Cooking: Heaven help you if you have a different version of known dish with a name. The gatekeepers will descend upon you.
Knowing the science behind all methods of cooking is what made me a better cook. Alton Brown is the shit for teaching the science behind why things are done. No other TV cook has taught me more about how to cook with my own ideas and not simply follow someone else’s recipes.
You gonna back that up with a SOURCE, senator?
(Please I need to learn how to cook before taco bell forecloses on my boat)
Alton Brown on YouTube for his recent stuff. Good Eats for his original show.
Teaches why you do stuff and not just what to do.
My fiance is a professional chef who can’t really bake, and I’m a schmuck who can’t cook but can bake no problem. It wouldn’t be a bad deal, except all her food allergies mean I have to find substitutions for practically everything. So you have any idea how many fucking things include corn byproducts? Almost all of them.
You’re both way healthier for avoiding those. Lucky for the incentive.
Grilling: FIRE!
Grilling is the superior method
and this is why i don’t bake. I’m more of a “throw shit together and hope for the best” kinda cook.
Cooking is an art, baking is a science.
People complain about their baked goods not coming out right but they treat the recipe as a suggestion. That works for cooking (sometimes) but almost never for baking.
I basically do that when baking bread, but I also know that the result isn’t going to be ideal. Basically I’m trying to experiment to get a good multigrain bread that’s packed with extra fiber, but at the same time doesn’t use hard to get or very expensive items. Each time I get closer to perfecting the recipe, and learn something new about baking in general. Worst case, I eat the parts that still turn out OK, and feed the rest to the birds.
I always fucked up making pizza dough. I’d weigh the ingredients to the gram, work it per the instructions, and it always ended up a sloppy mess or dry clusterfuck.
I finally figured out hydration based on how the dough reacts. It took me 50 pizzas to get it right. Now I don’t even measure.
But I can only make pizza dough :) Bread works out slight differently
Former head chef: Yes. Our pastry chef was the alchemist and I was the magebomb.
What you can fuck with in baking is vanilla. Douse to your hearts desire.
Ingredients I always ignore the amount given in recipes:
Garlic, lime juice, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, chocolate chips, raisins. There’s probably more.
Always more with garlic. Calls for “2-3 cloves” means at least half bulb. On spice, I’ll hold off if I’m cooking for others that can’t deal and just leave that on the side when serving.
It is technically possible to use too much garlic, but at that point you’re concerned about the amount of money being used to season a single item.
Oh I’m compassionate on hot spices, but if it’s just for me? GAME ON, LET’S SWEAT
I may add extra chocolate chips to my banana bread
Just scrape all the seeds into a mortar and pestle, grind them, throw the beans in some alcohol (rum, bourbon style Canadian whiskey, sherry), soak then leave them in a sugar bowl and save the sugar.
Now take the vanilla bean paste from your pestle and put it directly in my mouth.
I hate myself and decided to get into Italian and BBQ smoking… Everything is done on a timeline with fine heat control and time does not care for you readiness. You really have to memorise and learn from experience before you can get to the level of autopiloting stress-free.
Don’t bother me in the kitchen while I’m CREATING!!!
As a former line cook and a baker this is correct.
This is how my S.O. make sourdough. It ALWAYS works🤷♂️
Baking bread is wild. When you start you do everything by the book and it’s meh. Then once you get a feel for what each stage is supposed to look and feel like you can just slap some flour around and it comes out awesome.
So true
thats thr beauty of cooking. all those ingredients scribed so precisely benefit greatly from a liberal fudging
