Learning to cook...what would you include?

[SporkUK]

What skills, tips, tricks, and so on would you include to help someone learn to cook and feel confident in the kitchen?

What concepts do you think would be needed, or nice to have, both in cooking for oneself and for a group/family? 

Are there any resources you would recommend? [i've seen a few cooking courses in thegreatcourseplus which we're planning to get later this year - does anyone know if these are any good for a complete cooking beginner?]. 

 

I was never taught to cook - my parents were the epitome of ready meal/from the box cooking and neither good at teaching much. I've always been uncomfortable in the kitchen, not really much better than they were [i can mix thing together and shove it in the oven, that's about as far as I get], so my partner does the vast majority of the cooking. Learning to cook has become a goal for me, and my older 2 [11 and 9] want to learn too so I'm trying to come up with...something. A framework I guess of what I don't know, need to learn, and would be nice to know that will...make things easier, make ready meals and takeaway slightly less tempting, so we feel better? I don't know. My partner has tried before but...it's so natural to him that it's hard for him to explain the steps to me, let alone the kids, and I apparently do not learn well from just watching him cook. 

 

There was a very expensive cooking course going recently, I couldn't justify the expense for several reasons, but I wrote down it's list of main ideas as an unsure starting point:

 

lunches [with vague promises of seeing the results in better energy]

dinner

permanent pantry [cooking for the week, storage containers, how to stock up for easier cooking when tired]

savoury breakfasts

slow cook comfort foods - set and forget meals

crowd cooking

knife skills

grocery shopping

what ingredients to buy

what tools to use

how to fit food into your lifestyle [not sure what this means, something about creating a system, as a house with 3 disabled adults, one who works nights, and four kids I'm not sure what kind of system will work for us]. 

[Closeacademy]

Start with food and tool safety.  Move onto learning how to use a knife, peeling veggies and such.

 

Then start with easy things like eggs, soup, casseroles and simple candies.

From there you can move onto pasta, meats and such.

Finally go onto baking starting with cookies, fruit bread, cake out of the box, yeast breads and then real cakes.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Well, in culinary school the very first thing we learned were knife skills.  Our first foods were soups and sauces.

 

 

[cjzimmer1]

There was a recent thread with suggestions for learning to cook.  Reading it inspired me to get some for my DD13 who wants to cook but I don't have the patience to do because my kitchen is so small it drives me nuts if anyone is in there with me while I'm working.

 

So far the ones that looks the best for us are Where's mom now that I need her, Learning to cook with Marion Cunningham and How to cook everything.  Between them they cover a lot of basic things and easier recipes.

 

If I were teaching myself, I'd start with the basics of learning how to chop/dice well.  We use a lot of fresh veggies so this is an essential skill.  From there I'd progress to sauteing and steaming and pan frying single ingredients (veggies or meats but not together).  Then how to roast a piece of meat.  Then I'd work on how to combine things (casseroles, making sauces, etc)

[TechWife]

The Great Courses cooking class is good for a beginner. Also, Abeka has a really thorough course as well. I wouldn't create a course on my own, personally. I'd go with the Abeka course because it is already planned and I've known families that got great results with it.

 

ETA: IThe Abeka course is called Family and Consumer Sciences. The families I know did the course complete with the video component, labs and tests.

Edited June 25, 2016 by TechWife

[SparklyUnicorn]

And buy a meat thermometer.  Really that makes anyone's life 1000 times easier (assuming you eat meat).

 

 

[regentrude]

The Great Courses The Everyday Gourmet: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Cooking (Bill Briwa, The Culinary Institute of America) is quite good and a good overview.

 

I find the best way to learn to cook is to just... cook. Often and repeatedly, with no fear of experimentation. Pick a dish you want to make, look up a few recipes, pick one to follow. If you are literate and can follow directions, you will have an edible meal. Next time, change a thing or two. Eventually, experiment with substitutions. You will develop an intuition which ingredients lend themselves to which kind of preparation, what goes together.

For beginners, learning to cook modular meals that can be varied easily is useful. Start by learning to make several different, easy, sauces you can serve with rice or pasta, instead of learning to cook one very complicated casserole dish.

 

Cooking is a skill that, first and foremost, requires practice and that develops with experience.

Introductory instruction in basic knife skills and cooking techniques (sautee, fry, broil, bake) is helpful but just a small beginning.

