Well shits to expensive and I’m finally home enough so I’m learning to cook. Turns out when your not being constantly criticized for existing, cooking isn’t nearly as terrible! (Trauma made me hate cooking).
So far I’ve been keeping it very simple. Store bought pasta, store bought sauce, put them together, that kind of thing. I think I’m getting ready to branch out and learn more.
I’d love to hear some things from those of you who know your way around the kitchen. If you have a recipe you love or, a story to tell or, a warning you learned the hard way or, a great website/cookbook/youtube channel or, anything else you feel like sharing.
I’m just here to learn some stuff, hear some stories and get some ideas to try. Thanks for having a fun cooking convo with me!
You might be tempted to go buy a bunch of equipment but you can get really far with the basics once you’ve learned good technique:
That will get you very far. If you find you’re enjoying cooking and want to improve your kit, you can add things as you need them (whisk, masher, boning knife, stock pot, etc.). Try to avoid buying unitaskers. You can mince garlic with a knife, so unless you’re mincing a ton of garlic, a garlic press is probably not a good investment because it only does one thing.
There are a ton of video tutorials for learning knife skills online but if you want something printed, Henkels has a Complete Book of Knife Skills that I’ve found very useful.
You’ll want to keep your knives sharp. You can learn to do it yourself with a double sided 400/1000 water stone and a video tutorial. A ceramic pull through sharpener will do in a pinch but they’re pretty hard on the knives. Metal pull through sharpeners will destroy the edges of your knives, so don’t buy one of those. Also don’t use anything motorized because the heat can damage the heat treat and wreck your knife.
You will read on the Internet that cast iron is the One True Material for skillets and frying pans. People who say this are in a cult. Cast iron pans are great for searing because they retain a lot of heat but stainless clad aluminum will give you better control and more even heating, Teflon will give you better non-stick performance, etc. Personally, I reach for my stainless steel skillet most often, which is why I recommended it above. You may also read that you should never wash cast iron with soap because it will ruin the seasoning. This is bunk. The seasoning is chemically bonded to the surface and you can’t scrub it away unless you’re physically removing material with hard abrasives or caustic chemicals. Soap and a scrubby will not hurt your pan. Do thoroughly dry anything cast iron after you wash it, as it will rust if you don’t.
There is probably a restaurant supply in your area and they are probably open to the public. That’s a great place to get things like skillets, sheet pans, racks, ramekins, tongs, etc.
Pick up (or borrow from the library) a cookbook that teaches cooking technique through recipes. These are some of my favourites:
Great recommendations thanks! Most of your must haves already exist in my kitchen (yay for inheriting things!) and I already have 1 of the books you recommended so the others will be added to my list. Thank you
You had me until you decided to cast shade on cast iron in favor of teflon. Heresy
And no, I cook with swiss granite pans. Teflon’s just the worst.
Cast iron is great and I use it all the time, it’s just not the wonder material some people make it out to be. Right tool for the right job.
I have one Teflon pan and I use it only for eggs. If you want a perfect omelette, you want it to stick as little as possible and they had to invent new ways to bind things to other things just to get the Teflon to stick to the pan during manufacturing.