Any of you folks cook?

Don't use ten. Epic .

 

I know this will be sacrilege for you meat-atarians, but I like to prep my ribs in a pressure cooker since I rarely have the luxury of time to slow cook.

- marinate overnight in whatever you like (I use a mix of oyster sauce, hoisin, and mustard... don't judge me)
- pressure cook for roughly ~15-20 minutes
- finish off in the oven or bbq to whatever degree you like

 

I put ribs in the oven for four hours at the lowest temp (~220F). You can ignore them the entire time. Go listen to your headphone rig.

Put whatever you want on them but I use a dry rub. Sauce on the side.

 

I just got some time freed up for myself until I move on June and I think I'm going to do as much cooking as I possibly can while actually being mindful about it. I'm really itching to reassess what I have in my kitchen(gear-wise) along with my pantry that probably has a million things expired in it. I was wondering if people can guide me to the right direction in learning proper technique and whatnot. I was fairly productive this week, I made pulled pork, nachos from the pulled pork, kimchi, miso-poached salmon, miso shrimp soup with shirataki noodles and some bbq chicken with roasted cabbage. I just feel like I'm a bit too over the place though but I don't know, I feel so eugh.

 

That's what I liked about Alton Brown's Good Eats series - he went into the rationale, science and biology behind what was happening, so you were equipped with the knowledge to experiment.

 

Read everything this guy writes

http://www.seriouseats.com/user/profile/Goodeaterkenji

 

Awesome link - thanks!

 

Me and my wife both cook and we can do it pretty good. Would not get work in some top restaurant but could work in diner.
My wife is Asian, so she can cook Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean and Vietnamese food. I cover rest of the food, so basically i like
to make Italian, French, Russian, German style dishes. Also can do USA and Mexican style... none of us cannot do Indian/Arab style

I prefer to make easy dishes, which not take lot of time and money. So there are lot of different stuff to make, sometimes
like to try something new, so never get bored.

 

I pretty much cook everything at our house. I like to make pasta dishes and fresh salads. Shrimp Alfredo is one of the favorites around here. Grilling some chicken or burgers is also a regular on the menu. When my wife is stuck cooking because I'm working late, she usually picks up take out.

 

Next time I am in SoCal I am making brisket and ribs for whatever SBAF meeting is going down.

 

Bone in boston butt for me. Beats ribs hands down. I have a Cookshack smoker I brought with me from the U.S. so I can do good Q here. Smokin' Okies basting sauce should be a national secret!

 

Great recommendation guys, I'm mostly familiar with the stuff you guys have mentioned(media-wise) though I do have my own ~~backlog~~ stack of cookbooks, podcasts, and websites to go through. I think I pretty much have the answer to my problem... So I've decided to just take 1 cookbook at a time and cook through it then afterwards I'm probably going to sell the cookbook back to lighten up my load during my move. I swear, there's just so much I want to do when it comes to cooking but I think it'll be good to pay attention and be more strict about it if I really want my skills to grow. I mostly know how to manage things in the kitchen when cooking a lot of things altogether though I am not that proficient in terms of technique, which I like to blame my appliances for.

Perhaps this is some sort of internal struggle for me where I try to find order or a sequence in how to be a better cook, since I tend to really want to learn literally everything I can find if I enjoy something. With cooking, I find that the definition of "good" is extremely subjective and I really need to probe through myself to see what kind of style I want to achieve. I enjoy cooking American, French, East Asian(Kor/Jap/Chi), and I enjoy roast-related dishes but there's just so many things I'd like to try out there too. So overwhelming lol.

 

Cooking has been a hobby of mine for...hell, a while now. I got interested in it out of necessity. If one enjoys good food and is not rich, one had better learn how to make good food.

My advice to someone starting out is not to rely too much on recipes. Use them if you have to (especially if you've never made the dish before), but pay attention to how the process works and what the ingredients actually do. Once you understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, you can start to "see the matrix", and recipes are no longer necessary. You can mentally taste the finished product before you've even started making it.

I suppose that it's similar to someone composing a song in their head. But instead of imagining music, you're imagininig flavor, texture, and aroma. To continue with the music analogy, play someone else's song if you must, but pay attention to what it is and why it was written that way. That having been said, I don't recommend recipe books. One book that I can recommend is Ruhlman's "Elements of Cooking".

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000VM9ZBM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

This is not a recipe book. It's a handful of essays and a dictionary. It is helpful for understanding what is happening when a dish is prepared. I found it very useful, but again, I don't do recipes.

I favor a similar system for pork ribs, but with slight deviations. I wrap mine in foil and bake them, fat side up, for about three hours; four hours makes them a little more tender than I'd like, as I prefer to eat my ribs with my hands. When they're done cooking, I open the foil and broil them in the oven until the fat's browned up and crispy on the outside. The crisped fat gives a nice texture contrast to the meat itself.

I wholeheartedly agree with sauce on the side. Let the eater decide how much or how little sauce is required. Too many people oversauce their ribs.

 

If you wrap them in foil then you should shorten the time. The humid environment helps it cook a bit faster. Flip side is if you want the crust then you have to broil them. I only use foil when I am smoking brisket.

 

http://www.177milkstreet.com/

heard something that Chris Kimball is being sued by Americas Test Kitchen. For what, I dunno. I got the free first issue and I like what I see. Fresh take on what a cooking magazine can be.

edit: drama-llama-baby-momma.

 

While I sincerely miss being able to take advantage of my home's gas stove, I can currently 'cook' in the sense that I'm a grad student with a microwave. (My best friend who's a Sous in training gets very, very upset at me when I mention this to them). That being said, with some creative usage of microwave settings, I've figured out a surprisingly decent tasting recipe, that's simple, and pretty much affordable by everybody. All it requires is a microwave, a sizable container, and an emulsion blender (which you can pick up for like $20, and will get a surprising amount of use out of).

3 medium sized Russet Potatoes
1 cube beef bouillon/1 tablespoon beef bouillon
Butter (as much as your sensibility allows)
Milk (as skim or as fat as you prefer) till desired consistency and thickness
Salt/pepper to taste, though the bouillon usually makes it salty enough for my tastes.
Optional: Additional flavor enhancers (Bacon, Cheese, Sour Cream...), heavy/whipping cream if you want to make it extra rich and thick...
Optional but highly recommended: 1 Large Leek

Prep- Pre-heat the milk until hot, but not boiling hot.
Step 1) Cook the Potatoes however you'd prefer. In the microwave, I find that 5 minutes on each side usually works well, or 7 if I'm cooking all three at the same time. Just make sure to poke them full of holes before chucking them in.
Step 2) Chuck everything into a bowl and use the emulsion blender and do your best reenactment of various tornadoes, hurricanes, and tropical storms.
Step 3) Serve or let cool and store.

Recipe makes a couple of liters of soup or so, and is pretty hearty and filling. Making one large batch will last me pretty much a week for lunches and/or dinners.



ALSO: I highly recommend a book called "The Food lab". This book will teach you how to become a chef through science. Science is rad. It has a crap ton of recipes, and breaks down how and WHY you do certain things in cooking, the chemical reactions behind the processes, etc.

 

Cream of potato soup from scratch with nothing but a microwave? I like it. Well done. I don't use a microwave very often when I'm not at work, but I won't lie here...it's my favorite way to do broccoli al dente, and I prefer it for cooking winter squash over baking.