Edited June 25, 2016 by regentrude

[AK_Mom4]

As someone who is a bad cook, I would have liked to have learned:

 

Knife wielding

White sauce

How to taste something and figure out what seasoning to use

What seasonings are out there besides salt

How to not ruin cast iron when you cook

Really Good Eggs

What All Those Cooking Words really mean (saute anyone? Broil - that the same as boil, right?)

How to get pasta to not taste like cardboard

 

This would have probably made my life so much easier and pretty much covered anything I would have ever needed to cook.  

 

Fortunately DH taught my kids and they are all good cooks.

[Alessandra]

I'm a bit impatient, so I would want to be able to put together a good meal right away. So I would choose a food and cook it until it becomes automatic. I once heard some advice for new college graduates -- learn to prepare a few things really well and people will think you are a cooking genius.

 

For example, an omeletter. Start with plain, then try, say scallion and cheese, or a mushroom omelette. Works for breakfast, or a simple lunch/dinner.

 

Another example, chicken tenders. Inexpensive, fast, healthy. Get the timing right so you can sauté them without under or over cooking. Try them with lemon, or teriyaki sauce, etc. Learn to cook minute rice, or ready to heat polenta, or boxed couscous to go with the chicken. Then, when you have the chicken down, graduate away from the boxed side dishes.

 

Btw, I took a knife skills course, invested in a $$$ knives. It's great, except I became a bit of a knife snob. But to tell the truth, I also cooked delicious meals with more moderate knife skills and less expensive knives.

 

ETA

Websites with videos that I like

-- the Seasoned Cook. Classic French cooking videos, emphasis on skills, rather than recipes

-- kitchn.com. Bright lively recipes, usually seasonal ones are featured. Simple, fun.

-- Rose Berenbaum. Cake and pastry videos. She totally knows her stuff and explains everything.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Alessandra

[Allearia]

Although I recently posted a thread saying I was never going to cook again 😉 I was also going to suggest The Great Courses cooking courses. We have Great Courses Plus so we can watch anything we want, and there are several. We have watched some of the basic one and dc are planning to watch and learn skills, the videos have some knife skills but I don't know if that is something that needs more instructions.

 

Also, the Instant Pot is great for slow cooking (or pressure cooking) comfort type foods, and they have a lot of videos on The Hip Pressure Cooking website.

[JFSinIL]

https://smile.amazon.com/Im-Just-Here-Food-Cooking/dp/1584790830/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1466889309&sr=8-11&keywords=alton+brown

 

I think this book might be useful. He covered the basics and once you know the how and why of something, you can use that info to cook other things.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I haven't tried the great courses cooking courses, but if this is from the CIA I'm sure it's good.  All the books we had at the culinary school were from the CIA.  BTW, if anyone ever gets the chance to do a tour at the CIA..what a fun time!

 

CIA also has a few cook at home titles.  I've got a couple of them and they are great.

 

 

[JFSinIL]

https://smile.amazon.com/Im-Just-Here-Food-Cooking/dp/1584790830/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1466889309&sr=8-11&keywords=alton+brown

 

I think this book might be useful. He covered the basics and once you know the how and why of something, you can use that info to cook other things.

 

https://smile.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Basics-Food--/dp/0470528060/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466889759&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+cook+book

may also be useful. And - do not rule out on-line cooking videos! You can search and find a ton of folks who demonstrate any cooking technique or recipe you might wish to attempt. That is how I found a video of an abuela who taught me how to make tamales, and a five-star chef who taught me how to pan-sear a slab of tuna and have it come out moist and delicious.

Edited June 25, 2016 by JFSinIL

[mumto2]

Since you live in the UK I would start by watching some of the many cooking shows. Masterchef has a Junior show on cbbc which normally does a basic recipe each episode. Celebrity Masterchef just started this week but we haven't watched it yet. My kids have always loved Mary Berry and the Bakeoff and its spin offs. The recipes are frequently on websites after both of these shows. For us the shows were family viewing when the kids were younger. We experimented with many of the recipes after. Kids like The Hairy Bikers also. There are many cooking shows to choose from.

[Tita Gidge]

I think food science is good to know. It would be a great help in becoming comfortable should the need to substitute or improvise - or even troubleshoot a failed recipe - arise.

