HOW do I get good at cooking

experiment you worthless monkey

kys

this
cook something every day. read cookbooks and/or watch cooking how-to shows. focus on the basics for now, don't worry about getting too fancy just yet. but occasionally challenge yourself with a recipe you're not sure if you can make. you might surprise yourself.

and remember that everybody fucks up, burns something, accidentally dumps too much salt in, tries a substitution that doesn't work. it happens. learn from your mistakes and keep a takeout menu handy.

not that user but nice trips.

are you one of those people that has to have super specific instructions on everything or they can't learn how to do it? then it's no wonder you're frustrated, because cooking is as much an art as it is a science. the chemistry side of it is obviously very cut and dried, but other than that most of it comes down to personal taste.

if you want a more paint-by-numbers experience, go to amazon, order a few high-rated cookbooks that have recipes for food you like, and then follow the recipes. you can do some pretty damn good cooking by literally just following the recipe. take note of what ingredients tend to go into what dishes, and notice how this changes the taste. this is easiest to notice when you make the same dish with different recipes.

if you really want to devote some time to getting a solid foundation in cooking, get some books that are about cooking but that are not just strictly cookbooks, like joy of cooking by irma rombauer or reader's digest's secrets of better cooking.

>Which cookbooks do YOU own? Which do YOU recommend?
I'll be happy to list mine:

Modernist Cuisine
Land of Plenty - Fuschia Dunlop
Mastering the art of French Cooking - Julia Child
Jacque's Pepin's complete techniques
On Food and Cooking - Harold McGee
Thai Street Food - David Thompson
Pok Pok - Andy Ricker
Simple Thai Cooking - Leela Punyaratabandhu
Nose to Tail Eating - Fergus Henderson
several books by Gordon Ramsay
Joy of Cooking - 1970's edition
Good Housekeeping Cookbook - 1970's edition
Mrs. Beeton's
Heritage - Sean Brock

I'm probably forgetting some...

>neither do I because I don't know how to fucking cook

What do you like to eat at home? What are your favorite things to eat at restaurants? What was your favorite meal when you were a kid? At some point in your life you must have been taken to some ethnic restaurants...well...did you like them? Which ones?

Surely you must have a basic grasp of these things.

>>Surely there is some kind of fucking process for learning one of the most common and essential skills that exists

Of course there is. But you need to narrow it down for us. If you can't specify what kinds of foods you like for some reason, at least mention where you live so we can get that as a starting point. If you live in Mexico start with learning Mexican food. If you live in Germany then start with German stuff.

>neither do I because I don't know how to fucking cook
>I don't know what foods I like because I can't cook
those two things have nothing to do with each other though. how can you not know what foods you like? you've been eating food every damn day of your life and you think that you can't know what you like because you didn't cook any of it?

Practice cooking something you would like to learn to make well.
Develop a palette.
Acquire spices, tools and techniques over time as you need them to make new dishes.

why do I get the feeling OP was the kid who threw a fit in art class because the teacher told everybody to do something creative and he was like "BUT HOWWW"

>go to /ic/ the board for learning art
>incredibly helpful and structured guide sticked on how to learn to make art and develop through various skill levels with a vast amount of reference material listed
>go to Veeky Forums the board for food and cooking
>cooking is an art, that's why we can't teach you

>>cooking is an art, that's why we can't teach you

Nah, we can teach you just fine. We simply need a starting point, but OP can't seem to even suggest a dish he likes or specify where he lives.

>I'm probably forgetting some...

Charcuterie - Polcyn and Ruhlman
Various BBQ books - Steven Raichlen
Franklin Barbecue - Aaron Franklin
Iron Chef Chen's Knockout Chinese - Chen Kenichi
Asian Tofu and Into the Vietnamese Kitchen - Andrea Nguyen
Art of Fermentation - Katz
How to Cook Everything- Mark Bittman
Momofuku - David Chang
Thai Food - David Thompson
Relae - Christian Puglisi

how do you get good at anything else
give an initial attempt
learn from your mistakes
fix those mistakes through practice/understanding
try again

Butter, onions and pepper make (almost) everything better.
If you fuck up cooking, you're a failed human being. Most shit is good enough to eat raw, if you produce coal or slop from that, then stick to raw.

>this is fucking impossible
really? watch some foodwishes, get a gist of what he does. like a sauce, use pan with broth, cream, etc. and reduce, turn off heat, add butter. figure out times for steaks on the grill. just practice with easy stuff. watch jacques pepin chop garlic. practice. its not hard most of the time

grilled cheese

fuck, you're right, all arts are exactly the same.

I don't spend a lot of time on /ic/ but I have a feeling that most of their teaching involves posting links to tutorials, giving critique on specific pieces, and giving general advice that can be applied to a variety of media.

unless you're trolling or being a pill on purpose, I'm going to assume you understand that Veeky Forums does not have a flavour upload feature. we cannot critique your cooking the same way /ic/ could critique a drawing and offer concrit. you can show photos and describe what you did but that doesn't really tell us much. you have to decide for yourself whether it turned out well or needs improvement. or get someone else to taste it IRL.

as for the tutorial aspect, that's been covered by the user posting an exhaustive list of cookbooks.

also seconding the other anons who've pointed out, you've given us nothing to go on.what you're doing in this thread is like going to /ic/ and going "I want to learn art" but not specifying whether you want to learn oils, pen & ink, sculpture, or what.

Easy. Get on youtube and search for grilled cheese. Do what they do.

>you've given us nothing to go on.what you're doing in this thread is like going to /ic/ and going "I want to learn art" but not specifying whether you want to learn oils, pen & ink, sculpture, or what.

Fucking this.

Cooking, especially for friends who don't give a shit is actually easy as hell.

>google thing you like
>pick recipe that looks easy/good to you
>follow recipe

There, done, repeat as needed you worthless fuck.

fucking lol, all anybody on /ic/ does is scream LOOMIS. it's both a meme and really not because learning art is all about repetition. it's called "art," but it's really not. creativity can't be learned, but the "talent" that people piss and moan about is 100% a learned skill. it's repetition until perfection, and for most people it's a lifelong pursuit.

anyone can COOK; cooking is repetition until perfection, it's mastering of techniques, it's following the recipe. making things up as you go, innovating, making things from scratch based on what tastes good together, things in that field is what being a CHEF is, and requires creativity that's more inherited than learned.

Buy "Where's Mom Now That I Need Her?" You can buy a used copy on Amazon for literally pennies.
Read it front to back, then cook anything in it that looks or sounds delicious to you.

Brothers green

anyone can cook, look at mcdonalds workers
cooking consists of only 3 things:
1. right ingredients
2. right equipment
3. right recipe

wa la

Don't fuck up.

Food Network shows show you how to make stuff but a lot of it is super expensive ingredients. Just figure out the poor man's version.

Also here's Meme Chef's channel:

youtube.com/channel/UCIEv3lZ_tNXHzL3ox-_uUGQ

thats not jack

>wa la

Isn't it supposed to be "voilà"?

yes, it is

Okay, simple homestyle kinda stuff, traditionally western ingredients. Decent grilled cheeses could be a good starting point like the other user said, then you can move on to stuff like pot roasts, butterflied chicken, and then probably stews. After that depending on what you've liked or not liked you can get some pastry stuff in, or otherwise you could start exploring regional US cuisines, Western European stuff, etc.

WHY ARE MY PANS SO STICKY REEEEEE

clean them brainlet