I love cooking, and I cook every day for me and my wife (home office since 2008 helps there), and I love hearing about new things. I have the book “The Science of Cooking” which was fascinating.
Amazing popcorn: Corn - 106g or 1/2cup Sunflower Oil - 43g or 1/4cup - 8g of that geing ghee (clarified butter) for godly flavor Salt (flavacol is best)-5g or 1tsp
Combine in 6q or larger pot and move the pot around on the stove, or better yet, use a whirly-pop. (Whirlypop.Com) remove from the stove when there are 2 seconds between pops.
In case it’s not obvious, you need to keep the lid on or use a splatter guard for safety purposes.
Microwave the result for 30 seconds to remove excess moisture for better crunch and less squeak.
Legend has it a similar recipe would work in a microwave safe bowl, but I’m not a heathen so I never tried it.
If using plain salt, uniodized salt that is ground into a fine powder works best.
Enjoy and tell me about your results.
Hot roux + cold milk, no lumps.
And if you’re new to cooking, try cooking your food a bit longer than you would usually. Taste it and decide if you enjoy the heavier caramelization. When I realized I should embrace the char, foods like mushrooms became so so so much better.
Microwave or parboil veggies before sauteing on high heat. Lets you get the perfect exterior without having to worry about if they are cooked through. It’s also faster and if you parboil in salted water you allow salt to penetrate deeper into the veg. I especially like this technique for starches like potatoes, as they take a long time to cook and I’m impatient.
If you use cast iron, carbon steel, or stainless pans, buy a chainmail scrubber. They are SO GOOD.
Also steel wool ball scrubbies are nice for real cast iron disasters, but they can scratch or get gross if used as a first resort.
Nonstick is not worth it and cast iron is a million times easier to care for than people make it out to be. You can wash it with soap - it was only old school lye soaps that were an issue. You can let food soak in it some. If it rusts or the seasoning is damaged, that’s easy to fix. It’s a hunk of iron - don’t worry about babying it if that’s the thing keeping you from trying it!
I find it does sometimes have food stick more rhan with nonstick, depending on whether I’ve been doing the extra cast iron care things recently or not, but the ability to use steel utensils/spatulas/scrubbies compensates for that very well, imo.
Tldr try cast iron or carbon steel if you haven’t!
Recently got a carbon steel pan as part of my de-plastic-ification process. I use those for years frying or something sensitive like eggs, the huge ceramic pan for everything else.
Can’t say I feel the need for metal cleaning utensils though, seems like that would be more for stainless steel pans? Just wiping cleans the CS pan, and the ceramic pan can’t take metal.
Edit: wanted to add: I agree, carbon steel is great :D
You dont have to go full meal prep, there’s small things you can do ahead of time to get better results with less time and effort later on. boiling some cubed potatoes for 10 minutes, or sous vide some chicken breast. then when it’s cooking time, all you need to do is get some browning on them, they’re already cooked through and extra tender.
