https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

Best cookbook you can get with everything youre looking for. The guy was a chemist I believe and decided to combine it with his love of cooking. It tells you why cooking an egg a certain way will give a certain result. What happens the the proteins inside the egg, what cookware to use, how to improve already popular dishes. Great shit in store for you my friend.

Also, The Food Lab is a good book to read as well, has similar information on cooking I assume as the book you've suggested. I actually have it next to my bed right now and it's a pretty good cookbook / reference.

For learning methods and the science behind cooking I would say The Food Lab by J Kenji Lopez-Alt. It is a textbook of cooking methods, analysis, and expliantion of the science of how cooking works and how to get the best (or just different) results from recipes. It also contains a ton of excellent recipes.

For just recipes, I would say The New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne. It has hundreds of incredible recipes from a variety of cultures. Some of them are quite complex, but most are very approachable for cooks of all levels. It is not an advanced cookbook for the most part, but has a lot of solid classic recipes. One does need a basic grasp of cooking terms and techniques to get the best out of it.

I'm not Mr. AB, but my go-to cookbook is The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt. It's my favorite for a couple of reasons:

1. It's freaking huge. Seriously, it will take up a lot of room on your self.
   
2. It covers a huge array of topics. Whole chapters devoted to breakfast, roasts, salads, veggies, etc.
   
3. It tackles the science behind the recipe. Why does it taste so good? Why do you need so much salt? It turns out that for thousands of years humans just did trial and error and found that x amount of y made it tasty. Kenji figures out what happens on a molecular level and perfects the recipes based on that. He also tells you how YOU can recombine these base on what you have lying around.
   
4. There's a lot of relatively quick and easy meals, as well as a few big meals like Thankgivings as well.
   
   On top of that, the author is now experimenting with a Youtube channel!
   
   Hopefully this will make dinner a bit easier for you.

I would recommend The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. It covers a lot of techniques and dishes-out the science behind them.

If you’re willing to spend a little money, buy The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez Alt. It is amazing. It’s a beautiful book with detailed documentation of experimentation with various methods / times / ingredients.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_.GhIAb1F6S6CG

Edit: misspelled dude’s name

Here is a nice backgrounder on the sciency side of the chemical effects - and it should be a basic part of your understanding of salt effects. The Food Lab's chapter on the science of ground meat opened a whole new avenue of cooking fun for me, just by understanding why when you add how much salt to ground meat yields totally different products. You can generally access the basic ideas by googling "food lab", including the ground meat product you want to make as a google term, if you do not have access to the book. I commend buying it, because it is the kind of reference work that cries out for annotating and browsing.

...and now for a much less technical reasons: (1) salt lightly early on, because you may want to concentrate stuff down and (2) if there is some salt there, you can easily say, "that is under salted but what else does it need?" - with no salt on board the lack of salt is all you will notice.

Balance out final heat, acid, umami, finishing herb stuff, all of which can affect final salt preference, then correct the salt if needed.

Oh!!! I just read about this in The Food Lab!

Directly from the book: “Eggshells are porous: they lose about 4 microliters of water a day to evaporation while simultaneously taking air into the space between the sheep and the inner membrane near the fat end. In very fresh eggs, the air space is tiny and the egg will sink to the bottom of the bowl and lie on its side. As eggs get older, the air space will grow, so old eggs will sink and then stand on their points as the air in the larger end tries to rise. If you’ve got an egg that floats, it’s probably past it’s prime and should be discarded.”

The book really is an incredible read, whether you cook a lot or not. I would absolutely recommend it.

Edit: between the SHELL not sheep

The food lab. You can also buy Modenist Cuisine at Home.

What book?

edit: The Food Lab. Thanks u/Imnotveryfunatpartys

Surprised no one has mentioned The Food Lab given how popular it is on Reddit. Not only is every recipe in it a certified banger, it also does a great job walking you through the scientific reasons behind each recipe, so in addition to the recipes in the book you gain a ton of skills and techniques applicable when coming up with your own recipes.

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

The Food Lab!!!

Techniques are explained really well. It doesn't just tell you what to do, it tells you why to do it. There are good recipes, but the best part is that you learn the howsand whys, which make the skills transferable and it will bring your cooking to a new level. It is designed for home cooks, and Kenji is the best, you can't go wrong.

