[HN Gopher] Cooking for Founders
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Cooking for Founders
Author : tylertringas
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-01-10 20:17 UTC (2 hours ago)
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| kashyapc wrote:
| So much complication. As a long-time happy and healthy vegetarian
| "cook", here is my utterly simple heuristic that never goes
| wrong: assuming you have a good-quality non-stick pan: on medium
| heat olive oil you can toss in any and all vegetables, a source
| of protien, ginger, garlic, and some freshly ground black -- or
| mixed -- peppers and salt. You're set. (Also assuming no
| allergies to said basic ingredients.)
|
| E.g. tonight (I'm in CET) I made this veggie delicacy; happens to
| be vegan too:
|
| 1.toss in some freshly chopped ginger and garlic in some olive
| oil on medium heat
|
| 2. add a couple of finely chopped shallots (or even a plain white
| onion is fine)
|
| 3. sprinkle some cumin seeds, salt, and freshly ground black
| pepper
|
| 4. next up: two chopped green courgettes
|
| 5. then, toss in two chopped, medium-sized portobello mushrooms
|
| 6. finally, add some precooked chickpeas (but if you have the
| discipline for it, the best chickpeas are dried peas that you
| soak overnight for 10 hours, and boil the next morning for 30
| minutes; no contest).
|
| Stir-fry it all for 10 minutes or so, and you'll intuitively know
| it when it is ready. You can have this with any kind of carbs --
| couscous, tortilla wraps, rice, pasta, bulgar, you name it.
|
| Rinse, and repeat with many other vegetables and protien
| combination (flavoured tofu, seitan et al). No need to go wild
| over following a recipe to the dot, or on heat transfer
| mechanics.
| itcrowd wrote:
| I am sorry to be so harsh, but this guide will not teach you
| anything about cooking, nor will it be of any particular
| relevance to founders [^].
|
| The blog post is a 3,500 word advertisement to Amazon affiliation
| links. A selection of "helpful" advice given in the post:
|
| - How to chop food? "Just search them on YouTube"
|
| - "When you are first learning to cook I recommend avoiding
| complex recipes"
|
| - "Get cooking"
|
| Finally: "The goal of this post is [..] to provide fairly
| comprehensive [..] roadmap for going from a cooking noob to solid
| home chef." Sorry. This is not it.
|
| [^] Alternatively, the title might be interpreted to mean
| "Cooking for founders [who are visiting you]". This is also not
| the case.
| tylertringas wrote:
| Always appreciate these thoughtful critiques on HN :)
| awillen wrote:
| 100% agree. If you read this entire thing, you don't end up
| with anything close to the skills needed to cook a meal. You
| could watch a five minute cooking tutorial or just make a
| simple recipe instead, and then you'd have something to show
| for it, plus you'd have learned something about cooking.
| [deleted]
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| I've been teaching my friends how to cook. Here's what I've
| learned:
|
| Follow the recipe, then don't follow it. As a beginner, follow
| the damn recipe. Read the ingredients list, buy the ingredients,
| and follow the instructions to the word. I know too many
| beginners who get lazy, don't follow the recipe and then the food
| doesn't taste good. Then, once you've gotten it down, start to
| tweak and experiment. Try adding a new ingredient or substituting
| something you don't have. Once you're not a beginner, you can
| skip following the recipe.
|
| Learn the basic science of searing, emulsions, salting and
| temperature (hot & fast versus low & slow). The Food Lab/Serious
| Eats is a great resource for this. Salt Fat Acid Heat is also
| good.
|
| Gain intuition. Learn to taste the food and see what's missing.
| You probably need to add more salt. Maybe a little acid? Or you
| could slip in some butter.
|
| You will need to use more fat and salt than you think. When
| beginners watch me cook, they're shocked at how much salt and fat
| I add. It's still a fraction of how much you eat at a restaurant.
| This is especially true if you're blanching or boiling something,
| as the water needs to be really really really salty. Pasta water
| needs quite a few tablespoons of salt. Don't worry about it.
