Thirith on 27/6/2010 at 10:48

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Fish seafood lasagne, with a tomato sauce with scallops and shrimps and a Béchamel with fish and broccoli. Someone else should bring a bottle or five of red wine.

fett on 27/6/2010 at 17:32

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So here's the question (aimed more specifically at Scots, Queue, and Cookieboy) - my stuff is much more basic than yours, with very few exceptions. Lots of your average lemon/dill fish, garlic baked chicken, etc. How did you get to the point of knowing how to cook the fancier stuff, and more specifically the sides, like risotto and tagliatelle and such? Did you work your way up from basic cookbooks to more involved ones, or are these things you learned from watching others cook? I feel like at this point, I know my way around the stove, oven, rotisserie, and grill very well. I've got a firm grasp on cooking methods, how spices work together, and the arrangement of steps to get the most flavor out of most common ingredients (garlic, onion, capers, etc. and most veggies). Am I just lacking the proper cookbooks to go to the next level?


Also, it's obviously time for the TTLG Cookbook 2.0

Queue on 27/6/2010 at 19:59

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fett--I'm certainly not fancy, but I've always loved to cook and am willing to fuck up a dish here and there to figure out how to make a good dish. My best with a tortilla gumbo (a take on tortilla soup) served in a soup bowl around a mound of basmati rice with a dollop of sour cream and sprinkled with chives. For that dish, it just wasn't working out until I got the idea of adding lime juice to the gumbo. It went from being just okay to fucking fantastic instantly.

I do have quite an assortment of cookbooks that I use for reference or to get idea from, but most of what you'll ever need to know comes from fucking Betty Crocker. The rest is just what you do with that information, and if you're willing to totally fail and not be defeated by that. It actually took me a few tries to make perfect buttermilk biscuits (and my family's from the south for crying out loud!). It's was frustrating that something that simple was so elusive to create with simple ingredients. But, never give up, and realize that you can feed the dog what you don't like.

And honestly, you're already at the "next level" by just wanting to be there. Take a good cookbook, pick a recipe, experiment from there. Make it your own. The more you experiment, the more you'll get a sense of what will taste good and how to prepare it: substitute this for that, add this, change this amount, etc.

Good cooking, to me, has always been about timing. You can't just throw all the ingredients and spices in a pan, crank it up, and hope for the best--flavors must be layered. Something as easy as fried rice can be a disaster if you add, say, the bean sprouts too early (must be added last, and just lightly heated so they stay crisp and don't lose their flavor). Like a good fucking, cooking takes time, attention, and care. And don't be afraid to get a mouth full. Smell it, taste it, savor it.

Queue on 27/6/2010 at 20:27

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But I managed to bring it back around with just a dash of salt.

Scots Taffer on 28/6/2010 at 00:51

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Fett: trying it, trying it and trying it again.

My first few risottos were pretty damn average, but I've started to get the knack now - however I'm certainly not bulletproof. I've scraped more than one pan of risotto into the trash in my time (though I am something of a perfectionist).

I definitely got a leg up by getting exposure, however minor, to a top class restaurant and how they did things in the kitchen, while I didn't walk out of there with any recipes, I did walk out with an appreciation of just how easy it is to cook good simple food, the trick is the best possible ingredients you can afford and the application of heat, plus some seasoning.

Pretty simple right? It's the sheer variety and complexity that keeps upping the ante, and that goes as deep as you want the rabbit hole to go. There is a lot of stuff I haven't tried that I intend to, and there's stuff I'll probably never do and enjoy the luxury of eating it after others do the hard work. The stuff I mention above is the simple cooking side of things, when it comes to sauces and handmade pasta and so on, I'm still very much out of my depth and have no idea. I still want to build up that cooking skill (the tagliatelle above was the only store bought thing).

Cookbooks help, practice is the winner though.