guidelines, follow your sense of taste. taste everything. learning to taste and adjust is one of the most important things in cooking. recipes are guidelines, your palate is the absolute authority.
does anyone in here work in a kitchen? position?
Kitchen grunt here. I was primarily a Hot Appetizers Bitch/Deep Fryer Soldier for a long time. Did that station during Brunch as well, but moved up to veg/entremetier and now on daytime grill. Still a fucking noob, I fuck up steaks on the rare occasion. However they did taunt me a bit with a carrot of promotion recently. Might get Chef De Partie, but I would hate to get it and then bail before sticking it out with them for another summer because I don’t want to work another summer with them. Basically I don’t want to get a position because I’ve been there the longest, I want to get it because I fucking earned it. Oh yeah I work brunch which is the most fucking stupid experience I ever have right now. I mean I still love my job but brunch is brutal.
It’s been a while since I posted, but I want to post some new things I learned in the past year or so and some of the creations/specials I did.
OC
Well said. I cook because I get to pick what I eat and also make it as healthy as possible.
As for learning to cook, I made sure I knew how cook an egg any kind of way (fried, sunny side up, poached, hard boiled, etc).
AB is the shit too. I got like 30 episodes of Good Eats on my DVR. He tells why we do certain things when cooking. So far the best thing thing I have ever made was the pan seared steak. Having a skillet is too good. Best pancakes come from it too.
Going along with what ShinGouki00 said, a great cookbook that hits on those ideas is Colicchio’s Think Like a Chef. It teaches you the basics and then how those basics can be used to create different dishes.
never worked… was forced in the kitchen at a young age an learned all the fundamentals you speak of an advanced over time. Mom an great x3 grandma showed me things to “have in case she wants to be a bitch dont want to do or youre on ya own” [their own quotes]… learned my bases… styles… the definitive uses of all herbs, spice, marinades… the gravy mastering… a lot an still taking in more…
Ive learned A LOT an the last 3 years learned my cooking items (utensils, pans, pots…etc.)… i guess u can treat the approach like SF. i stress the same as im teachin my younger cousins n such to get the bases together an you can expand yourself.
man I used to do brunch on sundays, what a fucking load of ass
having to poach eggs to order extremely hungover… not fun, I did learn a couple things about american food though, home fried potatoes, etc.
I went to this new place in my area called gigi, it’s kinda hard to describe but the food is pretty godly kinda like a late night diner concept but it’s more upscale, open till 5 am. anyway so they have a pork ramen which of course comes with a poached egg…
long story short, instead of poaching it, they kept them in a sous vide bath and just cracked it into your bowl (open kitchen)! it was crazy, it poached inside the shell, and it wasn’t like a hardboiled egg, it was straight up soft and all poached-like. never seen something like that before.
so what is this place you work at? what kind of food, etc
I work at a place called Joe Fortes in Vancouver. Awesome place and it was voted top place to work in BC a couple of times, top small business in Canada to work a year or so back. I mean it is a bit expensive for what you get (startch, veg, protein) that’s it, but on busy nights we do like 500 covers so the menu does have to be simplified in order to accomodate. Our claim to fame is just how well our service is and I’m sure I’m super spoiled, but most of the serving staff is fucking awesome. Won’t throw us under the bus and even those that do, are lovable scamps. Basically we work together as much as we can and there is hardly any BOH vs. FOH stuff.
On poaching eggs, yeah pretty much sucks ass. Although I have an old cooking classmate that uses way that seems far better and organized that putting all your fucking eggs into a pot and guessing what is what. Fill up a metal 1/1 or hotel pan, put a perforated tray in it so it’ll be under the water line and just put the eggs in that way. They’ll stay in place, you can put softs, meds and hards in the front, mid and back respectively. I have yet to try this, but he swears by it and I’d rather be able to organize it like I organize cooking on a grill rather than tossing a bunch of eggs in and not knowing which floater is what doneness.
OC
yeah, but it works sometimes. I tried making Beef and Brocolli once, and using recipes online I tried making my own B&B, and it was fucking SHIT
I added lots of butter and cream. Im not much of a “traditional” cooker, I just make shit that tastes good. I needed it to be thick enough to hold up to the lemon juice and whole shrimp and olives and all that other stuff.
I’ve heard of adding nutmeg to bechamel, but never to alfredo.
Searing is no more advanced than braising or grilling. I wouldnt even consider searing cooking its nothing more than caramelizing the sugars very quickly in a dry heat cooking method. Braising IMO takes more steps where you can just grill something and be done.
Anyways, I’ve cooked lots and lots of things within the past month I just havent had time to upload it all. Sea Scallops, Prince Edward Mussels, Lo mein, fresh salmon, chicken veloute etc etc. Ill try to get some pics up soon.
And for the guy who asked a few replies back what our backgrounds were I’ve been working at Sodexo USA for the past 2 years as a line cook, my aunt was a caterer and I grew up watching my grandparents cook. Im also a student a Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School.
I meant searing foie, searing foie is a fucking art. Any asshole can sear a piece of meat, but things like searing foie, cooking scallops, and cooking duck breast shows a cook’s ability. Yeah a lot of people can do it, but how many of them do it right. or PERFECTLY.
also soviet how was your B&B bad?
did you examine the flavors that go into the dish enough to recognize which balances which? this is one of the first steps to tasting and adjusting. you’re not gonna be nobu matsushisa off your first couple of dishes, but everyone starts somewhere. I didn’t say not to use recipes, but to treat them as guidelines. next time you should put conscious effort into your cooking. taste and understand~
stop mashing
actually i asked here for recipes, and got no reply. I have tried dozens of recipes, and there is so much wrong with them. Main problems are simply that its too dry, and it just doesn’t taste like B&B. I prefer the type of B&B you get at asian restaurants usually, where it almost seems like its steamed.