/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.5675186]

>Don't know how to cook.
>Sick of eating subway all the time to get my vitamins and not die of scurvy.
>Want to cook.
>Don't know where to start.

Should i just buy a deep fryer and fry things and then work my way up?

[Anonymous No.5675189]

>>5675186

this is about your speed, fggt.

[Anonymous No.5675190]

Just learn how to pan fry stuff.
Omelets are super easy to start with and really hard to fuck up.

[Anonymous No.5675193]

>>5675190
I'd prefer to start with meat.

This thread is sorta somewhat sarcastic but at the same time pretty literal in that i have really never cooked anything before.

[Anonymous No.5675199]

>>5675193
You can pan fry pretty much anything, including meat.

fry bacon too, and bam you have breakfast

[Anonymous No.5675200]

>>5675199
But how, anon.

How.

[Anonymous No.5675201]

you should develop the habit of buying vegetables every morning, so no matter what you cook you throw them in

[Anonymous No.5675203]

Step 1: how to boil water.
Learn to boil. A lot of dishes are based /entirely/ on boiling/simmering, many of which are quite healthful.
We have a saying where I'm from about bad cooks who "can't even cook lentils" because lentils are the easiest thing in the world to cook. You just put'em in a pot with stuff and boil it.

Step 2: how to pan-fry.
Pan-frying is how you cook bulls-eye eggs, over-easy/hard eggs, pan-cooked steaks and chicken breasts and several other dishes. It's only minorly more involved than boiling/simmering is and uses an entirely different technique. With boiling/simmering and pan-frying mastered, you can make a great number of foods.

Step 3: how to sauté/stir-fry.
This is a slight bit more involved than pan-frying. The pan and/or cooking utensil (spatula, chopsticks, spoon etc) are used to make the food jump about in the pan a bit. Stir-frying has two techniques, one of which is impossible in most home kitchens and the other which is identical to sauté.

With these three, easy skills, you can start to prepare the majority of what the world regularly eats. Look up vids and get going.

[Anonymous No.5675205]

>>5675200

-Get pan hot. Add some kind of fat (oil, butter, etc.).
-Pat meat dry using paper towels or similar. Season with salt and pepper.
-Put the meat in the pan. It should sizzle instantly. No sizzling = not hot enough. Take the food out, let the pan heat up some more, try again. Keep it there sizzling until the bottom side is golden brown. Adjust the heat so that it's constantly sizzling but not burning or smoking. When the 1st side is done, flip and repeat on the other side. If the meat was thin, you're done. If it was a thicker piece then lower the heat and continue cooking until it's cooked through to your desired level of doneness. that works with just about any meat: steaks, chops, chicken, fish, etc.

[Anonymous No.5675210]

>>5675205
>>5675203
Seems simple enough, thankyou.

[Anonymous No.5675211]

>>5675205
This is way better than what my instructions for pan frying would have been. Thanks, anon

[Anonymous No.5675220]

I'd suggest for most people you get a couple colanders for draining pasta or whatever was boiling, they are also useful for putting in some paper towels and putting fried food in to soak up excess oil. I'd say at least one handheld one (just the one handle, it'll be smaller) and a larger one with handles on both sides and a bottom piece of plastic or whatever so it sits up and won't touch the bottom of anything.
Oh and if I pan fry bacon, you're damn sure I have a plate next to me with a folded paper towel on it ready to hold the strips and dab off the grease. paper towels are great.

[Anonymous No.5675222]

>>5675186
If you pan cook meat, once it's done, you should set it on a plate or something to rest for a couple minutes. I don't know why, but that's what successful happy people do so I try to emulate them.

[Anonymous No.5675232]

How can someone be this much of an infant?

[Anonymous No.5675233]

>>5675189
What is this? A picture for gigantic ants?

[Anonymous No.5675244]

>>5675186
no, dumbass.

start with pan frying and soups. literally look recipes up on the internet and don't deviate like a dumbass.

all u need is measuring cups and a huge pot and a frying pan.

[Anonymous No.5675247]

I don't want to make a new thread so I'll just ask here
Does /ck/ have a chart or something, maybe recommended beginner videos to cooking? I was thinking like maybe explaining why there's so many different types of knives and what each one should do or something like that.

[Anonymous No.5675254]

>>5675247
>Knives
Look mate, this is simple

8'" chef's knife: use this for cutting big things
4" pairing knife: this is for smaller things
bread knife: when you need a serrated edge

From there, there's this and that knife but there's nothing on this earth that a good sharp knife of the right size won't be able to deal with.

[Anonymous No.5675258]

I'm the Head Chef at a big restaurant in New York op and I want to help you. The best way to cook pasta is to let the water boil, then dump in your pasta, put a lid on it, and let it go for about 20 minutes depending on the size, but roughly around there. After it's done DO NOT take it out, turn off the heat and let it come to room temperature, then take it out. That's how all of the restaurants do it.

