Love it - I cook for pleasure
Not bothered - I cook to eat
Hate it - I spend my every waking moment NOT cooking if at all possible
Love it. I've made a lot of friends by cooking traditional English food over here. A Syrup Pudding and Custard that we take for granted is an amazing delicacy here. I like to add sliced ginger to the syrup!
I'm someone who enjoys cooking, but freely admits that I persue it for the creativity side, rather than from a professional style approach. Most of my ideas come from having a grasp of what the food industry put together for certain styles, for example, Harrissa + lamb + apricots can be worked out into say, a Morrocan Lasagne.
The only gadgets I'm a fan of is a decent, non-stick wok (which then gets used to cook virtually everything), and a couple of half-decent sharp knives because frankly, veg can be cut with a blunt knife if you don't care about the shape of them, but meat only really works with a properly sharp knife.
The other part I enjoy is what I term "student cooking", one pan, one fork, one bowl and one knife are all you can use, and you're aiming to be done in 10-15 minutes. One really tasty idea was piri-piri Super Noodles, plus a tin of tuna, some piri-piri salt, feta cheese, a chopped habanero chilli and some lemon juice. Not much in the way of interesting texture, but the flavour combo of salty, bitter and spicy with the fish flavours was really good.
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This is bunny and friends. He is fed up waiting for everyone to help him out, and decided to help himself instead!
No need to book them all at once I started with the knife skills course - good bit of veg prep, butchering up a chicken and finishing off with an apple tart ( learning to slice apples so thinly they only have 1 side ;-) )
my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net
Well, the apples bit is easy ....
Step 1 (Optional) - Peel, if required,
Step 2 Insert fine blade in Magimix
Step 3 Press "On"
Step 4 Drop apple(s) down chute.
My main concern is whether I'd benefit enough from the knife skills one. I mean, I already understand how to prep most of the veg I use regularly, be it onion, carrot, shallot, fennel, whatever. I can chop from coarse, or quarters, down to very fine, or can julienne or brunoise.
Butchering a chicken .... hmmm. I'm no expert, but I can get the skin off intact if need be, or can leave it on and joint the bird, or spatchcock it. I can even neatly spiral-peel a pineapple.
you might enjoy some of the the more advanced courses , though even on the ones which covered fundamentals, I still picked up a couple of handy little tips. good conversations with the chef too! ( I digress , but for me its the side conversations not on the syllabus of ANY course I've been on , technical , cookery or otherwise that hold the greatest value )
my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net
Agreed on side conversations.
I guess, re knives, that while I can get the job done, I might not be aware of all necessary techniques .... and getting good, fast results is (IMHO) dependent on sharp knives, and technique. My problem is whether I'd get £150 worth of improvement.
On sauces, on the other hand, I probably would as I'd confess it's a weakness.
A lot of my reservation is about value. If cooking was my living, then it's a no-brainer to educate-up, but I cook for me and the wife and rarely anyone else.
I'd LOVE to do some of these courses, but would have difficulty justifying the cost.
Fair point - I'm not sure I've gone through a fine toothed ROI calc on it, it was about a nice day out as much as anything else for me. I booked it out for the wife's birthday to take her mates out for a meal with a difference ( they cooked it themselves , aided by a few glasses of wine )
my Virtualisation Blog http://jfvi.co.uk Virtualisation Podcast http://vsoup.net
Absolutely adore cooking, but only when I have someone to cook for. Hate it when it's just for me.
Currently working on a line of one pot, no-faff, low-carb Slow cooker "throw it together" recipes for work. Generally whatever is in my freezer and cupboards.
The problem I have is if I cook I need to do it properly,so that means if I do a curry for example it takes a few hours to do.
Interestingly enough some of the best knives for cooking I have used were a cheapo Thai brand,whereas some of the more expensive ones actually didn't last anywhere as long and needed far more maintenance.
Do more stir-frys than curries, Cat.
Or, what I tend to do is pick the meal according to circumstances.
I do agree, entirely, about doing it right. For me, half the fun of curries is the spice blend, and I like to grind, toast, mix etc. It's all the fault of an Indian girl I was at uni with about 40 years ago. We had "flat meals" where each flat (10 to 12 students) would do a meal for the flats on the other two floors. So, we each organised one, per term. Jaz was in the flat above, and the meal she did introduced me to a world of curry other than the local take-away, which weren't that common in those days. She'd been taught by her mother, who was taught by her mother, and so on, and by 'eck that girl could cook. If she hadn't already been engaged I'd have married her for a lifetime of culinary heaven. Of course, it didn't hurt that her curry wasn't the only thing that was really hot.
But oh, that meal was divine, and jokes aside, not that hot .... unlike Jaz herself. I was spoilt for takeaway Indian from that moment on. It's like getting a guided tour round the Louvre, and then putting up with nursery school kid's art for the rest of your life. The subleties of layers of flavours ..... I'm getting hungry just thinking about it,
But .... if I have very limited time, I don't even attempt that. Instead, out comes the cleaver and wok.
Or, like Tigg said, slow cooker and bung it on in the morning.
But if I do a Bolognaise, it HAS to be done properly, and it takes me a good three or four hours. It's worth it, though.
Lucio (12-07-2017)
Dead simple, but actually quite tasty for slow cooker - pack of good sausages, 500g of new potatoes quartered, and 2 tins of baked beans or mixed beans in sauce. Add to this about 2 cloves of garlic, 4 tsps Paprika and either a little salt, or if you have it, some lardons or chopped bacon.
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(")_(") (")_(") (")_(") (")_(") (")_(") (")_(") (")_(")
This is bunny and friends. He is fed up waiting for everyone to help him out, and decided to help himself instead!
Saracen (12-07-2017)
PS. Good sausages, getting hard to find. When I visit mum-in-law, we restock freezer with superb bangers hand-made by a local (to her) butcher, from port that comes from a farm about 5 miles down the road.
Upside = ruddy superb bangers.
Downside = totally ruins you for supermarket fare.
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