Uping your food game

I have been cooking for awhile now and i know all the basics. Just about everything i make turns out pretty good but its all fairly basic. What should i do to.
What dishes do you guys recommend to challenge ones skills?

>What should i do to
Derp. Ignor that part.

Ive been trying my hand a baking because i dont do much of it. I made a pie crust for a pot pie that turned out pretty good, but im really not all that interested in baking.

A Spanish omelette, or tortilla de papas, is a deceptively simple dish that really puts your basic skills to the test and finishes with a slightly complex technique. When done right, it's really fucking good and serves a crowd as part of breakfast or as an appetizer before a large meal. The ingredients are simple, but they're all showcased very well here. For the potatoes, you want a waxy variety like Yukon golds.

>6 eggs
>3 small potatoes or two medium
>1 white onion
>pinch of salt and black pepper
>teaspoon paprika (optional)
>olive oil and lots of it

Peel the potatoes and slice them into very thin pieces. Only a couple millimeters if possible. Dice the onion. Put them in a large frying pan(but not quite so large that none of your plates can cover it, this is important) with a generous amount of olive oil, enough to come about halfway up the potatoes and onions. Fry them low and slow for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want those onions to caramelize a little. Once the potatoes are soft, strain them and the onions through a collander to renove the oil. Save the oil. Put the potatoes and onions in a large mixing bowl. Beat the eggs separately and then stir them into the potatoes and onion. Add salt, pepper, and paprika. Cover with foil and let the mixture sit for 10 minutes. Put the oil back into the pan and bring to a medium heat. Add the mixture to the pan and let it cook until almost set.

Now the tricky part. Once you're sure the omelette is done on one side, cover the pan with a plate and invert the omelette onto it. Then, slide the omelette off the plate and back into the pan to cook the other side. If you do this right, it will take on a beautiful cushion shape, almost like a flat wheel of cheese. Cook it a little longer on this side, and then repeat the process to remove the omelette from the pan. If you get the timing just right, the middle will still be slightly runny and taste absolutely amazing, almost like a melty cheese.

The best part of tortillas is using the leftovers to make sandwiches. Just take a slice and put it on a baguette. Simple yet delicious, the Spanish way

Fug that sounds good.

Any soups or sauces that are a little tricky? Asking for a friend.

Not necessarily cooking. I think anyone really into food and cooking should get into one of these. The time taken for a good result makes it that much more rewarding.

Charcuterie
Cheese making
Canning, pickling, general food preservation
Home brewing

mmmmmmm, cheese making

Gumbo can be hard to get right at first.

Bump for interest.

Im thinking about that as well, bit I need to up my cookware at least 9000 lvels (live sharing house).

So, these are the things that I think I need to do always well if I want to LEVEL UP
-a good clear broth, vychissoise or wathever, it envolves a lot of phases and cooking times.
-poached eggs, step up your benedict game.
-yet better sauces. look for the basis in cooking academia and SLAY THEM. Make them good, make them yours. This will also improve your texture skills.
-Look at all the different styles of fried eggs, omelettes... and learn how to make every of them. Same as the sauces, foking ace them.
-Making your own fresh paste currys will up your combination game and be less fearful of weird mixes.
-aquire lvl.99 full tier with cuts. All of them. Fish, pork, beef, chicken... all you can.

And I think that will cover a really nice base for being an above average cook. Not brilliant, but having that under your sleeve will make you understand how to paint the next meal.

Tl:dr: Get the basics and be totalitarian, your objetive its to make it that people will go to your house and ask a fried egg because they know you ace them.

Spices- get familiar with flavors. Don't be afraid to spice the fuck out of everything. Beginning to end. Build a spice collection you could put an insurance policy on.

Kitchen appliances and cookware- get a good work station. Blender, good utensils, food processor, muffin tins (good for quiches, wonton lasagna, etc), a pizza pan (also good for bread, etc), rolling pin, a Dutch oven(also great for cooking beans), a good sauce pot, ice cube trays (for stocks, purees, sauces), good knife set, seive and colander, at least one good mixing bowl, a loaf pan, and a heavy baking dish.

Make most everything from scratch- now that you have the tools and seasonings, stocks and sauces are a breeze. Things like pasta and canned stock are okay but breaking down a chicken or making your own alfredo sauce is much easier, cheaper, and more flavorful than going the pre-processed route. Eventually work your way up to pasta, breads, ice creams, soufflés, making fresh cheeses, pickling, fermenting.

Get really good at the basics- Different cooking methods, base flavor profiles and aromatics, cooking times for ingredients and organize your timing so everything is done at once.

Get inspired- read tons of recipes from different cuisines or pick up a novelty produce/dairy/seafood/butcher's/wine or beer item. Try every new technique you encounter. Just keep cooking and reading about it. Or get into cooking videos.