|
| I read a theory that the whole bacon wrapped whatever craze was
| due to bacon being essentially fat and salt. People became
| obsessed with adding bacon because they weren't adding enough
| salt and fat.
|
| American food tends to not have a lot of vegetables, but a
| crapton of carbs and meat. Try to learn Indian, Chinese, Korean
| or Mediterranean dishes. Beans are a great meat substitute.
| tylertringas wrote:
| > Follow the recipe, then don't follow it. Yes! At first I
| found it super helpful be ultra-precise: read the recipe twice,
| use a digital thermometer exactly, measure everything, etc.
| Then you learn what "good" is by tasting, then you can start
| improvising and substituting. True of how to learn a lot of
| things I think
| awillen wrote:
| This is not good advice, it's just an attempt to cash in on
| Amazon affiliate links.
|
| If you have someone who needs to learn how to quickly, you don't
| teach them theory, like the different kinds of heat transfer
| (which this says you should learn, and then names them, and then
| does not teach you about them). You teach them how to make some
| basic, healthy things that work with a bunch of ingredients.
|
| It's really easy to teach someone to make a stir fry or a one-
| dish oven-baked dinner, and those are great starting points
| because you can use a lot of different ingredients with those
| techniques. Once you can manage those, you'll be able to make
| yourself a quick, easy, cheap and healthy dinner. You can read
| books about theory and heat transfer methods after that.
| maxwindiff wrote:
| Yeah. When I started cooking I read a bunch of articles on
| theory of cooking, what utensils to use etc, but in the end I
| realized they are all counterproductive. The first few attempts
| at cooking are bound to fail, and spending hours and hours on
| preparation and decision paralysis makes the failures much more
| disheartening. It's much better to stick to a few simple
| recipes and just do what they say without questioning why. The
| analysis / innovation can come later.
| tylertringas wrote:
| >If you have someone who needs to learn how to quickly, you
| don't teach them theory
|
| Elon would disagree: "One bit of advice: it is important to
| view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you
| understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big
| branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is
| nothing for them to hang on to."
|
| https://lifehacker.com/elon-musk-on-learning-new-things-view...
| classified wrote:
| You're overthinking it.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Want to _actually_ learn how to cook, no bullshit?
|
| Read Julia Child's _Mastering the Art of French Cooking_. Then
| read Jacques Pepin 's _La Technique_. Then watch Jacques ' old tv
| show _Fast Food My Way_. You will become a decent cook just from
| these 3 sources. It covers all the basics you need to know, and
| the rest comes from experience. (Jacques also put a 3 hour video
| of techniques on YouTube recently, go find and watch it. And
| check the JP Foundation website for more recipes and videos)
|
| All recipes are just patterns and methods applied to ingredients.
| Often there is a vast range of tolerance in each, and you learn
| the tolerances mainly by exceeding them. So experiment with
| recipes and you will learn what doesn't work, which leaves only
| what does.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| The key to understanding roasting is that every cookbook and
| Google result is lying to you. Roasting doesn't mean just putting
| something in the oven on high heat, the things you're roasting
| need to be far enough apart on the tray that there is space for
| air in between them. Otherwise you're steaming, not roasting. The
| point of roasting is to make the outside super crispy, while
| keeping the inside moist and chewy.
|
| E.g. how to roast chicken thighs:
|
| - Preheat cast iron pan in oven until the oven has been at 450
| for at least 10 min.
|
| - Place four chicken thighs in the cast iron pan with a good
| amount of space in between, after tossing them in a gallon
| ziplock bag with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper.
|
| - Roast for 20 min at 450, then pour out excess fat. (If you
| don't do this, then again you're just steaming the chicken.)
|
| - Turn down oven to 400, and cook for another 25 - 30 min.
|
| You can apply the exact same technique to most vegetables and
| mushrooms, but understanding and nailing the principle is key.
