When slow cooking a roast lay it on a bed of potatoes or whatever other sides you want, fill the water to the top of the veggies (or taters) then soak the roast in your sauce of choice. Gravity and heat will help the sauce work into the veggies giving them a nice flavor. The roast pretty much always comes out perfectly moist and you get amazing veggies out of the deal.
You can make a delicious, calorie dense chicken noodle soup on an extreme budget with canned chicken, chicken broth, and ramen noodle packages. That meal kept me from going hungry on multiple occasions during college.
Don’t worry too much about making sure all cuts are uniform and everything is cooked to the exact same level. Yes, restaurants pride themselves on that and so do many of the youtube chefs (who got their start or even still work in restaurants)
You aren’t making hundreds of plates a night where two people on a date might think it is “unprofessional” that their green onion bits aren’t uniform.
And the advantage to doing a more rough chop is that you tend to get a much greater variety of texture. Obviously you don’t want that for everything, but getting that sudden burst of scallion flavor in one bite can really keep a meal “interesting” and so forth.
And it also makes life a LOT easier and means you can focus less on mise en place and more on not making a weeknight meal take 3 hours.
If you’re making rice without using a rice cooker, the amount of water you need is not quite a direct ratio like the package suggests. You need a 1:1 ratio of rice to water plus an additional quarter to half cup of water depending how firm you like your rice.
I’m a big fan of Chef Johns videos. He has a style and it may not be easy to ignore at first but his recipes and teaching style are so good. And I love his super corny jokes
when dicing onions cut radially first, then slice across, it saves you that weird half slice that's traditionally used for dicing onions.
I use cast iron for nearly everything, it survives a hundred years because it's bulletproof not because it's gingerly handled every time it's removed from it's velvet case. People dragged them around on Chuck wagons, you will not kill it with soap. Worst case it gets a little sticky and now you need to cook some bacon in it.
A splash of acid in your soup or stew at the end really wakes it up.
Never cook rice without at least a couple bay leaves. Ideally you'll cook it in chicken stock as well, add flavour where you can.
The best chicken stock in a jar is Better Than Bullion. Hands down. No contest.
With a splash of oil you can cook eggs even in a sticky cast iron pan.
Always use hand protection of some kind with a mandolin. I've never seen a non-pro chef go without and not fuck up their hand. Even pros lose the tips of their fingers sometimes too.
If you want to recreate movie theater popcorn at home you need the following things:
A whirlypop or other stovetop cooker
Coconut oil, refined
Popcorn kernels, quality varies, find a good brand
Fine salt
"Popcorn oil" - this is butter flavored oil sold next to the kernels
Here's what you do, set up a bowl to dump your popcorn in, throw some salt in the whirlypop with a spoon of coconut oil, and just a tiny glug of the popcorn oil, not much just a tad. Add your kernels, crank the heat to high and start cranking. Do. Not. Stop. The popcorn will begin to pop after an interminable wait. Keep cranking until it either gets hard to crank or the popping slows down significantly. Then quickly dump your popcorn into the waiting bowl. Do not add salt, you already did this, the fine salt will be well distributed this way. Add a bit of popcorn oil. Shake the bowl a bit to distribute, add more if desired etc. Then enjoy your movie theater popcorn.
It took me years to work out how to do it without the Naks oil, which I bought from a local popcorn shop for awhile.
Often recipes are really inefficient and sequenced wrong… Read the whole thing and find the “long pole” , and do that first… could be starting the oven preheat early, starting the rice cooker right away vs at step 6 or run things in parallel.
Mine is, don’t eat anything solid, hold your poop for 3-days. When the redditors arrive why won’t understand, but whatever food you eat will be the best you ever tasted, they also will remain confused about why there is so much karma on your foodporn posts!
Reverse taring - instead of placing the bowl on the scale and taring before weighing, place your ingredients on the scale and tare, and you can then scoop out and see the negative weight of how much you have used. This is especially helpful if you are trying to weigh an ingredient into a hot pan you can’t just set on the scale
if it’s sweet and you haven’t added acid, add a splash of vinegar.
if it’s too hot, add fat
if you burn it, throw it out.
IF you taste it early, it should taste weak. If it’s fantastic when when it starts to simmer, it’ll be too harsh once it’s reduced.
Taste it and it tastes empty or boring? Smell it. Smell all your herbs/spices on hand, which ever one it smells the closest to, add a healthy pinch and salt if it doesn’t taste salty already.
know your oils and use the right ones. Olive oil can handle some heat and is great for savory, grapeseed is almost flavorless. Canola has a distinct flavor that doesn’t go with everything.
Classic! Long time Chef John’s subscriber here. I was there before his channel and “his brand” was partnered with Allrecipes.com
As to his lilting speech - you’re right, it used to be less pronounced, but over time it became part of his brand and it’s just so entertaining. I love the cadence, love the “you are after all the (rhyming word) of your (foodstuff)”. He has great recipes, perfect for every day meals, this chisaupepo, for example, is in heavy rotation in my household.
Cacio e pepe is simple but not easy, although delicious when you nail the technique, and trust me, it’s all technique. It’s the holy union of spaghetti, cheese, black pepper, and maybe some butter or oil, with pasta water to bring it all together. I really think being able to nail a proper cacio e pepe will make you a better cook.
My go to is a simply cooked protein, a simply cooked veggie, and a carb. Season all 3 of these however you like, Mexican spiced, Asian sauced, just salt and pepper will do well in a pinch.
Examples: pan-fried chicken thighs, asparagus, and rice.
-Baked salmon, sautéed brussel sprouts, and bread
-Ground beef, and veggie stir-fry with rice
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