Teaching myself to cook...what am I missing?

[expatgirl]

Hey, girl........relax.........learn like I did and "poison" your roomie while you're at it........jest kidding........you've gotten some great advice here.....unfortunately when I was learning to cook I had 3 stations on tv to watch (none were cooking shows) and there was no internet......I basically relied on trial and error like what has been suggested (pie dough did go flying across the room a few times until I got the hang of it) and an old Betty Crocker paperback cookbook that my mother-in-law gave me was always opened....the fact that you want to learn how to improve your culinary skills will get you thru anything.......I was the same way ........so you'll do just fine.......and then with time you'll find a couple of recipes that are keepers and you'll whip them out when you have guests or outlaws descending upon you.....you'll look like the cook you want to be.......go for it.!!!!

 

[expatgirl]

I forgot to add that you should really check out "Allrecipes and Recipezaar" online.....both give user responses as well as star ratings and if I can I always refer to them for alternate ideas and some of their recipes are great!!!

 

[Elo]

Thanks again everyone. I've not been able to start yet as I'm still poor from Christmas, but come payday I'm ordering a new tojiro knife set, dining set, a coursebook or two and some nice fresh produce to work on. I've also been keeping an eye out for Good Eats and other instructional shows. Fingers crossed.

 

[ChefJune]

Welcome to DC, elo!

As one who has taught cooking to adults for more than 25 years, the biggest deficiency I have found in experienced home cooks is poor knife skills.

If you have never taken a knife skills class, I strongly suggest you find a local adult ed center or cooking school and register for such a class. There ARE videos available on the subject, but they range from excellent to worse than not knowing, so unless you can get your hands on the one made by Jacques Pepin, I recommend a hands-on class over a video. plus, in a class, you can ask questions.

Oh! and take the knife class BEFORE you purchase any more knives.

 

[Elo]

Thanks ChefJune, that makes a lot of sense. The course I was interested in taking at the end of the year does cover knife skills but there's no others in the mean time unfortunately. I have a week or so before I crack on so I think I'll try to put together a list of online instructional videos on things like knife skills, as well as the other tricky bits.

 

[ChefJune]

Oh! and take the knife class BEFORE you purchase any more knives.

Elo, the reason I said that is that after you have refined your knife skills, you may find that you are better suited to a completely different knife, or even type of knife.

 

[Elo]

Elo, the reason I said that is that after you have refined your knife skills, you may find that you are better suited to a completely different knife, or even type of knife.

That makes perfect sense, but I don't have much of a choice unfortunately. The chefs knife looks quite similar to what I'm used to so hopefully it won't feel too unusual.

 

[Leolady]

There ARE videos available on the subject, but they range from excellent to worse than not knowing, so unless you can get your hands on the one made by Jacques Pepin, I recommend a hands-on class over a video. plus, in a class, you can ask questions.

Hey! I've got that Video! It was part of the boxed set of cooking videos that Jacques had! I posted about that set earlier in this thread.

I watched it over and over.

 

[JGDean]

This is a good book.
How to Cook Everything (Completely Revised 10th Anniversary Edition): 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food (Hardcover) by Mark Bittman

 

[Slake]

There are a few books that I think can really be helpful. I'd recommend Cooking School Secrets for Real World Cooks by Linda Carucci for general skill development. For a good start in baking, I really like Baking with Julia. James Peterson's books - Sauces, Vegetables, Splendid Soups, etc. are mini-cooking courses all in themselves and very well written. Good luck to you! Formidable and admirable task you've chosen.

 

[archiduc]

I've been wanting a new challenge. I love cooking at home but have no basic training so I can cook a few things very well but have huge gaps in the basic foundations of the skill. So, I thought a 6 month to a year evening cookery course to a qualification would be just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately after a lot of hunting around there seems to be nothing in my area, at least for the next six months or so. So instead I've decided to teach myself, with a little help from the internet and my small collection of cookery books. The problem is, it's tricky for me to find holes in my own knowledge as I'd guess the things I need to learn are things that I wouldn't be familiar with. So I'm hoping more experienced heads may be able to identify what I'm missing.

