As someone who took up this hobby a couple years ago, I can attest that the collection of cooking links is awful. There's a difference between learning how to cook and a recipe, and these sites aren't even good at either.
I've heard good things about chefhangout.com and rouxbe.com. And sadly most of the best cooking information still exists in printed books. Ruhlman's 20 is a great place to start.
I, too, have been really disappointed with cooking education online. This is an area ripe for a good startup (that someone else can do, I have my hands full). :)
Some ideas:
- Leverage Google Hangout for some interactive classes
- Use gamification to help users learn some of the more boring fundamentals (basic cooking terms, substitution guidelines, units and measurements, basic baking chemistry guidelines, etc.)
- A better instruction format geared toward using your iPad or other tablet propped up in the kitchen. For example, make sure the user can navigate with the nub of a knuckle or some other clumsy way, so they don't have to touch their iPad with fingers that just got through tenderizing raw chicken.
- That instruction format should probably incorporate a hybrid text-audio-video approach. And by that I don't mean a blog post with an embedded video at the top. I mean a way to constantly review just that part of the video that talks about what you're doing.
- Start with videos about things that are obvious but are useful to see. For example, what EXACTLY should olive oil look and smell like before you add the food to it? On a typical gas stove or electric range, where approximately should the knob be? I'm starting to get nervous about this pan-fry step. Are you sure I shouldn't go ahead and flip the chicken? I think I'm burning it! Those kind of things are currently best learned with the assistance of a REAL cook alongside you in the kitchen. He or she can say "don't you DARE touch that portobello; it's SO not done!" There needs to be a way for the more moment-by-moment learning experiences to be available online.
TL;DR - thinking of doing a cooking startup? PLEASE don't give us another "recipes with an embedded video" site. Please.
I think voice would be a better method of navigation in the kitchen. I don't want to touch my tablet at all when cooking, and I'd love to keep my hands free to do other things. I'd rather say "pause" or "continue" or "go back a step" than try swiping when I've got things going.
Chef hangout is pretty much what you described. It's a live video lesson using Google Hangout. I haven't done it but hear good things.
Also I think a lot of what you want is just being taught the basics. Many of those you can pick up just from a video or in some of the simpler cases even a text description. Your oil (preferably canola if you're cooking with it, olive has too low of a smoke point and is better suited for other uses) looks a certain way (sorta shimmery) when it's ready. Once you know that it's pretty much the same for every recipe.
Some a chef would have to be present for. I don't think you can tell by sight when the alcohol has evaporated when cooking with wine, you just have to smell. You can't tell by sight when meat is done or a bean you're blanching is crisp-tender, you have to touch it or bite it.
For that reason I don't think online instruction will ever totally negate offline the way it can in many disciplines. But it definitely can do a lot better than it is.
If it is labeled "extra virgin olive oil" you really don't know what kind of oil it is. Particularly if it has Italy anywhere near the name.
Yes, in theory it should be extra virgin olive oil. In theory there are people who inspect it. But if they raise doubt about the authenticity of a clearly subpar product, they get sued in a stacked court system. So everyone cheats and nobody calls them on it.
Um, no. There's a lot of misinformation on oil smoke points on the net unfortunately. Going way off topic here for HN, but see http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/SmokePointOil.htm for an accurate chart. It's ~320F for EVOO vs ~400F for canola.
That makes a noticeable difference in the kitchen. Using olive oil you'll find yourself overheating more often. It's also more expensive, and imparts a flavor, which you typically don't want in your oil when sauteing or pan frying. If you want that flavor, pour a little high quality olive oil on at the end. I do that with something like a pan seared halibut, it's heavenly.
Thomas Keller mentions in his books (I believe both Ad Hoc and Bouchon) that he uses canola for sauteing and pan frying for exactly those reasons. (Grapeseed oil is great, he mentions, but very expensive. Peanut oil is typically used for deep frying.) He's probably the most technical of the chefs with numerous Michelin-starred restaurants so I'm inclined to take his advice.
Maybe that's what GP was referring to. I would put the oils with higher smoke points in the chart closer to exotic territory (avocado, ghee, rice bran, tea seed). I buy my Extra Light OO in jugs at Costco.
Short takeaway: I use EVOO for dressing/cold applications, Extra Light for frying.
Extra light olive oil is garbage. One should not use it for anything. It is "a mixture of refined olive oils that are derived from the lowest quality olive oils available through chemical processing."
Do yourself a favor and buy jugs of canola instead. (Really you should buy small batches, as oil does degrade over time, but it's arguably worth the cost tradeoff.)
I use Grapeseed oil for stir fry and like the fact that it produces no smoke at all. I get from trade joe in a small bottle. Do you know anyplace that I can buy in larger size? Thanks.