For anyone shopping for a good home chef, I would recommend The Food Lab. It's got a cult-like following for a reason; there's even a subreddit—r/seriouseats

Thanks for all the great comments and compliments! Woke up to a full inbox. To answer a few of the questions:

1. Here is the link for the containers on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N2BPQC3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
   
2. Recipes:
   
   1. Pasta Salad with dijon vinagrette, olives, capers, shredded mozzerella and sundried tomatoes
      
   2. Black eyed pea salad with red onion, celery and ceasar dressing.
      
   3. The egg salad, roasted broccoli with bread crumbs, and marinated kale salad are all from The Food Lab book.
      
3. I'm doing this mostly for health reasons. Not to lose weight, but just to eat better. I work in a hospital and the cafeteria food is pretty unhealthy (oh the irony). I have very little self control when I go there, and I wind up getting a slice of pizza or chicken tenders or something equally unhealthy.

Kenji's book.

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

I got part one (part one!) of my gift this week! Not near my phone to take a picture, but it's this bad boy! I'm fucking stoked, I love Serious Eats and it's gonna be fucking awesome to have an actual physical cookbook I can leaf through instead of bullshit allrecipes and stupid mommy blogs where you have to read through twenty pages of stupid sanctimommy bullshit before you even get to the recipe!

And holy shit, it's HUGE! It talks about everything! There's chapters on pasta, steak, chicken, all the fun stuff! And there's conversion charts right inside the cover so I don't need to ask google how much a cup of flour weighs (for the thirtieth fucking time!)

I love it! <3

• The Food Lab: Cooking Through Science by Kenji Lopez-Alt
  
• On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee
  
• The Flavor Bible
  

Nothing particularly good in this bundle.

If you want take up cooking and treat yourself, I would give my highest personal recommendation to The Food Lab and Bravetart. They are great because they go over technique and fundamentals and provide a good base that you can build from once you get more comfortable in the kitchen. Once you hit that point The Flavor Bible is also a great resource for experimentation.

I don't know a lot about baking, but one of my friends does and she recommended the below book.

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_CkmZxb6RN2F39

Also, there is a great show called Good Eats I recommend for this. :)

My Santa was /u/havingaraveup and he absolutely knocked it out of the park.

I received The Food Lab cookbook that I've been wanting for some time (how did he know?!?!). It's already on display in my home and I used it for dinner last night (slow cooker bbq steak tips)!

He also included some shoe care products and this homemade Aaron Rodgers candle that I shall sacrificially burn next year when the Lions defeat the Packers on their way to the Super Bowl.

Thank you so much for your generosity!

Also, shoutout to /u/aype for putting this on.

I think you are starting from the wrong place if you think it will be like Texan chili [con carne]. Mole negro and soft cheeses are the main culinary exports of Oaxaca and they are fantastic. This is one of my two favorite culinary regions in Mexico!

Mole negro
First off, the famous mole negro using the regional pasilla de Oaxaca pepper (aka "chile negro" when dried). There are many recipes for that; find one that has ingredients you can pick up at your local Mexican supermarket or order online. You can cook meat (often chicken) in it or use it to make enchiladas enmoladas. They're soft, cheesy, and the rich, black sauce has a great pepper flavor but also a complex mixture of spices that lend subtle notes to the flavor like a fine wine. Every abuelita in Oaxaca has her own special variation on the recipe.

Traditional meal: nopales + meat + oaxaqueño cheese + guajillo sauce
Another personal favorite coming straight out of restaurants in Oaxaca is often called the Conquista Plate. As you can see, a thin steak over grilled cactus, Oaxaca cheese and chile guajillo sauce. The cactus is nopales; learn to love it's mild flavor, as it's in tons of authentic Mexican dishes. Guajillos are a fairly mild chili with a distinct, tart taste. They're also used all over Mexico so you should be able to find them pretty easily. Oaxaca is famous for cheese, so you can also easily find that in most Mexican markets.

Recipe for the sauce (use only guajillos and ancho). You can find your own instructions on grilling nopales and the steak or whatever meat you want to go with it. That red sauce can basically go on anything.