| This recipe for roast maitake mushrooms also explains it well:
| https://foragerchef.com/simple-roasted-hen-of-the-woods/
| jelliclesfarm wrote:
| With meat there are three stages, searing to seal the juices
| inside. Then roasting in dry heat. Finally, resting it. All
| meats must 'rest' for 15-20 minutes because it continues
| cooking evenly right after the oven.
|
| When you get it out depends on preferred doneness. Medium rare,
| medium, well done. Most white meat is cooked well done.
|
| Or you cook sous vide. Wherein, the Maillard reaction is to be
| done separately.
|
| Chicken legs have to be seared first and then goes into the
| oven. And then rested. If you have seasonings, let it sit in
| marinade for 20 mts in the fridge and then 40-45 mts in a 425
| deg oven.
|
| While chickens and legs can also be brined for a crackling
| crispy skin but whole birds cook unevenly. Spatchcocked birds
| make for more even cooking.
| sk5t wrote:
| > searing to seal the juices inside
|
| Searing does not seal anything inside. It does provide a
| pleasing texture and usually flavor, though.
|
| Cooking chicken legs starting in a cold pan produces
| wonderful results.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Roast for 20 min at 450, then pour out excess fat. (If you
| don't do this, then again you're just steaming the chicken.)
|
| Excess fat won't steam whatever you're roasting.
| halfjoking wrote:
| How about "avoiding cooking for founders that want to eat healthy
| but really hate cooking?"
|
| Lately I buy a healthy roasted nut butter (pistachio, walnut,
| pecan etc) and dip it (covered completely) in a mix of
| hempseeds/shredded-coconut/flaxseeds and eat that with a spoon.
| I'd buy a non-cookbook that gave me more paleo/AIP/low-lectin
| food-combinations like that. Or just info on how to make better
| salads. (I add a lot of fermented foods like pickled red onions
| lately)
|
| I do sometimes bake a bunch of turkey meatballs and eat those
| over a couple days - but I've given up on making turkey burgers
| or chicken. It's just too much work. I'd rather heat up frozen
| broccoli daily with a side of canned tuna. I really hate cooking,
| it's a huge time-sink and extremely unenjoyable.
| haskellandchill wrote:
| I worked as a line cook for half a year, changed my life. I
| learned how to live on $10/hour and how to cook anything quickly
| and have it come out tasty. And I only cried in the walk in
| occasionally.
|
| Cooking well is mostly attitude and confidence. Prep and cook
| everything at the same time, figuring out the order to do it all
| in parallel is a fun puzzle and executing it gives you a rush. I
| never measure any ingredients and improvise recipes constantly.
|
| "Don't cook everything evenly" is very good advice. Let things
| sit at appropriate heat, amateur cooks are too touchy. But I
| disagree about recipes, they are just suggestions to me, good to
| know the outline and then leverage your general knowledge of
| cooking to get it done.
| tylertringas wrote:
| Agreed! But, I think very novice cooks should rigorously follow
| recipes, learn what a good result is across a wide variety of
| dishes, _then_ learn how to substitute things or change up
| recipes. Or rather that 's what worked for me.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Some good cooking shows.
|
| * Matty Matheson -
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpqH8-BBNTsluhcOzFKWLuw
|
| * French Cooking Academy -
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0lG3Ihe4LGV851lODRIS5g
|
| * Bon Appetit -
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbpMy0Fg74eXXkvxJrtEn3w
|
| * J. Kenji Lopez-Alt -
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqJQ_cXSat0KIAVfIfKkVA
|
| * Munchies -
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaLfMkkHhSA_LaCta0BzyhQ
| danpalmer wrote:
| I'd particularly recommend Kenji. For home cooking I don't know
| many better at teaching (maybe Chef John from foodwishes.com).
| He's great at differentiating between the must-haves and the
| nice-to-haves in recipes, and what the trade-offs involved are.
| This helps me build intuition, which then helps me with all
| cooking.
|
| Watching Matty Matheson is fun but damn do I feel ill with some
| of his recipes. They are food porn - a fantasy not intended for
| the real world.
| glogla wrote:
| > Chef John from foodwishes.com
|
| Funny how you can hear written text.