For meats, especially steak, getting them to become tender is tough, even for fancy cuts like filet mignon, so the best thing to do is to poke it with a fork all over on both sides, this will break apart all of the tendons and fibers. Don't worry about making sauce, store bought is basically the same thing.

I'm sure you know the egg shaking trick.

Seasoning is stupid easy, all you need is rock salt, it's the same kind for snow, except it comes in smaller packages. Buy that and smash it to whatever consistency you want, all salts are the same, they're just different sizes. Also, don't worry about buying whole peppercorns, pre ground is the same damn thing.

If you want your food to look professional, throw some dried parsley on it, parsley has no flavor and it's used exclusively as a garnish.

[Anonymous No.5675263]

>>5675247
>recommended beginner videos to cooking?

Good Eats with Alton Brown
Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course

>Knives
A chef's knife will do 99% of everything in the kitchen. For the vast majority of cooking that's all you need. The others are optimized for specific applications which isn't relevant unless you're doing a specialized task repetitively.

[Anonymous No.5675264]

>>5675258
For the love of god do not listen to this man. This is major troll. OP, want to learn how to cook? Watch Good Eats. It will teach you everything you'd want to know about a given ingredient. How to cook it, what it goes well with, even the history of the food item itself. It's also a very entertaining show. For you, I'd start with the episodes on eggs then salads and soups and chicken and on from there.

[Anonymous No.5675268]

Don't be afraid to steam vegetables either anon. Super fucking simple. Buy fresh vegetables. Chop them up. Boil water in a pan with that vegetable steaming basket in it and literally just wait until it's tender. Hell if that too hard you can buy a steamer from Walmart that does it all. Get that, some microwave instant rice , and some soy sauce and you can do a bastardiatonic of stir fry. Reasonably healthy and super fucking fast/easy

[Anonymous No.5675274]

>>5675254
Why are steak knives serrated if it's for bread?

[Anonymous No.5675277]

>>5675274

Because if a steak knife wasn't serrated it would go dull very quickly from being used against a ceramic plate so often.

[Anonymous No.5675286]

1 bullet
1 gun
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 375.

Stuff the bullet into the gun. Place the gun to your skull.

Pull the trigger.

Serve immediately

[Anonymous No.5675289]

>>5675263
>Good Eats with Alton Brown
>Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course
These are what I was looking for. Not sure how I feel about Alton Brown though, I think he's homosexual.

[Anonymous No.5675302]

>>5675289
>I think he's homosexual.

I think you're right. He's a first-class assclown if nothing else. But that doesn't change the fact the program is good for teaching cooking basics.

[Anonymous No.5675342]

>>5675263
I found some episodes of the Gordon Ramsay's thing and it's good, but he doesn't tell you how high exactly to heat your pans. It's like everything in this episode is pan fried in olive oil and he never mentions taking the temperature into consideration. Just takes chicken cooked for 10 minutes off the pan and knows it's cooked all the way through.

[Anonymous No.5675346]

Here's an idea, try trial and error.

[Anonymous No.5675347]

>>5675342
>how high exactly to heat your pans

That's because knob settings are meangless and things like "medium heat" are vague. Instead, you should pay attention to what you're doing. Use your senses to tell you what the heat setting ought to be.

For example, like >>5675205 explained:

First you want the heat high because you're browning the outside of the meat. Browning won't occur at low heat. The sizzling tells you the pan is hot enough, and obviously if it's smoking or burning then it's too high.

>>Just takes chicken cooked for 10 minutes off the pan and knows it's cooked all the way through.

that's just a matter of experience and practice. At first you can use a meat thermometer or just cut into the meat to check and see if it's done or not. When you have more experience you can tell by texture and intuition.

[Anonymous No.5675352]

>>5675186
>Sick of eating subway all the time to get my vitamins and not die of scurvy
eating subway so that you'd get dem vitamins. i do believe that pic related is you OP

[Anonymous No.5675356]

chef John is good for beginner
he mention heat settings and time in many videos

[Anonymous No.5675359]

Is quality really that important? As in
dried shake bottles vs fresh herbs/spices
wal-mart chickens vs butcher shop chickens

that sort of thing

[Anonymous No.5675362]

>>5675356
Chef John is my fucking boy

[Anonymous No.5675365]

>>5675359
No not at all

[Anonymous No.5675366]

>>5675365
True. It's the oil you cook with. Olive and Peanut are basically all you need to make anything taste good.

[Anonymous No.5675367]

>get my vitamins

They aren't YOUR vitamins, you greedy fuck.

[Anonymous No.5675390]

>>5675286
that would just result in the hammer/striker hitting an empty chamber.