Chile verde: more like a SW "chili"
Although it's not from further south than Chihuahua and Sonora and has become a staple in New Mexican cuisine, chile verde is probably going to be the best marriage of rich Mexican sauces and a more traditional southwestern US "chili" where chunks of tough meat are stewed or braised in the sauce until tender. I've tested and approve of this recipe as a basic starting point. However, in The Food Lab, Kenji goes into detail about why it's better to let this dish braise in the oven. Here is his final recipe, which is amazing and pretty simple once you get through it a couple times (and usually provides leftovers for days). I do believe he is a bit misinformed (in the book, in particular) about how unique Hatch chilies are; the exact same chilies are widely available as "Anaheim peppers" in addition to other sub-cultivars of the classic "No.9 chile". But I digress.

More about chile verde and SW food
I collected about a dozen cookbooks when living in NM trying to find more chile verde recipes to try. Two more recent ones I highly recommend are New Mexico Cuisine: Recipes from the Land of Enchantment and Red or Green: New Mexico Cuisine. For authentic Oaxaqueño recipes, I have only read Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy but it's very good and sub-divides the region to give you a sampling of coastal seafood, cheese from the mountains, and about a thousand mole recipes!

Finally, I want to say I agree with your friend: Tex-Mex is a mistake and traditional Mexican food is where the good eats are at!

He's the culinary director of the blog Serious Eats. Used to work in the Cooks Illustrated test kitchen before starting out on his own. He's very beloved on Reddit, partly because he's often participating in community threads, partly because he's a fantastically detailed & process-oriented chef who helps you understand why it's important to do X step or use X ingredient.

Link to his book which is also awesome.

As an avid cook and collector of cookbooks, I have three recommendations -

1. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat
   
2. The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez Alt
   
3. The Flavor Bible
   
   The first two will teach you the essentials of cooking. How salt, fat, acid, and heat work together to make delicious food. J Kenji Lopez Alt has a popular serious eats blog and his book will teach you everything you need to know about cooking perfect meat, eggs, burgers, etc.
   
   Once you learn all of the basics from those books, use the Flavor Bible to be creative.

I think Serious Eats would be a great starting point for you. It's got the recipes, but it's also got the why. Learning why the food does what it does, and learning why recipes work or don't, is very important.

Incoming list of surprisingly easy recipes.

Cornish hens though can easily be used for any whole poultry

Chic-fil-a style sandwiches but easier than the site's actual replica

no bake cheesecake

similar to the first cornish hen but with chicken

super easy carne asada (need decent blender though)

my go to asian chicken recipe because it's easy

if you don't love chicken satay we can't be friends

fusilli a la vodka easy and delicious

easiest mac and cheese recipe other than the box

if you're feeling real fancy this short rib recipe will be expensive but my god is it amazing (spend $50 just on the meat when I made it last week) and you get to look like you're a master french chef with minimal effort

I also suggest checking out The cookbook the Food Lab by J kenji lopez-alt

Ganz klar: The Food Lab!
https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087
Ist zwar Englisch aber trotzdem ganz klare Empfehlung! Einerseits sind die Rezepte gut, wenn auch klar amerikanisch andererseits habe ich noch aus keinem Kochbuch so viel mitgenommen und gelernt!

I worked briefly as a butcher and, as a rule, I thought all minced beef was the same, aside from the fat content (I didn't say I was a good butcher). Eye of Round vs. Brisket? They're both extra lean, right?

Nope. After reading an article Kenji had wrote about the different kinds of beef cuts, I learned that I could make my burgers exponentially more flavourful by mixing and matching cuts.

Kenji knows what's up, and I'm heavily considering buying his book on Amazon.

No, this isn't a paid/undisclosed promotion... but if Kenji wants to throw a couple bucks my way, I won't say no.

Some ideas that have worked well for me/others:

Aging Parents - Kind of expensive (fluctuates a ton) but if you have a parent with a ton of photos who talks about scanning them all in someday, this scanner is fantastic. I have the older version and it's literally so easy to use that even my mom and dad could figure it out when I let them borrow it. Not a great bulk doc scanner but exactly what you need for photos. Pair with a case like this to store the originals in and you've done a great deed.

Newlyweds- If they don't have specific interests, a picnic blanket goes over well. I have the one linked and it's nice for the cheap price. Pair with some wine, maybe some other picnic accessories. I'm also giving a minted gift for a custom designed print for wedding photos to my brother/new sister-in-law.

