Teach me to cook

sirSolarius

I can make eggs, and I can make them pretty well.

Oh, also: I DON'T KNOW HOW TO COOK ANYTHING. I've just never done it before.

I'm in Budapest, Hungary for 4 months and I can't go out every night (although it IS cheap). I've resolved that I'm going to teach myself how to cook, since i have my own kitchen and I can make bad meals and only I'll know that they ever existed . Basically, I want to leave Budapest as a comfortable chef.

Can you guys help me out? Start me off simple and then I'll ramp up the complexity. I want to start cooking this week, and I want some normal, balanced meals.

Thanks!

Fencingsax

Search youtube for 10 minute cooking school. Roberto Roderiguez makes an awesome dish called puerco pibil. He also has another one for awesome breakfast burritos.

Also, we had an awesome thread here awhile ago. Did it get saved?

KalTorak

Edit: Go on the Food Network and look for a show called "Good Eats." The show is basically Bill Nye the Science Guy, but with food - Alton Brown focuses each episode on a certain food, takes you through the steps of 1-4 recipes, and explains to you why each food works the way it does. It's fantastic for actually understanding how cooking works (and how to use that knowledge) rather than just following recipes.

Pojaco

KalTorak wrote: »

While you're on youtube, look for a show called "Good Eats." (a good chunk of the episodes have been uploaded by a youtube user named "likethehat") The show is basically Bill Nye the Science Guy, but with food - Alton Brown focuses each episode on a certain food, takes you through the steps of 1-4 recipes, and explains to you why each food works the way it does. It's fantastic for actually understanding how cooking works (and how to use that knowledge) rather than just following recipes.

(mods, if this is objectionable, just let me know/delete)

Good Eats is awesome, and I suggest you watch.

wunderbar

get a cookbook, follow the recipes.

Any terms you're not familiar with, Google can tell you about them.

Seriously. If you follow a cookbook you'll have instant knowing.

EggyToast

Yeah, the secret to being a good cook is understanding how cooking works, and what it does to foods, rather than having an encyclopedic knowledge of recipes. For instance, melting butter and slowly mixing in flour, on low heat, makes a roux. But it's also the basic way to make any kind of cream sauce or thickening agent. It creates volume and creaminess without tasting at all like flour.

Similarly, onions, garlic, and other ingredients that are typically strong in flavor are usually cooked prior to the rest of a dish. This not only allows the flavors to mellow, it lets more of those flavors mix with the rest of the food. You do this so your final dish tastes like something different from its parts -- in other words, so a soup tastes like a soup, rather than "some vegetables and onion in water."

Start basic. Chop a chicken breast into cubes -- you can do that. Put about a tsp or so of oil in a pan, heat it up, and chuck the chicken breast cubes in there. Add some lemon pepper seasoning (this is a single seasoning), just a bit, and about a tbsp of water (or cooking wine if you're feeling fancy). Stir it pretty constantly, making sure chicken gets flipped, for about 5 minutes. You shouldn't see any pink edges or spots on the cubes of chicken.

Boil water, make some pasta noodles. You want them al dente, so you simply follow the cooking times on the box and test a minute before they're done. If they're soft with a little firmness, but don't taste undone, they're al dente. Or let the time finish and drain the water away. Everyone knows how to make pasta noodles

Then get some pasta sauce in a jar, that you like. Put the chicken, about an equivalent or a little more pasta, and about 1-2 cups of pasta sauce in a skillet, and cook, stirring pretty constantly, for about 2-3 minutes until everything is hot.

Ta da! Just an example of a really basic approach to cooking something that is greater than the sum of its parts. You *could* heat up pasta sauce in the microwave, but it tends to be watery. This way everything gets a good coating of the sauce w/o being watery at all. You cook the chicken separately so you can season it separately.

You can expand this basic dish to replacing the tomato sauce with a cheese sauce (like alfredo), or adding veggies like peas, some boiled carrots, anything that's moderately soft. That's really how good cooking is -- learn how to cook something basic, understand what's going on, and then add to it. That way, you learn to see what things are tasting like what, and you think "hmm, I've got this other thing, I think it would work very well in this dish."

The only other element in becoming a good cook is timing. There's something really fantastic about watching a good cook who has everything wrap up on time, with the heat-retaining dishes finishing first and the quick-cooling things finishing last. That, unfortunately, only comes from practice and paying attention.

markrr23

Cookbooks (with fairly easy recipes) + cooking shows on TV + experience

These, plus watching/helping my wife cook, have made me halfway decent in the kitchen.

Andorien

My girlfriend watches Food Network religiously, and the only person I can stand on there is Alton Brown.