| _Microft wrote:
| > [...] others, like searing in a pan, use convection where the
| heat is transferred directly surface to surface.
|
| Maybe cooks use these terms differently but in physics this is
| heat conduction not convection. Convection is when heat is moved
| by moving matter in gases or fluids.
| tylertringas wrote:
| Good catch! I just typo'd and used convection twice.
| ironchef wrote:
| No. You're spot on. When in doubt read Harold McGee. Conduction
| is "direct contact". (Vs convection and radiation)
| encom wrote:
| >Baking is much harder and less forgiving than any other kind of
| cooking. If you're just starting to get into cooking, don't start
| with baking.
|
| Well, that depends a lot on what you're baking. Baking bread can
| be very easy, and very rewarding. There are few things more
| delicious than freshly baked bread with butter. There are some
| simple cakes that are also easy to make. But yes, fancy desserts
| are hard.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > But yes, fancy desserts are hard.
|
| They're not that hard, the issue is that most of the recipes
| online are lying to you. A lot of tips and tricks for working
| with pastries and chocolate are basically an oral tradition and
| aren't well documented anywhere.
| mlyle wrote:
| There's a whole lot of things in baking that require more
| precision with proportions of ingredients and technique than
| ordinary cooking.
| barnaclejive wrote:
| > I'm calling it Cooking For Founders because I think it will
| resonate with a lot of entrepreneurs who think like me.
|
| Uhh, ok. Includes tips like "Make it taste good"
| bravura wrote:
| I've wanted a Cooking For Founders book for a while. Particularly
| tips of foods that are easy to preprep and remix and reheat
| easily, for people who have little cooking experience.
|
| One tip: get a sound vide cooker. It's so foolproof and you have
| a lot more leeway, sometimes even hours, when you actually eat.
| Great if you get locked into something and don't want to be
| interrupted until you're done.
| zabzonk wrote:
| Why do Americans think that cooking is so difficult that they
| need all these very dubious instructions?
| selflesssieve wrote:
| I don't?
| zabzonk wrote:
| Really? Most Americans I know require everything spelt out to
| the last cupful. And where else could things like
| https://soylent.com/ ever have gained a foothold?
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Huel is big in Europe. It's basically the same deal as
| soylent.
| idlewords wrote:
| Looking forward next to reading Founding for Cooks.
| learnvella wrote:
| this made me think of what my take on "Cooking for Engineers"
| would be- roughly based on what I do personally.
|
| essential gear would be a chef's knife, a stainless or cast iron
| pan, a nonstick pan, a large dutch oven, a sous vide circulator w
| a large bucket, a 10qt instant pot, and a vacuum sealer.
|
| learn braising, roasting, sauteeing, and baking (veggies and
| proteins)
|
| whenever you cook something where you can make extra, make a LOT
| extra, keeps a couple portions and vacuum seal the rest off and
| freeze them flat (keep your freezer really well organized)
|
| find your core recipes and keep those perpetually in the freezer
| in small portions
|
| learn to improvise and make gold out of whatever's in the kitchen
| (if you need inspiration, watch chopped)
| sk5t wrote:
| Skip the nonstick pan and get a "black steel" (high carbon) pan
| instead. Matfer is a good brand but there are others. Fairly
| inexpensive, can be seasoned like cast iron, but is much
| lighter and more responsive. Super response on induction too.
| These are not pretty cookware but are real workhorses.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| What you're likely meaning is cast iron.
|
| Carbon steel cookware is good, too.
|
| Neither is good for cooking acidic sauces for long periods of
| time, use stainless steel if you need to make a tomato or pan
| sauce.
| sk5t wrote:
| I'm perplexed by your reply; I definitely mean
| (black|carbon) steel and note it is lighter than cast iron.
| Never a problem making a pan sauce in a black steel pan.
|
| Stainless steel or enameled cast iron is my choice for long
| cooking tomato sauces, although even plain aluminum won't
| be an issue for a few minutes contact.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| My experience with pan sauces in carbon steel is that the
| acid in wine will typically start to strip the seasoning
| and leave ugly black specks in your sauce.