[Anonymous No.5675399]

>>5675356
chef john is the man

[Anonymous No.5675443]

>>5675186
just start with tacos

grab a spice mix or google your own spice mix.

cook up some ground beef (rinse afterwards so less grease)
cook up some chopped up onion and bell peppers

throw spice in

presto.

easy dish, start there

[Anonymous No.5675450]

>>5675443
Do an 80/20 of beef for tacos I'd say. Meaning, it'll say 20% fat on the package of ground beef.

[Anonymous No.5675456]

>>5675450
I don't really know shit about cooking.


I just learn how to throw shit together and make it taste good (IE just dumping red pepper on it so its so spicy I don't notice how shitty it tastes)

[Anonymous No.5675503]

>>5675186
Some of the easiest recipes are one pan recipes.
Bolognese, stir fry, pealla/risotto. Thats sort of stuff can be really good if well done, and unless you go full retard, hard to mess up. As you go on try to just follow recipes, these will teach you basic cooking skills and eventually you'll learn how to pair flavours. Cooking well is really the best way to eat well. Yesterday i made a pea, rocket and lemon zest rissoto topped with smoked salmon with a peppery wild leaf and spinach salad. After one pot dishes you want to learn a few basic sauces. White sauce/cheese sauce, gravy, other jus'. A meat dish without a good sauce is a sad thing. As for your post, buying a deep fat fryer is not something you work up from. That is a fairly specilist cooking tool. To start buy a set of knives, pairing knife and chef's knife at a minimum. Then get at least 2 chopping boards and a set of pots for boiling stuff and a set of frying pans. I don't know if you have/can afford an oven. But to cook as a minimun you need hobs, and you can achieve most dishes without using the oven.

[Anonymous No.5675510]

i suggest you start with pasta and pre made sauce. once you get bored of that learn to make your own sauce, then some slow cooked meats like beef bourguignon and take it from there. acquire a taste for flavors and how to combine them

[Anonymous No.5675551]

>>5675258
ban

[Anonymous No.5677269]

>>5675359

>is quality really that important

Do you not understand the definition of "quality"?

That said, if you fuck up and burn your garlic, over salt, or any number of things, it wont really matter.

[Anonymous No.5677276]

>>5675503

I'm curious to know where you're from.

[Anonymous No.5677288]

it's easy as fuck to chop up some veggies, cook them in a pan then chopping up some meat and cooking that then adding the veggies together

season with whatever you have

[Anonymous No.5677796]

>>5677276
Brifag

[Anonymous No.5677802]

>>5677288
>it's easy to cook some stuff
>season it
GREAT POST

get the fuck out of here with that bullshit

[Anonymous No.5677921]

>>5677269
> Do you not understand the definition of "quality"?

I can handle the maintenance of my motorcycle in a zen like fashion.

[Anonymous No.5678274]

>>5675258

Thats how you boil good pasta to shit. Pasta should be cooked max 10 minutes and then you should dump out the hot water. Add olive oil while cooking to prevent sticking.

[Anonymous No.5678287]

>>5677802
throwing veggies in a pan isn't difficult at all. OP shouldn't buy a deep fryer, that's fucking retarded.

[Anonymous No.5678425]

>>5675286
look at the britbong stuffin guns with bullets!

[Anonymous No.5678431]

>>5675450
gross! try lean ground turkey instead. you'll live in this shitty capitalist nightmare a little longer.

[Anonymous No.5678452]

>>5675247
I love Chef John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_mNozo4yqM

He shows how to do everything, so it's pretty good for miming, and he doesn't dumb the recipes down, so you get some great tasting stuff out of it. He's also fun to listen to, even if the recipe isn't something you think you'd like.

[Anonymous No.5678480]

>>5678431
Doesn't have to be ground. Sliced could work too.

[Anonymous No.5678482]

>>5678480
sliced beef? lol

[Anonymous No.5678526]

>>5678482
Turkey. Learn to reading comprehension.

[Anonymous No.5678945]

Why would you deep fry things? That's like twice as hard as normal frying. Seriously.
Step one: Put oil in pan
Step two: Put shit in pan
Step three: Turn on plate
Step four: Push shit around until cooked
Step five: eat

[Anonymous No.5678957]

>>5678526
you said ground beef, not me. you were defending your ground beef post in your reply. i mean, hello!??!