This is made up for the fact that he's made of win. Seriously, Good Eats is, uh, good.

flatlinegraphics

be prepared to make a lot of bad before you get some good. it's like any other skill.

but to add to the above, one thing that will trip you up in the beginning is to watch your meats. make sure you cut and prepare on a separate surface, and keep raw away from cooked. salmonella is not a seafood dish, and is nothing to screw around with. in the beginning, cook everything well done, esp chicken.

also, i've found a lot of basic recipes on about.com that have come out well. because that is an edited resource, there is a bit more consistency and goodness.

and another +1 for alton brown. even if you never make anything he does, its still an entertaining show.

EclecticGroove

Egg and others hit it pretty well. Cooking is all about taste (duh), and once you get a feel for how certain things turn out and interact you start learning what types of things you can mix together to get a taste you like. Don't be afraid to put things aside, and I recommend checking out recipe books, or recipes online to start to amass a knowledge of different types of spices and cooking procedures.
Things like the amount of heat, or even the types of cookware used will impact the final result a great deal.

Cook some slices of meat on your own (chicken, beef, pork, etc) to get a feel for when it's done. For beef cuts like steak especially this is a good time to figure out how "done" you like it. If you get into being a serious cook on your own, you will probably amass a ton of quick little dishes you love. One of mine is simply a chicken cutlet, cut across, flattened out, and rolled around some seasoning and cheese. All you do is bake it in the oven till done and it's a great, quick, and easy meal.

Anyways. Learn what's existing, experiment, come up with your own selections. Above all, enjoy!

Pepto

Fencingsax wrote: »

Search youtube for 10 minute cooking school. Roberto Roderiguez makes an awesome dish called puerco pibil. He also has another one for awesome breakfast burritos.

Also, we had an awesome thread here awhile ago. Did it get saved?

Don't. These dishes are super hard for someone who doesn't know how to cook.

Pheezer

Pojaco wrote: »

KalTorak wrote: »

snip

Good Eats is awesome, and I suggest you watch.

Good Eats is one of my favorite TV shows. It is however on DVD, and encouraging piracy is clearly against the rules soooo...

Death of Rats

Here's a rather simple one.

Get chicken breasts and cut off all the fat. Pound them out until they're really thin.

Mix half parmesan cheese and bread crumbs together (you can buy breadcrumbs at most stores).

Whip some eggs in a bowl.

Preheat a small amount (enough to cover the bottom of a frying pan) of oil in a pan.

Dip the chicken in the egg, then the breadcrumb mixture, then back into the egg, and back into the breadcrumb mixture.

Cook in the oil until chicken is done (cut into it to make sure it's done).

Now, once all the chicken is cooked, mixed a small amount of flour in a cup (a couple of spoonfulls) with water. Heat the leftover grease in the pan, and pour in the flour mixture. Add milk/flour until you get the right consistency for gravy.

Now all you need is those Bob Evans mashed potatoes things and you got yourself a delicious meal. Very easy.

vrempire

The best thing that I know I can cook is the instant noodle with egg called 'Megi Telur'.
And I'm proud of it.
Anyway, like sirSolarius, i also would like to learn the skill of fast-cook-but-delicious technique of meal preparation.

Pheezer

That actually reads as a particularly unhealthy recipe to suggest there. I mean, you've got chicken breast which is fine but then you're frying it in oil with cheese and oh let's add flour to the mix and then what, instant mashed potatoes? Seriously, that's kind of crappy food. And cheese isn't exactly cheap stuff either.

Here's a good one: Chili.

You take your pound of ground beef, extra lean if you're smart, add either some diced up cayenne peppers or a good amount of a good chili powder, a tiiiiny bit of oil (preferably vegetable or olive oil, don't use hydrogenated oils at all) and toss that in your chili pot. I like a cast iron dutch oven but that's a little heavy duty and harder to clean.

Brown up your meat, stir it frequently, make sure there's nothing bright pink or red in there. Now add a good helping of ground cumin (a very cheap, very tasty spice that's handy for flavoring anything with beef or chicken in it pretty much), a dash or two of ground coriander (again cheap, tasty and used in a wide variety of dishes) and smash up and dice a few cloves of garlic and toss those in too. Stir it all in so it's nicely mixed.

Now to add the beans. Beans are cheap and incredibly good for you. You want a can of pinto beans, a can of black beans and a can of kidney beans. Strain them, add all three. Stir it all about.

Now add some veggies. Veggies are good for you and frequently are also very cheap, particularly if you shop at Costco or an equivalent volume discounter. You want to dice up some mushrooms (big chunks though, nothing too puny), some bell pepper (lots of vitamins here), some celery (will absorb the chili's flavor nicely and it's so good for you that everyone should eat it and lots of it) and zucchini can also be tasty.