|
| Maybe I'm doing something wrong though.
| uncertainrhymes wrote:
| The very first useful cooking website I remember was
| cookingforengineers.com. From 2005, it predates the nonsense
| the has become the typical clickbait recipe sites.
|
| I also always loved the tabular layout that included both
| ingredients and actions in the same format.
|
| e.g. http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/60/The-Classic-
| Tir...
| defidear wrote:
| It is not convection but conduction!
| [deleted]
| erex78 wrote:
| Love the sentiment behind the post - cooking is great life skill
| to get good at, but I think the "Essential Gear" is definitely
| far from "essential" (and maybe this will help the new cook from
| being too scared of the list).
|
| Here's my version of the "minimum viable set": 1. big, sharp
| knife 2. cutting board 3. wooden spoon 4. pan.
|
| IMO, the particularly dispensable: "instant read digital cooking
| thermometer", "micro-plane zester", "fish turner spatula", "large
| heat-safe glass measuring cup", "honing rod".
|
| Again, still love the intention. Nice post!
| spockz wrote:
| Actually, that honing rod is very useful to keep that nog big
| blade serviceable for longer in between sharpening. I do agree
| with the mvs though bear in mind that having a few of these
| will greatly speed up cooking times.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| You don't need a honing rod, use the bottom of ceramic
| tableware instead.
| tylertringas wrote:
| Agree that's the true minimum viable set, and you can cook a
| lot of things with just that. But I think if a novice cook was
| trying to work through the cookbooks I recommended, they would
| find it frustrating not to have some of the other stuff I
| recommend. My "minimum viable" is sort of "your lack of X won't
| be a substantially annoying obstacle from completing most of
| the recipes in these essential books"
| seanalltogether wrote:
| > Home-cooked food is almost always healthier than restaurant
| food, so don't try to learn to cook and cook the healthiest
| possible version of each dish. Most veggies taste better roasted
| in a generous amount of olive oil...
|
| It took me way to long to learn not to be afraid of oil when
| cooking and grilling food. I burned a lot of food for awhile
| under the assumption that I shouldn't be adding too much fat to
| homecooked food.
| colorandcode wrote:
| Definitely - that and salt. Whenever you watch a professional
| chef cook you realize how much fat and salt going into making
| something taste "restaurant quality".
| mattnewton wrote:
| Watching old Julia Childs videos gave me the impression that
| all vegetables were primarily different substrates for butter
| :D
| Pocketknife wrote:
| That's the French for you.
| selflesssieve wrote:
| I like how much thought went behind this post. I think it can be
| very useful to anyone looking to start in the kitchen.
|
| However, it really doesn't resonate with me. I was hoping to get
| some extra tips for min/maxing my kitchen time or some tasty slow
| cooker recipes. Perhaps a recipe for a macro and micro nutrient
| rich smoothie with minimal ingredients.
| samizdis wrote:
| I'm bemused as to why this is aimed at "founders", but whatever.
| I would like to say, though, that if I'd made a list of essential
| kit, I would have included a saute pan; it's like a frying pan,
| but deeper and with vertical sides and usually with a
| (transparent) lid. You can cook great meals in a saute pan - do
| your onions/spices/garlic etc, then add meat (if that's your
| thing), then stock, pasatta (or whatever) and then the bulking
| stuff - pasta etc - and all on the hob, rather than in an oven.
| Really versatile bit of kit.
| analog31 wrote:
| Indeed it could have been called "cooking for grad students"
| which is when I started cooking on my own. Or, "cooking for
| busy parents" when I learned it from my mom.
|
| Granted I already knew how to cook at the point where I was
| suddenly living apart from my spouse for a few months. It being
| Texas, I picked up a huge package of tortillas. It's amazing
| how well you can eat if you just know how to quickly saute some
| meat and vegetables.
| tylertringas wrote:
| > I would have included a saute pan
|
| Yep. It's the first recommendation on the list! Though I typo'd
| (fixed now) as sauce pan.
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