[Anonymous No.5678967]

>>5675254
>not using a chef knife for everything
i feel like a pleb

but i only make pleb food so it's all good

[Anonymous No.5678975]

>>5675286
pls help

[Anonymous No.5678979]

>>5675289
>wife
>kids
>guns
>cars
>homosexual
sure

[Anonymous No.5679242]

>>5675222
When you cook meat, the protein fibers get hot and bunch up, squeezing out their fluids. When you cut into meat immediately after cooking when the fibers are bunched up, the juices will run out of the meat, resulting in drier meat. If you let it rest a few (5-10) minutes, preferably tented under some foil to help keep things warm, the protein fibers unwind and reabsorb the fluid, binding it back to the meat proper, and you end up with a nice juicy steak, rather than shoe leather and a mess on your plate.

[Anonymous No.5679278]

>>5678979
>having a car or gun suddenly means you're not gay

Projecting

[Anonymous No.5679287]

>>5675186
>subway

you enjoy that crohn's disease bud

[Anonymous No.5679289]

>>5679278
>projecting

I liked it more when retards just said "u mad?" instead of terms they don't understand.

[Anonymous No.5679346]

>>5675200
kill yourself, you are literally a waste of carbon

[Anonymous No.5681034]

>>5675210
The first stuff i made was to boil some kind of pasta and fry meatballs or sausages.
It's extremely simple but it's a step up for you.
Add ketchup.

[Anonymous No.5681039]

Jesus Christ, it's not THAT difficult. have you ever cracked an egg? boil rice? roast some veggies on vegetable oil?

[Anonymous No.5681061]

>>5681034
Here is a picture.
>inb4 shitstorm because not fancy enough
For OP it's not supposed to be fancy yet, he should make very simple stuff first.

>buy pasta
>buy sausage
>buy butter
>buy ketchup
>put water and 1 portion of pasta in pot (read the box for how much 1 portion is)
>you can also put some salt in the water, only a pinch
>place on stove
>put stove on highest heat
>put butter and sausage in frying pan
>put on stove
>set the stove to medium heat
>when it starts boiling set to middle heat and use a timer to boil it for as long as the package says (usually about 8 minutes)
>turn sausages when they get a bit of color on one side and keep turning them every once in a while
>remove pasta when cooked for long enough
>put colander in sink
>pour the pasta in the colander
>put pasta on plate
>put some butter on pasta
>wait for it to melt
>stir
>when sausages finished (should be a few minutes, wait for it to look different all around and then fry until it looks like it's about to get a little black) put the sausages on the plate
>add ketchup
>eat

[Anonymous No.5681075]

>>5681061
>paste drowned in butter and ketchup
are you Mama June? you're better off with some crushed garlic and pepper

[Anonymous No.5681083]

>>5681075
I add pepper and nutmeg too but i really like ketchup.

[Anonymous No.5681111]

>>5681061
Why make a butter ketchup sauce when a real Italian quick pomodoro is only one step more effort (chopping a couple things)?

>buy crushed tomatoes
>buy garlic
>buy olive oil
>pinch a few basil leaves from neighbor's garden
>chop two cloves of garlic
>wash and tear basil leaves into little pieces
>heat pan
>pour in oil
>saute garlic for a minute with a couple pinches salt and pepper
>add crushed tomatoes
>toss in basil just before you put sauce over pasta

There's the Just-Like-In-Italy kind of sauce idiots pay $30 a plate in a Cipriani joint, for just a tiny bit more effort than fucking butter and ketchup.

[Anonymous No.5681829]

>>5681111
Well i wouldn't really say i'm making sauce.
I just put a teaspoon or a little more on the pasta to coat it. The hetchup is the only sauce.

[Anonymous No.5681891]

>>5681083
nutmeg

[Anonymous No.5681908]

>>5681891
yes, it's great for this

[Anonymous No.5682386]

>>5675186
I think your problem here is your absolutely shit taste in anime anon.

[Anonymous No.5682407]

>>5675186
>thinks you need a fancy fryer to fry things instead of just a pan of hot oil
I think you may already be beyond help

[Anonymous No.5682425]

Why do people act like cooking is a skill that needs to be learned? I guess there are some kitchen skills that improve with time, but they don't really affect the final dish, just how long it takes to make it. I was less than 10 years old the first time I made a meal on my own, and it turned out great. OP, just think of a food you've had in a restaurant you liked, search it on Allrecipes, and follow the instructions. If you don't know how to do something, google it. An ape could probably do it if it tried hard enough.

[Anonymous No.5682474]

Start with spaghetti:

-Cook 1/2 lb ground beef in a skillet
-Boil some water and throw in a handful of spaghetti
-Let boil for 10 minutes, turning down heat slightly
-Drain water out, leaving some of it in
-Pour store-bought pasta sauce in with the spaghetti, add cooked beef, mix it up. Add sauce as needed.

Shovel it onto a plate and there you go.

Add a couple pieces of garlic bread.

[Anonymous No.5682522]

OP has most likely burned his mom's house down attempting to boil some spaghetti at this point. Are you all happy? You guys just had to "help" didn't yous?