 

I wish I had an example of what I mean, but I'm drawing a blank LOL. I just know that there are lots of times I'm mid-recipe and realize I'm low on or out of something and I have to get online to search for things like "Can I substitute baking soda for baking powder"? or "do nuts go bad? what if they're at least five years old?" or "what kind of slow learnin' idiot never remembers to check ingredients on hand before starting to cook?"

 

I wish I was more familiar with basic kitchen chemistry. I live in fear that one day I'll be mid-recipe and my internet will be down or I'll have dreamed that Google ever existed.

[lllll]

nm

Edited November 30, 2016 by cathey

[Guest]

Knife skills.  And I would purchase three VERY GOOD knives. People will vary on their opinions as to what those are, but if I had these three very good knives (which I do), I would be satisfied (which I am).  A wide-blade chopping knife; an 8" chef's knife and a 4" paring knife.  We have a bunch of other knives as well, but I never touch them.  I keep them so I can hide my good knives from my mother when she visits.  She uses them to open jars.  (Alas.)  Get a good wooden cutting board, and never use the blade of your knife to scrape food from the board; use the back of the knife for that.  

 

Chemistry of cooking.  WHY you add an acid and when.  WHY you put in salt early AND late in the cooking process.  WHY you smoosh up dried herbs.  WHY you brown meat.  WHEN to add specific herbs, spices, peppers.  If you know the *whys* of things, you can substitute easily and still come up with a fabulous dish.  No wine?  Use a little lemon juice.  That sort of thing.  

 

Processes of cooking:  HOW you make a roux.  HOW you make a miripoix.  HOW you de-glaze a pan.  HOW you cook a fatty meat v. a lean meat.  HOW to make a white sauce, an egg-based sauce.  HOW to chop, slice, mince, dice, julienne, trim, butterfly, broil, parboil, roast, bake, steam, poach, simmer, fry, saute, etc.  

 

Tools of cooking:  People will disagree on these things, and a lot comes down to preference.   Get a good set of pans (not ones you plan to replace in 10 years, and not every pan they make.)  One of those pans should be a 5-7-ply stainless OR cast iron 10-12" fry pan.  Get a good Dutch/French oven, a good meat thermometer, a good vegetable peeler (Zyliss makes a good one).  Make sure your oven temperature is correct.

 

Gadgets and appliances:  You need very few.   Depending on how you eat, you might find that one or two of them makes your life easier, but I've gone 35 years without a lot of the appliances and am glad I don't have to find places to store them.  Some people really benefit from a slow cooker.  I'm not one of them.  The InstaPot is intriguing to me, and I might end up with one...but maybe I won't.  My mother-in-law uses her George Foreman Grill almost every day, so that is a good appliance--for her.  I have a food processor, but unless I am doing something like shredding enough onions and potatoes to make hashbrowns for 35 people, I'm faster with my knife (once you count cleanup and all....)  

 

Anyway, those are some of the things I learned along the way.  Two instructional events made a big difference in my cooking life.  One was taking some cooking instruction from a French chef in a month-of-meals cooking scenario.  You learn really well how to butterfly chicken breasts when you have done 150 of them.  

 

The other was having my diet restriected to 15 foods for awhile.  When that last happened, I had to learn a LOT about how to make foods taste good.  I still use some of those recipes.  (Here were the 15 foods:  salt, distilled water, lettuce, cabbage, rhubarb, celery, parsnips, rutabagas, white potatoes, venison, lamb, rabbit, ostrich...)

 

[hornblower]

Jamie Oliver put together a cooking skills curriculum which is all avail on the web. There are no videos but there are detailed photos with each of the recipes as well as sections on safety, setting up a kitchen etc. 

If you're an omnivore, really, you could just work through his curriculum http://www.jamieshomecookingskills.com/course-index.php

[Tita Gidge]

:patriot:  We need Patty Joanna to start a YouTube channel teaching us all of these things! That's exactly the kind of class I'd love my kids to take.

 

I laughed at your hiding knives. I used to hide my cast iron from my MIL because she'd put them in the dishwasher even after explaining, then begging, her not to. I had to buy a set of pots and pans specifically for her to use (and put into the dishwasher). The kids all knew, too. When she was coming to visit we'd prepare the extra room, stock the bathroom, and hide the cast iron! LOL

 

Edited June 25, 2016 by Tita Gidge