/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Roast chicken.

>>17075398
>Their current skill level is making simple sandwiches, brewing some coffee and tea and overcooking scrambled eggs
Train them to make better sandwiches or coffee so they can become sandwich artists or baristas. There is no hope for them anyway.

>>17075398

I pull out the hungry-man and point them towards the microwave

Chicken noodle soup is something that I think it's hard to fuck up.

>>17075398
How do I make that? It looks so good.

egg

>>17075534
Here is the recipe this pictures was from. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/pasta-with-15-minute-burst-cherry-tomato-sauce-56390060

Make sure to pick either spaghetti or linguini for this look and cook it according to the instructions minus a minute, use freshly ground or crushed black pepper, add a little bit of chopped tomatoes and use high quality olive oil. When you mix the pasta with the sauce remember to add 1/4 of a glass of pasta water and stir it in. That way the sauce will have a silky smooth texture.

I tell them truthfully I'm only slightly more competent, and offer to show them stuff I'm confident in like making hamburgers, scrambling eggs, and walk them through following recipes.

I'll also offer to give them an extra instapot I have, along with directions I use.

>>17075625
Thanks. I'll do just that.

>>17075625
>don't even finish cooking the pasta in the sauce
shit recipe from someone who has no idea how to cook pasta

>>17075598
This. In the op, the person can't even properly scramble an egg. I'll show them how to crack it, how to beat it, and all of the cooking methods, starting with scrambled.

>>17075792
That happens when you mix hot pasta with the hot sauce. You don't actually need 100 degrees C for stuff to continue to cook.

>>17075398
Salmon. Easiest shit to cook, any retard can do it.

>>17075398
cacio e pepe or some type of stir fry

>>17075398
I'd probably go with French Toast.

>>17075398
Tell then to youtube foodwishes and pick a recipe to make

>>17075637
You’re a good person.

>>17075398
I actually did this once. A friend of mine online didn't have any experience cooking, so I wrote him up a 10 page document explaining a bunch of cooking basics and simple recipes that slowly increased in complexity.

Like, the first part of the document was all an extremely step-by-step process in how to brown up meat in a pan. Ground beef, chicken, etc. You are not expected to just eat that on its own, but browning up some meat is the first step to making a lot of other stuff and its worth knowing how to do well.

After that came some simple pasta and rice dishes. Brown up chicken, add a bag of mixed frozen vegetables, add a jar of curry sauce, serve over rice. Or cook some ground beef and add it to some egg noodles with peas and cream of mushroom soup and a little shredded cheese. That sort of thing. Nothing anyone is in any danger of fucking up too badly.

With the casserole basics down, I did a second section for oven-based cooking so that he knew that not every meat is expected to be prepared the same way. Baked salmon, pork loin, etc went here, as well as oven roasted potatoes.

I finished things off with giving him a simple family recipe that actually isn't hard to make at all, but looks fancy and tastes great so he would have something that makes him feel accomplished and he could show off to friends and family. Its extremely simple. You get some cod or haddock filets and cook them in butter, garlic, and lemon juice, topped with breadcrumbs. Prepare a big pot of linguine or fettuccini. Get a saucepan and put two jars of decent quality marinera into it and heat it up, then add in a can of sliced black olives, a big handful of dried currants, and some pine nuts. Let the flavors meld, and then add only a little of the sauce in with the pasta, the rest of the sauce is set aside to get served overtop.
Serve a big plat of pasta topped with the sauce and the fish on the side. Its wonderful.

>>17077707
And did he use it?

>>17077809
I know he cooked some of the earlier stuff. I don't know that he ever did the fish and pasta. We sort of fell out of contact with each other about a year later.

>>17077707
Do you still have the doc?

>>17075398
Make them cook an over easy egg until they want to vomit

>>17077867
I might not. Its been a few years. It wouldn't be on this computer for sure, but I can check later when I get home.

I would do a meatloaf, because that is simple, but also gets a lot of skills and lessons the fear of getting hands dirty.
I start by softening onions, carrots, and celery in butter, then combining with meat, breadcrumbs, spices, and eggs in a heatproof bowl. Mix by hand until a pasty texture. I use whatever meat I happen to have, but ideally would use beef, finely chopped bacon, and lamb in a 1:1:1 ratio. Then you put in a loaf pan, and emulsify tomato paste, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic together to get her to use as the topping. You then top the meatloaf and cook until done.
With the recipe, you practice cooking vegetables before brown, chopping and dicing, whisking, and getting hands dirty. It’s also a very adaptable recipe to play around with. Meatloaf is fundamentally comforting, and it will taste good even if you mess it up.

>>17075398
Isn't all cooking just the same?
>take ingredients
>combine together in pan/pot/oven
>allow to cook

>>17078185
Only at very high level discussion. In practice, different dishes have to be prepared in different ways. Baking is not the same skill as grilling, if you try to make Avgelemono by just tossing in all the ingredients you end up with scrambled egg soup, etc.

Its true that most people think cooking is more complicated than it is, most dishes are pretty simple. But that doesn't mean that there is no skill or knowledge involved in the process.

>>17075398
beef stew, simple yet forgiving of mistakes. if i thought they had flair we'd graduate to gumbo

>>17075398
I'd force them to perfectly replicate my methods or else I quit

>>17078185
you gotta learn how to deal with each ingredient

>>17075398
This pasta looks really nice. How do I do it?

>>17075398
How does anyone not know how to cook
Look up recipe
Get ingredients
Cook

Tomato sauces are a great place to start if you focus on sofritos. Also how to cook up some aromatics and add stuff in. Mise en place is one of the absolute most important things to teach a new home cook. The wall between a newbie and a recipe is a lot less intimidating if the ingredients are already prepped. Then they can just follow the recipe.

I like talking to hopeless home cooks 'cause I used to be one. It was a real struggle and looking back at how simple things really were still baffles me. Once I learned to relax and prep my ingredients before I started cooking things got ridiculously easier.

>>17080757
Easy starting sauce:

1/4th-1/2 cup of olive oil
1 can of stewed tomatoes
7 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp oregano
1 tsp red pepper flake
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt

>Chop garlic
>heat oil on low
>simmer garlic for 1-2 mins, watch it closely and just as it starts turning golden add the canned tomatoes
>dump in herbs and seasoning
>bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, stir, cover, simmer for 15 mins
>put on pasta

wala. Once you learn to infuse oil you can add more. Yesterday I did onion and a little green bell pepper. I'm going to try mincing some carrot since a lot of marinara sauces use large carrots as a sop for acidity. Being able to expand and get creative seems like it's a lot but it's really not once you get something simple that you love going.

>>17075398
best way is to ask them what they feel like eating, and then make that.
after that, ask them what they want to be able to make, and then that.
best way is to teach people how to make specific dishes, then they pick up techniques and basics, then you refine and highlight those basics and others, and then build upon that.

Fried Chicken. honestly i think its simple enough in execution that anyone of any skill level can do it, but it also teaches a person alot about how you can screw up a dish if overdoing it or not done enough.

>>17075398
the absolute basics revolve around a singular menu with interchangeable parts.
1. meat.
2. vegetables.
mix and match as you will. this can include lessons on marinating, slow cooking, braising, pan frying, etc. for the meats. conversely roasting, blanching, boiling, frying, etc. for the veggies. extrapolate as necessary.