If you like tomatoes and really who doesn't, add a can of diced ones. As a tip, you can get a can of whole San Marzano tomatoes for like $0.20 more, strain them, fry them up in a frying pan and dice them up in that by pressing in with the edge of your flipper and then add them for superior flavor. If you don't have a non-stick pan, be gentle with your oil usage.

You're looking at spending $20 and having lunch food for a week and probably the weekend here. That's a pretty good deal. The real value is in how enjoyable it is to eat, $4 per meal roughly is an okay amount to spend, it's not spectacular. But it IS a good deal if you can turn it into $4 per amazing meal.

Plus, most of the spices you'd ever want to use are cheap and have a wide array of applications. Fresh garlic is dirt cheap, $1 will buy you a few weeks worth of.

Other really good deals are potatoes, onions (the large bags you can get of white or yellow onions specifically), bulk rice (Jasmine rice is decent enough for you, and extremely tasty - I recommend the Rooster brand), ground beef, chicken thighs on the bone (much better value than breasts, and honestly if you clean them up a bit and discard some of the chunks of fat you'll find they're not particularly bad for you).

Pheezer

Also I really think you need to focus not on fast cooking meals, but on large meals that you can split across multiple days. When I was a bachelor I would cook once every four days, roughly speaking. There's nothing faster than grabbing something delicious and healthy and tossing it in the microwave for a minute.

If you focus on cooking a new meal every day and doing it quickly, you'll be using shit ingredients like instant mashed potatoes that are terrible for your body and taste awful compared to the real thing. Or shit like instant noodles. Or whatever else. You want to cook from scratch. It is not only a great deal cheaper (and I really do mean that, it is MUCH cheaper over time) but it also tastes better and results in healthier meals.

Death of Rats

He didn't say anything in the OP about needing healthy recipes, just simple ones. And parmesan cheese isn't expensive at all.

And the Bob Evans mashed potatoes aren't exactly instant. They're premade, but real mashed potatoes.

Seriously, why are you crapping on me trying to help, are you some sort of asshole?

Pheezer

Suggesting unhealthy recipes when healthier, cheaper ones exist isn't particularly good advice.

Suggesting pre-made mashed potatoes when potatoes are one of the cheapest commodities available at the grocery store and when mashed potatoes are dead simple isn't particularly good advice either.

And real parmesan is actually quite expensive. That Kraft brand crap you get in the dried foods aisle barely counts as cheese or parmesan.

Seriously why are you posting on the Internet if you're incapable of handling your posts being criticized without crying about it?

X5

I'm not sure how big your kitchen is but I'll toss this out.

I cook my meats on my George Foreman grill while I am making my sides on the range.

The foreman grill really is the win if you are in a small place without access to a true grill.

I like cooking steaks or porkchops on it, and basting them in light red wine vinaigrette, or light balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Flip every 60-90 seconds or so if you find your are over doing the meat your first few times. After that you get the timing in your head.

While cooking the meat, put some veggies in a steamer pot if available. If not you can boil/steam veggies and in a regular pot.

Another easy, and fast option for a side is your favorite type of salad.

I love making and having a tasty portion of protein, and a caeser salad.

These are two options that you can learn relatively easily, and they aren't going to drain the wallet. Use healthy options as well, leaner meats, lower cal/fat dressings. Less cheese in the salad, those type of things.

Pheezer

Actually, when grilling meat, you want to flip as little as possible. That lets all the juice out. The real trick is to start off suuuuuuper hot, and sear the meat shut, then drop the heat down nice and low. Watch the juices bubble up to the top and then soak back down. Then flip again.

X5

The main issue with not flipping often (when basting or cooking meat that's been marinated) on the George Foreman, is that, because its not a real grill the "sauce" can tend to stagnate and start to burn. Even though its design does allow quite a bit to flow down and out into the tray, if you use one enough, it can be a slight bit annoying.

Normally this isn't an issue on things like dressings. But alot of marinades will caramelize on the Foreman grill and can ruin the meat if not flipped enough. I should have specified this in the first post, as DrDiz is correct. On a normal grill, obsessive flipping will dry our your meat, leading to a less tasty version.

Pheezer

Okay, that's a good point about the foreman grill. I don't personally have one so I didn't realize.

starmanbrand

DrDizaster wrote: »

Also I really think you need to focus not on fast cooking meals, but on large meals that you can split across multiple days. When I was a bachelor I would cook once every four days, roughly speaking. There's nothing faster than grabbing something delicious and healthy and tossing it in the microwave for a minute.