Cook for other people- they'll be better suited to give you feedback and if they really enjoy your meal, the praise will boost you to do more every time, but flops will happen so just accept it and move on.

Also everything said

SOUFFLES.

I forgot about that. That shit will round your oven game. You have to overcome timers and use your eye.

That sounds a lot easier than it is and souffles train your eye to know whats going on under a golden brown crust. And if you made a few pastries already you know that golden crusts hide more dissapoinment that silicon and makeup in thailand.

So yeah, make a nice few of them. I learnt a lot making cheese souffle (its easier to spend a time making and eating these than the sweet ones imo... but you need to handle both, sugared shit reacts diffetent in the oven.

Also last tip. Sushis for learning cuts and paella and rissottos for proper rice handling. With paella work in the "dry" side and risottos in the creamy ones.

Look up and try to make eggs 40 diff ways. Should keep you occupied and interested for couple of months.

Forgot fermenting doe with wild yeast and creating starters. The wholseome, ancient, nutritious way.

Also, I forgot.

DUDE

ART

LOL

Seriously, if you like any kind of art, or even better, practice one, get that shit into your kitchen.

Idk exactly how to put it, its some kind of synesthesia shiet for me, so im blogging about my personal experience and then what I really mean.

I play the guitar and am a musician for a few years (started at 14 am 28) and theres something in between the creativity in wich I engage when Im composing and the one I use when designing a meal. Well its not that there is something in between, the redpill its that they are the same. Im quite the mixer in my music style, using in a same song "feelings" or references from mixed styles, from Bach to Phil Collibs passing through sone disney song.

So I put that in the kitchen. I like to mix E ERYTHING. And you can do it in numerous ways. For example, take a gyoza (a japanese dumpling of sorts) but just take a part of the japanese (the dough and the use of soy sauce and sesame oil) and travel trough the north and add dilled salmon alo g with the pork and shrimp, and just make it yours. You have UBLIMITED amounts of recipes at your hand. We are the pioneers of a new age in the kitchen since we can make some new great things.

But theres more, if you are more conservative and enjoy tradition, you could make a revision of the classics and make them nice, like a new guitarrist of blues, now in the 2017 looking new lights into an old picture.

Dude, take what you are and be creative, thats what I try to say, put yourself into every shitty thing you do. Eventually you'll create yojr thing faster than you look the thing of someone else, and thats amazing.

Mix your talents, they are closer than you think.

Also this post is a fucking mess god protect you all.

That was incredibly cringey

What do you like to cook?

>t. artlet

How depressing bro. See you at al/ck/.

Like everyone who makes meatloaf says, i make a damn good meatloaf.
Lately i have been doing a lot of rice and bean stuff. I like savory and spicey. I pan fry chicken alot. My go to seasonings are crushed red pepper, cumin, sage, oregano, chili powder, and sage. I really want to go out of my seasoning comfort zone as well.
If it helps give you an idea of my cooki g skills( or lack there of) tonight i made a simple stir fry from what i had in the kitchen. I usually cook the ginger with the veggies but today i decided to cook the ginger with the rice.
1 half onion not too finely chopped
A piece of ginger copped, maybe half a cup idunnoh ( i left some noticable chunks and have no regrets)
>pan, hot
>oil, in (i used a mix of that.. Hot.. Oil stuff and avocado oil
>saute onion and ginger
>add 1cup jasmin rice and mix well
>add 2 cups chicken broth
>bring to boil, cover, reduce heat, the rest is rice.

bouillabaise

bless you

merci bocoop

I feel the same way as OP and read your reply with interest. Thumbs up to you for a solid reply.

I was gonna talk about the chicken and veggies but fuck im drunk

Well I'm in similar situation OP.

In my case I plan to learn more food theory (I have background in chemistry), history of food/cooking, economics of cooking and what I call composing the "experience of eating".

After some point, like after you have 50 years of experience you already maxed out the quality of a dish but eating can be more than just eating. I choose a theme like "experience of eating" then try to complete mini projects on the theme. For example:
>creating a playlist that my usual guest enjoy, asking how could I improve, running sensorial analysis among them
or food theory:
>read CIA, read mcgee then find something to try an run a batch of tests to better understand the theory presented and see if results agree with the literature (this is college research 101)
or economics of food:
>how much my family is spending on food? how can we improve value for money? Is going out really necessary? can I cook that shit here at home for cheap?

I second this.

Also I recommend baking since IMO
baking>>>>>>>>>>>>>>cooking

You can't be good in the eyes of everyone so choose someone (or even yourself) and fine tune your cooking to match the preferences of that person. If you do it right then that person likes you more than a michelin starred chef.
No matter how good you can cook you still need to know the preferences of your costumer.

mole can be complicated, but they're pretty fun and you can be pretty creative with the ingredients you use.