The basic back-of-a-beer-mat list of skills and produce I've came up with so far is below. These are mostly things that I've either never done, or aren't confident of and/or would love to do well. There are a few things, like roasting, veg prep, I've purposefully missed off as I'm quite used to them but any and all suggestions are appreciated!!

Cooking areas


Baking

• Making breads
• Cooking with pastry
• Making pizza dough
• Dessert breads

Sauces

• Roux
• Bechamel
• Mayonnaise
• Tomato pasta sauce

Pasta

• Making fresh pasta
• Ravioli
• Tagliatelli
• Tortellini

Rice

• Risotto
• Fried rice

Seafood

• Langoustine
• Scallops
• Crab
• Monkfish

Meats, poultry

• Game
  . Wood pigeon
  . Guinea fowl
  . Pheasant
• Rack of lamb
• Venison

Eggs

• Omelette/Frittatas
• Poached

Desserts

• Souffle

Appetisers

Salads

Stocks


Soups

• French onion

Batters

• Beer batters
• Tempura

Skills

Steaming
Caramelising
Filleting
Boning
Deep frying
Presentation

Thanks in advance and God bless anyone who actually managed to read the whole thing.

Hi Elo,

This is likely to be a long post!

I live in the UK also and the first thing that I would recommend - sorry folks - is that you sign up to the BBC Food Messageboard. I`m a member there and often debate and give recipes for all the areas that you mention.

You state that " you love cooking but have no basic training". Now, this is not the same as "can`t cook, won`t cook"! It would help to know what YOU have cooked in the past. For example, if you have ever melted fat, added flour and cooked it for a couple of minutes and then and liquid and turned it into a suace then you have made a ROUX. A roux is simply melted fat, preferable butter to which one adds flour. Now - the liquid you add determines the sauce. Plain milk and it is a white sauce. Add milk in which you have infused onion, bayleaf, a blade of mace, a few peppercorns, a couple of cloves and then strained before adding to the roux and you have made a bechamel. From this simple sauce you can make a mulittude of different dishes.

Add chicken stock or fish stock and you make a chicken VELOUTÉ or fish VELOUTÉ which again enable you to create many classic dishes.

Put the butter, flour and milk in the pan, heat and whisk continuously and you make an "ALL-IN-ONE-SAUCE". Whisk in some mustard and a grating of fresh nutmeg, remove from the heat and add grated cheese and you have the basis for a great Macaroni Cheese. proprotions depend upon how many portions you wish to create.

Re. breads - we have a resident Guru, known as Paulthebread who teaches breadmaking and has several threads currently running. In addition, posters with breadmakers frequently post questions, advice and recipies.

Mayonnaise - one of the easiest sauces to make if all ingredients are at room temperature or, preferably especially the oil, slightly higher and you have an electric hand whisk. Trust me, I can post a recipe which works every time.

Tomato past sauces - may members, like those on DC, are Italian and have posted recipies which work and are well regarded by the community or used successfully, commercially.

Skipping to Risotto:
Lots of threads on this discussing; type of rice to use (Arborio, Canaroli or Vialone Nano); pan to use; proportion of rice to liquid; method; deconstructing a risotto to the 4 classic ingredient groups like the soffrito, liquid, rice and condimentori (flavour), etc.,to enable you to create any risotto, are discussed and debated.

Indian, Chinese or Japanese dishes - we have many experts who post recipes, plus blogs, plus photos, plus videos to show you how to make tempura, pot stickers, dim sum, etc. One web site which I would suggest you look at is: www.mamtaskitchen It is a great site and used by many. I know that many professonals use her recipes in their business so well worth checking out.

Stocks - the secret is not to salt whilst making. Reduce to concentrate to the flavour intensity you require and season last!

I could go on. However, suffice to say it would be interesting to know what you have cooked so that we can deconstruct the recipes to see what skills you have.

Hope this helps,
Archiduc