Teens- Move beyond the selfie stick - some phone lenses go a long way, get a self timer for the phone, or a PowerCore. The powercore isn't sexy but super loved by all. I usually hit up BaubleBar or Sephora for deals too.

Handyman- I shoved this cheap light in my husband's stocking last year and he loves it. It's super handy.

Homebody- This is out of stock in the best size right now but it always comes back in. It is the softest blanket ever, doesn't shed, and we bought them for every room of the house.

Dog- What dog doesn't love bully sticks? A good deal, really good quality and my dogs have loved them.

On my wishlist- A milk frother, The Food Lab cookbook, a magnetic pincushion, maybe some Ugg slippers, a bunch of Etsy art and Essie gel couture nail polish. Debating a special purchase for myself with a bonus I received, I'm thinking a camera for a big trip coming up if I can find the right holiday deal.

You seriously cannot go past Kenji Lopez-Alt’s book: The Food Lab. It’s several hundred pages of how to cook basic things properly, then apply those techniques to more complex dishes. It even covers things like equipment, knife skills, etc. I understand that he’s launching a second copy soon, too.

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/

Oops I did it again. Posted a recipe from The Food Lab that I can't find published online. So i guess instead of a recipe I'll implore you to buy the book because it's awesome https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

Kenji did not pay or bribe me for this plug btw..

I didn't know she had a cookbook. When I look for recipes, /u/j_kenji_lopez-alt is my first choice (and his book, his serious eats) but he doesn't really do desserts. Bravetart is professionally a pastry nerd and I've been using her primarily for desserts recently. When I found out she had a cookbook I ordered it immediately!

Take a look at The Food Lab by /u/J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt . He covers a lot of the science without relying on so much of the BS conventional wisdom.

Food Lab.

Dude, don't be rude to people in your own thread.

Jacques Pépin New Complete Techniques

The America's Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Become a Great Cook

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

From here you can move on to:

Institut Paul Bocuse Gastronomique: The definitive step-by-step guide to culinary excellence

&

Larousse Gastronomique: The World's Greatest Culinary Encyclopedia, Completely Revised and Updated

These are all great resources. Also look for culinary school text books and always youtube.

The resources are out there and with everyone having a different way to learn and adopt information the variety in options is tremendous. Good luck and keep cooking. If you have any questions please reach out and if I can help I will.

Well you can't go wrong with The Food Lab cookbook. It doesn't get too complicated and explains things very well.

A Victorinox Chef's Knife is about 40 dollars and will last him a long time and it can be cool to have one for him.

I love cookbooks, and have probably fifty in my collection.

The ones I keep going back to are:

• Anything by Yotam Ottolenghi - He's an Israeli-born chef in London, and his recipes are a great combination of creative, relatively easy, and unique. He has a knack for combining unusual flavors, and I've never disliked anything I've cooked from him. If you're relatively green, don't get Nopi (too advanced). His other three or four books are all great.
  
  
• Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless. Bayless has a PBS show and owns several restaurants in Chicago. He's a great chef and his recipes are accessible and fun.
  
  
• The Food Lab by u/J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt. I was skeptical at first, since Lopez-Alt's website is so comprehensive, but the book is absolutely beautiful and contains both recipes and explanations of technique and science.
  
  
• Modernist Cooking at Home - It's expensive and many of the recipes are challenging and/or require special equipment, but the book is truly groundbreaking and never fails to stoke my creativity. It's the home version of his 6-volume tome which many think is one of the most innovative cookbooks in the last 20 years.

Aight girl-

Foreign Cuisine-
How to Eataly - Oscar Farinetti - We made the most AMAZING brisket meatballs and a super simple yet completely delicious red sauce out of this book
Around My French Table - Dorie Greenspan - Where the Cornish hens and gougeres came from.
Real Korean Cooking - Maangchi - Korean Fried Chicken. We've made them twice now because they're so good and can't wait to do more.
Mexican Everyday - Rick Bayless - Learned how to make perfect guac from this book and so far we've made these v tasty chorizo/mushroom/potato tacos. The recipe is SO cheap and SO voluminous that we had it as a taco filling, a quesadilla filling, and we're making a hash with it for brunch this morning.
Every Grain of Rice - Fuchsia Dunlop - We haven't tried anything out of here yet but there are sooooo many good-looking recipes in here.
Entice with Spice - Shubhra Ramineni - Likewise, haven't made anything out of here yet but looking forward to trying it all out soon.
Jack's Wife Freda - Dean & Maya Jankelowitz - This is actually a book from a restaurant that my fiance and I LOVED when we last visited NYC. It's got a lot of fusion recipes. Mediterranean/Israeli/South African/etc. Really unique flavors and also v comfort-food based. We're making rosewater waffles out of this book tomorrow!


