Help me learn to cook

Hi all. I am new, So I Post to introduce yourself! I love to cook, and learn about cooking. I tried to many other forum learn for cook. I hope this is the best forum to learn. I want to learn many recipes because I enjoy learning.
Thanks.

Welcome Jerry!  Well here's a "recipe" I just made for dinner--I grabbed some of the sorrel from my front garden, a couple of mint leaves for flavor, several violet leaves, and made a salad (dressing was vinegar, olive oil, a tad of yellow mustard, and a crushed garlic thrown into it).  Do you have a yard? are there any broad-leafed plants growing in it (aka weeds?)  many of them are edible, and you might start with violets if you live in a part of hte world where they grow.  They are pretty distinct and you aren't likely to confuse them with another plant that would give you indigestion.  Dandelion greens are also popular in salads, though more bitter than some folks like (i like them fine).

Whereabouts are you living? what sort of yard do you have if any? if you have one, do you know if it has ever been sprayed with herbicides  or pesticides?

Jerry, welcome to permies!  Do you have a good cookbook to learn from?


My favorite is Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cook Book

Here I posted some of the book with recipes:

https://permies.com/t/60914/Fannie-Farmer-Boston-Cooking-School


Not every cookbook is good for learning how to cook as some are just recipes.  The only other one that I could recommend to learn to cook is The Joy Of Cooking by Irma Rombauer ( look for pre-1980, but the older the better)  This is very detail in how to's.

The Permaculture Kitchen by Carl Legge is a great book for budding permies to learn to cook from.

Since we don't know what part of the world you live in, a word of caution. What is called Common Violets in the northern hemisphere are edible. African violets are not. Take a peek at this link. http://www.eattheweeds.com/viola-affinis-floridas-sweet-violet-2/

At the beginning stick to classic recipes.  They're winners and they'll start to teach you what flavours go well together, what things are a solid base you can add to.
A mirepoix the best known. Onion, carrot, celery.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirepoix_(cuisine)

The link that Burra posted has a link to Amazon.  The Amazon site has the "Look Inside" feature.  Once you open the book there are three recipes.

The third recipe is for Mirepoix: The 'Other Trinity'

The first recipe is for Tomato Sauce and the second recipe is for Culinary 'Trinity'.

It is nice that you get some free recipes.

Thanks to all well-wishers. I appreciate your information and support me. I love always delicious food and recipe. I am searching online innovative ideas and recipe a fixed time of day.

Help me learn to cook

Well, Ashley, welcome to the forum!

This older threads has some great cookbook recommendation.

Hands on experience was how I learned to cook.

You must know someone who cooks an will be willing to let you watch...

One very easy recipe is to boil some vegetables together as a soup. I like to do this and it is a relatively failsafe recipe. The only possible mistake is to walk away from it and find it burnt onto the pan, so pay some attention or add a lot of water.

Get out a pot
Add some stinging nettle tops
Add water that covers the nettles and then some (2-4x that)
Bring to a boil and cook at a moderate heat—with a fork, pull up a nettle now and then, and shake it slightly. Put it back in the pot if it stays together and leave it to cook a bit longer. If the nettle tears apart, then it’s done.

I often find every season that I need to re-learn certain things and it may take more than one try to get it right. This year I thought the Japanese knotweed I harvested was fine but it turned out a little tough. It will still be usable though!

When learning to cook, whether generally or for a new ingredient or recipe, make room for failure—they go into the compost pile of your mind, though maybe you can salvage a little for eating if they’re not too horrible.

I think learning to cook is really about learning to taste.

Edit: Not sure who I'm really writing to here, but I changed my mind. I decided learning to taste is how you become a GOOD cook. Just cooking can be done without taste at all, you just follow recipes.

My advice for learning actually isn't to go right to a cookbook, it's to start with something extremely easy and simple, like ramen noodles. This is what I did when I was a kid, and I'd say it's how I learned.

First you follow the instructions on the package. Then next time (or maybe that very first time if you're brave) you experiment by adding a new ingredient you think would go well in it.  As you do it more and more, you try other ingredients, and try adding them at different times, and see how different things combine.

This is where learning to taste happens. How did the two ingredients go together? How did the flavors differ if you cooked them for longer or shorter amounts of time? Etc.

When you eat food other people cooked, try to identify the different flavors. If you taste something you like and can't identify, ask what it is. (You can even do this in restaurants, if you sense you have a good rapport with the staff!) See if later at the store you can find some of that ingredient, and taste it so you learn its flavor. Start experimenting with that, seeing how it affects things you make.

Then (this is also how I did it) as you go you also start to collect little tricks, you develop knife skills, you learn to make a roux, to deglaze, to save and reintroduce drippings, and so on. I never used cookbooks for this, but I did use cooking shows and a few cooking Youtube channels. Chef John's "Food Wishes" is my favorite, I recommend that.