If you focus on cooking a new meal every day and doing it quickly, you'll be using shit ingredients like instant mashed potatoes that are terrible for your body and taste awful compared to the real thing. Or shit like instant noodles. Or whatever else. You want to cook from scratch. It is not only a great deal cheaper (and I really do mean that, it is MUCH cheaper over time) but it also tastes better and results in healthier meals.

This is some of the best advice in the thread. I usually cook three times a week, if I don't have plans to go out or something.

For Instance: When you cook steak, buy two instead of one. Cook both once you get them, and only eat half of the first steak. This gives you dinner for another night. Then use the other one to slice up super thin and you can have three or four salads or sandwiches. No muss, no fuss. Just great tastin' food.

As far as fast cooking...Stir Fry. EasyPeasy+ReallyGood. All about cutting things up nice, and then you just toss stuff in in steps. But I am sure someone must have mentioned them before so I wont go into detail.

Blake T

I tend to cook like so.

I look at a recipie and figure out why I want to cook it. Then think about the flavours already in it, then I consider what would compliment them/what flavours I don't want and the order of the ingredients. So if I want a random inconsistent flavour of garlic, then it goes in at the end or if I want a consistent flavour then it starts off in the pan first (also more of it goes in the pan as you'll lose a fair bit of concentration on your starting flavours I find). Seriously even when you are a beginer look at every recipie before you cook it and think it through carefully.

My sister gave me some kind of french caramalised chicken recipie served with rice. It's now a lamb stirfry served with noodles.

In terms of cook amounts I agree with DrDiz. When I go shopping make sure there are two "amounts" of meat to make two lots of 3-4 dinners plus two microwave dinners which I can bust out when I feel like something different.

In terms of general cooking tips. Measure everything before you start throwing stuff in the pan/wok/oven. There is nothing more frustrating that realising you haven't put the rice on until your curry is almost cooked. If you get everything out and measure it out right from the start it will also stop you from forgetting ingredients.

Also buy I'm just here for the food 2.0 by Alton Brown. Seriously guys, everyone always recomends this why haven't you yet?

MotherFirefly

I rely on a lot of recipes at Instructibles they do a really good job of step by step instructions.

Also, betty crocker cookbooks (if they have thoseover there) have essential instructions that should help with any "basics"

KalTorak

Stir-frying chicken and vegetables is probably the best way to start off, as it's pretty hard to screw it up as long as you watch what you're doing. The way I do it is to cook the chicken first, take it out of the pan, then cook the vegetables, and throw the chicken in with them to heat it back up.

Start off with a chicken breast, cut into strips. I coat the chopped up chicken lightly in flour just to add some texture, but bare is fine too. Wash your hands.

Fry over high heat with not too much oil - I usually use a little more oil than I think i'll need on the chicken, then after removing the cooked chicken, use the leftover oil to fry the veggies. Olive oil (non-extra virgin) is good, but vegetable oil works fine.

So you've got your nice cooked chicken - since it's in strips, it'll cook quickly. Once it's been white for a minute or so, you're good - leaving it in too long will make it dry. Take it out of the pan. Throw in some chopped up veggies - carrots, broccoli, bell peppers, onions, - whatever you got. Add a pinch of salt, and toss them around, still over high heat. Add some chopped garlic if you want to get fancy, but keep it moving so it doesn't burn. Test the vegetables periodically with a fork - once they're just bout tender enough to eat, chuck your chicken back in with them and dance them around a bit.

Now you're done. From here, you can experiment some. Try throwing some soy sauce on that, fry for a minute or so, then top some rice. Or, with soy sauce, put the rice in the pan too, make fried rice (make sure the rice is cooked first). Or just take the chicken and veggies, maybe a bit more olive oil and garlic and top pasta with it.

Practice the basic stir fry first. When you get it how you like it, try changing it around a bit. It works well as leftovers too (microwave to heat back up), so feel free to make a bunch.

Aridhol

something I read or heard on the intertubes really stuck with me in terms of learning to cook.

Find 5 or 6 of your favorite meals (that you eat at restaurants or wherever) and learn to cook them well.

I'm up to 3 dishes I can cook very well and learning and experimenting while I was practicing taught me a lot about the process of cooking, not just the result.


Also in all honesty ask your mom. Have her over and just cook shit all day. Bake, cook, whatever. Like my mom she's probably been doing it for 30+ years and is a tremendous resource.

MichaelLC

Are you there on work?

If you have any contacts, I'd ask them to recomend a reciepe book/chef. Or go to a library or soemwhere.

Just wondering on avalibilty of ingredients required from American chefs; is kosher salt (A.B. ftw) as easy/cheap there as it is here?