Baking-
Rose's Baking Basics - Rose Levy Barenbaum - This book is incredible. She has tons and tons of step-by-step photos which is SUPER helpful. We made the dark chocolate caramel tart out of this book, but pretty much everything in here looks amazing.
Modern Baking - Donna Hay - I mean... There is some INSANELY decadent looking stuff in here. We haven't tried any of these recipes yet but I can't wait to!


Misc-
Cook Like a Pro - Ina Garten - It was really hard to pick just one Ina book but I liked most of the recipes in this one. She has this ridic recipe for a dijon mustard chicken that is INCREDIBLE. Also, this bitch knows how to cook some veggies. Big fan of this one.
The Food Lab - /u/j_kenji_lopez-alt - I just love this guy, tbh. We've made a really fantastic beef tenderloin out of this book and an incredible red wine sauce to go with it and of course, his famous roasted potatoes which are now my holy grail recipe for roasted potatoes. This book is like a science textbook only instead of boring stuff it's FOOD science, which is my favorite kind.


Those were all the ones we purchased ourselves (though technically Eataly was a gift BUT we love it and plan to use it often.) We have other cookbooks in our stable that we've received as gifts, which is what resulted in my fiance and I deciding we wanted to embark on this journey. We kept being given cookbooks and never doing anything with them. But man, do people love it when you send them pics of stuff you cooked out of a book they gave you. If people give you cookbooks, use them!! It will make their day to see it's being used. Here's what else is on our cookbook shelf-


The Forest Feast Gatherings - Erin Gleeson - This is a vegetarian book my fiance's mom gave us a few years ago for Christmas. We have a bunch of veggie friends (and friends with a lot of different allergies) so we turn to this book to have a few things that are edible by all of them when we have them over, as we often do. This book has a really delicious salad that has pomegranate seeds, pear, and hazelnut that is out of this world good. I also got my HG salad dressing from this book.
The Salad Bowl - Nicola Graimes - Another gift from my fiance's mom. Is she trying to tell us something?? Honestly haven't looked much into this book yet but it sure is pretty.
The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook - Dinah Bucholz - This was a gift from the assistant in my office. Everyone in my office knows me as the Harry Potter girl because I have a lightning bolt tattoo, haha. We haven't made anything out of this yet, but we probably will have some sort of epic feast with recipes from this book when GoT starts back up later this year.
Talk About Good - Louisiana Lafayette Junior League - My boss gave this to my fiance and I as part of an engagement gift. My fiance went to school in New Orleans. It's primarily New Orleansian/Cajun food. Haven't made anything out of it yet, but we are looking forward to it.

And that's what's on our cookbook shelf for now.

edit also omg thanks for the gold!! <3

Oh well if you have a cooktop, I use a great recipe I found. I just use a regular stainless steel pan.

1. Salt generously, then let sit at room temperature for 45 minutes
   
2. Heat to med-high heat with 1 tbsp ghee, let it start to smoke just a little bit then throw on the steak.
   
3. Cook, flipping every once in awhile, generally about 6 minutes.
   
4. Add 1 TBSP of butter and cook for another few minutes. Turn down temperature if it starts smoking too much.
   
   I do this almost every day and LOVE the ribeyes I get out of it.
   
   If you want the official recipe buy this book, it's changed my cooking life.
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/

am i allowed to recommend Food Lab? I know there was some controversy with Reddit and Kenji on his participation (and whether it constituted free advertising or not).

Lately, I've very much been enjoying Kenji's The Food Lab. I think it's worth the (ebook) price just for the chapter on fried foods.

I also keep coming back to The Flavor Bible, which has lists of how to combine ingredients for different cuisines.

If you want a valuable collection of recipes and have $50 to spend, get Cook's Illustrated's The New Best Recipe. It's supplanted The Joy of Cooking on my shelf.

