Culinary Curriculum/Resource Suggestions?

[jrstarfleetacademy]

My DD is interested in delving into the technical points of cooking which is beyond me to teach (I can barely cook an egg...lol) and none of our culinary schools offer any classes or help otherwise. Can anyone suggest a book or video series that might help with the basics? Knife skills, basic cooking education, basic instructional methods (poaching, roasting, braising...etc). She has taken kids cooking "classes" and camps but all the prep work is already done and she wants to do the actual prep work. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Thanks.

[pantone]

*Waves hand wildly* 

 

Ooooh, I cook! And when I left home I was lucky if I could boil water. Today, I host all the family's Thanksgiving dinners.  :-) 

 

Practically everything I learned came through the Cooks Illustrated (America's Test Kitchen) site and YEARS OF PRACTICE. Cooks is awesome because it's like the Consumer Reports of cooking. If they're going to post a recipe for apple pie, they've cooked 150 pies and they have a scientific reason why the recommend doing the things they recommend. Cooking is science....specifically, it's chemistry. You're taking different elements and applying heat to them, thereby causing chemical reactions to occur. (And those reactions turn out to be tasty! Who knew!) 

 

They've also recently launched what they're calling Cooking School. 

http://www.onlinecookingschool.com/courses

 

Try poking around through their intro videos and see what you think. 

 

FWIW, this is bar-none the BEST way to cook a rib-eye roast I've ever encountered: 

 

A basic six pounds of meat will cost around $20-$30 (cheaper at Costco) and lasts our family of four for three nights plus roast beef sandwiches. We always have roast the first night, then French dip sandwiches, then stuffed potatoes (with the meat + cheese, broccoli, butter, sour cream, whatever you can come up with). The rest goes into lunch sandwiches or with a cheese and cracker tray. 

 

 

[jrstarfleetacademy]

Pantone!!! That.Is.Awesome! I don't know why I didn't think about Americas Test Kitchen, we used to watch those on our local PBS station....Thanks  :thumbup:

[TarynB]

Seconding Pantone's post.  Also, we enjoy Alton Brown's TV series Good Eats.  He demonstrates technique but also explains the why behind it (cooking is as much about chemistry as it is about cooking) and he's entertaining too. I don't know if they're still on, but his episodes used to be available via streaming on Amazon and Netflix.