We're doing a lot of this (iPad in the kitchen, text-audio-video, moment by moment tutorials w/ pictures and video) over at http://www.onlinecookingschool.com/ -- I encourage you to check it out. Please send any feedback you have my way!
Looks pretty cool. Biggest feedback is to lower barrier of entry by having a step before the 14-day free trial. Maybe you put together a free package that users can get to and play with without signing in. If they want to save their progress then they have to sign in, which starts the 14-day free trial.
Right now the website just gives me the "this looks like a commitment" feeling, which I'd work to lessen since cooking is one of those things where people randomly get on a wild hare and it lasts a few hours to a few days; you have to hook them during that time or their interest wanes and you don't see them again for a few months/years.
I can't wrap my head around learning to cook online. Maybe it's because I started cooking around age 10, but it's something that responds best to actual doing as opposed to simulation.
Get a simple recipe and cook something. Learn from the experience. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Two of the best books I have that "explain" how cooking works (albeit in a very minimal sense) are David(?) Rosengarten's Dean & Deluca Cookbook and Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible (now over 20 years old and very, very well thumbed and sticky :-) I'd recommend them to anyone.
When I started cooking, I was intimidated by long recipes and never knowing what substitutions or omissions I could make.
This ebook really turned me on, because of its "minimal cooking approach". By stripping recipes down to their bare essentials, this book made cooking approachable. I began to understand the fundamentals, and that allowed me to feel free to experiment.
However, at this point all of my knowledge is ad-hoc. I wouldn't mind recommendations or pointers on how to improve my skill, and I agree that it's not clear where to go for this information.
Hey, thanks for the link. I've looked pretty hard for sites that teach cooking and they're pretty hard to come by! The cooking for engineers has been the best one that I've seen. Its surprising that there's not better resources. I didn't want to have to start linking to youtube channels...
Sadly some of the cooking for engineers advice is just bad. I just perused it briefly. For instance it says to make sure to buy a cutting board that fits in your sink, then recommends wooden cutting boards. You don't soak wooden tools so why would you need it to fit in your sink? I love my butcher block and it's much larger than my sink.
If you want to really jump into it, grab Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller and just start cooking your way through it. Keller has an engineer's mindset and level of precision, and explains things assuming you're not stupid but don't know much about cooking.
I get a soapy sponge and scrub it off. I don't know what I need a sink for anyway. I don't want to get it as wet as it would if I ran it under the faucet. (Then I sanitize with vinegar/water and then coat with mineral oil. Cooking for engineers skips the sanitizing step and glosses over the oil.)
After you've put soap on it, you need to rinse it before moving to the next step, right? Seems like it would take a lot of wiping (and rinsing of the sponge) to get to the same level of confidence about lack of soap as a simple rinse of whatever you're cleaning. Does the vinegar displace soap, or something?
This may be surprising, but you don't actually need to rinse off dish soap. Hell, at home we don't even dry thing up, just leave them to drain and evaporate. Never noticed any kind of residue or flavour.
I just wipe it off with a wet paper towel. I never notice any residue or flavor doing that. I figure if I'm not tasting the vinegar I spray on after, I'm definitely not tasting some dish soap.
I also use a very light natural dish soap. YMMV if you're using one with strongs scents/chemicals.
The book I'm currently going through (after a year of using the techniques I learned as a kid to successfully follow random recipes) is Cooking for Geeks (http://cookingforgeeks.com). None of its advice is obviously wrong so far, and it's not telling me that I need every single kitchen gadget, which I like. But of course, I don't really know enough to know if it's wrong.
Especially the desserts/baking section by Rudolph van Veen is great. He covers many classics, like creme caramel, tarte tatin, baklava, omelette siberienne, etc. He also explains the basic techniques well, like beating egg white with molten sugar to get a sturdy cream.
There's an amazing textbook titled "On Cooking" which is the single most influential resource I've used for learning how to seriously cook. From food safety to knife skills, butchering to baking, it covers everything. I would highly recommend picking up a copy if you're interested in or already have a passion for cooking.
rouxbe.com is very, very good. I went through all of their videos over the course of a week or so a couple years back, and the pacing, depth, and quality of instruction are extremely impressive. I would recommend it to anyone.
If you're just starting out with cooking as I was a few years ago, http://startcooking.com/ is a great site. Very basic information but explained concisely.
agree with rouxbe.com. their how-to videos/classes are very well put-together and the community of users incredibly active, insightful and participative.
I've heard good things about chefhangout.com and rouxbe.com. And sadly most of the best cooking information still exists in printed books. Ruhlman's 20 is a great place to start.