I had Kenji's cookbook in my hands last week and reluctantly put it back down. It's not running related...it's just geeky food science related. I'm a fan of Kenji and the whole group at Serious Eats

Das dazugehörige Buch ist aber wirklich das Geld wert. Da gehts nicht so sehr um Rezepte, als um Techniken die man ohne Probleme übernehmen kann um Sachen die man eventuell seit Jahren auf ne bestimmte Weise macht, noch ein wenig zu verbessern.

It's the recipe book written by Kenji Lopez

If you love to read, then I completely back up those who recommended J Kenji Lopez-Alt's "The Food Lab". He also spends some time on /r/seriouseats, which I think is really great. Food Lab is great because it explains not only HOW to make a recipe, but the WHY a recipe works the way that it does, and allows you to expand your cooking skills. His is not the only book that does this, but I've read Salt Fat Acid Heat and The Science of Cooking and a good portion of the tome that is Modernist Cuisine, but Kenji's style of writing is exceptionally approachable.

But my actual suggestion to someone who wants to go from never cooking to cooking healthy meals at home is to watch the recipes on Food Wishes, because he shows you what each step of the recipe is supposed to look like, and his food blog is not filled with flowery stories, but helpful tips.

Another great online resource that I used when I started cooking about 5 years ago was The Kitchn. They offer up basic technique videos on how to cook proteins and vegetables that are really simple to follow for beginners.

My advice to you is this: don't feel like you need to dive immediately into recipes. First learn how to season and cook a chicken breast or steak consistently, and roast the different kinds of vegetables. Then just start jumping into recipes that you want to try. And don't be afraid to ask questions here :)

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_0ZLZBbEQMDFEA

He's not being pretentious, he actually knows his shit. This is the guy who wrote a #1 bestseller cooking book (New York Times & Amazon)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Food-Lab-Cooking-Through/dp/0393081087

And was called a "cooking savant" by NPR

/r/seriouseats has a lot of his recipes.

Kenji Lopez-Alt has perfected the perfect scambled eggs in the book The Food Lab

it is basically salting the eggs, waiting 5 minutes, then stirring as little as possible for a couple minutes and it makes the perfect fluffy scrambled eggs

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491628494&sr=1-1&keywords=the+food+lab

I don't really have advice on your original post, but I used to be just like you when it came to cooking. Cooking for me consisted of throwing a piece of chicken on my George Foreman grill until it was burnt (no salmonella for me!) and eating raw vegetables because they required no cooking.

There is so, so SO much info out there on how to cook. If you love watching videos, look up videos on YouTube. If you love reading, invest in some cookbooks. If you have a friend who loves to cook and does it well, ask him/her for some basic lessons.

Aside from my boyfriend who loves to cook (thankfully), I've learned the majority of my cooking skills through some great cookbooks. The Whole30 book has so many great beginner tips and delicious, obviously healthy recipes; even when I'm not doing Whole30, I constantly refer to this book for recipes! If you're a science/chemistry person, The Food Lab is pretty amazing.

I think a lot of people get scared of cooking because YES it can totally be daunting and time-consuming and hard! But it doesn't have to be. You don't need to make gourmet meals for yourself every night; just figure out some flavor profiles you love and recipes that are easy.

The food lab is the book. The blog is serious eats.

http://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

Nå folkens, der er snart gået et år siden Skodbil sidst mæskede sig i fødselsdagskage, og det betyder at successen skal gentages. Fødselsdagsgaver er for lang tid siden gået fra at være Lego og våben, til at være sokker og bøger.

Derfor skal der nu nogle gode kogebøger på listen. Jeg er ikke så meget på udkig efter opskriftsbøger, men mere ude i at ville have kogebøger som jeg rent faktisk kan lære noget af. Jeg har allerede følgende på listen, men hvis DU kender en helt vildt god bog jeg bør læse, så sig til.

Sølvskeen

The Food Lab, Kenji Lopez

Chocolate at Home

Paul Bocuse Institut Gastronomique

The Professional Chef

The Flavour Bible

Mastering Cheese

Der er med vilje ingen vinbøger på listen, for det gør jeg mig ikke specielt meget i - endnu.

The Food Lab by Kenji Alt-Lopez is a must own cookbook in general

I put down 1491, not because I wasn't enjoying it, but because my BFF gave me The Food Lab as an early birthday present. I didn't think you could write a food book that reads like a novel, but I've been swept up in it since last Saturday. Anybody else read this?

If you are a new cook, I really recommend The Food Lab. Sure, it has recipes, but it also tells you how things work and why instead of just “cook at 350 for 1 hour.”

The intro section has a great starter guide for tools and equipment as well. Basically, here’s a tool that you absolutely need. Cheap version, pros and cons, then high end version. Or here’s a tool that’s really handy if you like to whatever a lot, but if you aren’t cooking that much, you can get by without it.

Highly recommended. I bought most of my tools from these recommendations, and they’ve been great!

/r/seriouseats has a ton of good info on cooking. I also recommend The Food Lab book. I have bought a few now as gifts. /u/J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt is also seen around Reddit and has been super helpful a few times in answering tweets about certain recipes within a few hours. (Not sure if I am supposed to publicize that last part.)

Yes - likely ANYTHING with Kenji López-Alt.
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I just bought his book, The Food Lab, and it's six pounds of 'just as fantastic as his work at seriouseats.com'.

I'd definitely recommend Samin's book Salt Fat Acid Heat! Rather than just recipes, it teaches you the fundamentals of recipe creation and cooking. Kenji's The Food Lab is also an awesome contribution.

To save any other British people the sudden disappointment I just felt - it's only 20% off on amazon.co.uk.

Still not that bad of a price though, I guess...

The Food Lab

It is a very thick book with lots of full color photos, and tons of good info. The only problem that I've had with it so far is that, for as much as he talks about precision in the variables, he doesn't seem to give enough info in the recipes, which is always the problem I have with written recipes. For example, I tried his technique for soft boiled eggs, and it doesn't specify the starting temp of the eggs. He says the best method is to put cold eggs into the boiled water. But when I did this, using the cooking times provided, my egg was still almost completely raw. I think the problem is that my eggs came right out of the fridge. Had they been room temp to start, 40 degrees warmer, it probably would have worked. But honestly, most people keep eggs in the fridge, so I think the onus should have been on him to make that clear. I have yet to try with room temp eggs to see if his numbers are close to accurate. But when I read "put cold eggs in hot water" I took that to mean cold, not room temp.

The second thing I tried out of the book was the Prime Rib technique. He says to cook it at your oven's lowest setting (in my case, 200F), until the internal temp is 120, then rest for 30 minutes, then sear at 500-550 at the end. He says it takes 4-5 hours at 200. But again, I was making this for lunch, so I was starting at 7am. But of course, my roast came right out of the fridge. So long story short, I had to crank the temp up to 350 to get it to finish roasting by lunchtime, so the slow cook method was not accomplished. Again, had my roast started at room temp, it would have probably worked better, but that wasn't explicitly stated.

I wonder if I need to assume that everything is at room temp to start. If that is just considered dogmatic in cooking or something I was not aware. I read the whole intro, and while he does say that nothing in the book is gospel due to the many variables, I would think that the emphasis on the exactness of temperature, the home cook target audience, and the use of thermometers should at least give some attention to the subject of starting temperature. I might find the answer as I read more of the book. But anyway, I still think it is a great book, and I'm sure the techniques are valid, I just can't hope to get everything right the first try.

There is a cookbook called the food lab which is really great. It explains the science behind making things extra delicious and the recipes in that book are really good "every day" ones not necessarily project meals. Highly recommended.

If you are trying to cook more at home, nigh I suggest this book. The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_iDF2DbDDN8EAF

Food Lab is LEGIT! been following Kenji on SeriousEats.com for a long time. Saw his book for the first time last weekend at B&N. $50 in the store!?! I just ordered it this morning on Amazon Prime for $30

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

I picked up most of my (mediocre but useful) cooking skills primarily from Serious Eats, ChefSteps, and more recently Chef John on YouTube.

The recently published Food Lab book is a great reference as well.

Also, don't be afraid to practice. Most of the time with food, even if you don't get it perfect, you'll have something edible, and you can use the experience of making something less than perfect as a step towards making it better.

part 2/2

Second, there are ways to take a more cost-effective approach. I always bring up the physics example of the apple falling on Newton's head, which made him realize gravity existed, and then he dedicated his whole life to figuring out the formula for gravity; then you saunter up to science class one day, learn F=ma, and that's that! Likewise, a lot of smart & persistent people have worked hard to create formulas for food, called recipes, which you can try & learn & get good results at simply by following their step-by-step checklist.

Part of getting good at cooking is learning the underlying tools, technique, and knowledge required for flavor combinations, food pairings, spice mixes, cooking methods, etc., but part of it is also just burning through a bunch of recipes & getting exposure to good results & to various processes, without having to master every single one right off the bat & then think up new ways to use them. So in addition to learning how to cook in general, I'd also recommend simply following a bunch of recipes initially, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel, which can help you get better results initially, simply because you have proven instructions to follow! There are a million great resources for doing this; I'll share just a few here:

• Website: Serious Eats: Most recipes are split into a detailed explanation & then a separate page for the recipe itself. Excellent learning resource!
  
• Book: The Food Lab: By Kenji of the Serious Eats website. This is a really excellent book to learn cooking step-by-step, complete with full-color pictures & detailed explanations.
  
• Website: ChefSteps: An excellent resource for detailed recipes from the company that makes the Joule sous-vide machine (note that not all recipes are sous-vide!)
  
• Show: Good Eats with Alton Brown (on TV or available to purchase online); lots of detailed walkthroughs & tribal knowledge shared in each episode.
  
• Book: Modern Sauces: 150 sauces, plus great explanations to build up your knowledge about sauces. One thing I've realized over time is that most restaurants create amazing flavor through their sauces, whether it's something as basic as Big Mac sauce at McDonald's or a super fancy steak sauce at an elegant, high-end restaurant.
  
• Show: "Wok Star" by Eleanor Ho: She teaches a fantastic, recipe-free workflow for creating stir-fry dishes using a wok & a hi-heat portable burner. Note that you can buy the discs (which are just simple recordings of her classes) & printed materials separately from the wok & burner if you already have the tools. She's put together a really great system for teaching wok cooking, so if you're interested in learning the "flowchart" for quick & healthy meals using the stir-fry method, this is the best resource I've ever come across!
  
  Third, it helps to have some good introductions to the different aspects of food. Here's a few links to read to help kick-start your education process:
  
  
• Basic cooking advice & approach
  
• How to cook a chicken breast so it's good every time
  
• A quick discussion about "master" recipes
  
• Introduction to spices
  
• How our bodies works in relation to food & a bit more on food & exercise
  
• A quick introduction to complete foods
  
• My approach to meal prep & a bit more information on the Look Book
  
• Some tips for getting organized in your kitchen (kitchen part specifically is a few posts down)
  
  Anyway, learning how to cook can definitely be discouraging & can absolutely be a money-drain, because you're going to have to make a lot of mistakes, due to the learning process, and make also a lot of just plain mediocre food before you start hitting some home-runs. I'd recommend making sure that you have a recipe storage system for capturing the recipes & workflows you really like.
  
  I'd also recommend adopting the "growth" mindset when it comes to cooking, because it's easy to quit in the face of setbacks & label yourself as a terrible cook or view cooking at home as hard or dumb or whatever. If you look at cooking from a big-picture perspective, you're going to be alive until you die, and you've gotta eat every day, so imo at least, it's totally worth learning how to cook so that you can save money & enhance the enjoyability of each meal that you cook while you can!
  
  I think part of that is just accepting that it's going to take some time & practice (and money) as you grow & develop your skills, your personal recipe database, and the various workflows available for things like making breads or grilling or stir-frying or whatever you want to dive into. Probably the best way to save money, at this point in your cooking education, is to find & follow top-rated recipes. Pinterest has a pretty good algorithm for bubbling up really good recipes, so if you type in "chocolate-chip cookie" into the Pinterest search & try a recipe (exactly as printed, step-by-step) on the first page of results, then you're likely to get much better results than just winging it...while also building up your cooking skills in the process & getting that background knowledge & hands-on time required to get better at cooking!

I dig you're enthusiasm but you're asking a broad question!

I'd recommend the following books to help answer your questions:

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of The Kitchen

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684800012

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking through Science

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393081087

I could and it's a pipe dream of mine. However, the author of the original recipe has quite a collection already, and has already published such a cook book.

Why not?

The recipe I'm referring to is nothing but salt & pepper, a roasting pan with a rack, and all day, really low and slow. Amazing how well that came out.

I suggest The Food Lab and Serious Eats, by J. Kenji López-Alt

Well, on the extreme side, "The Professional Chef" textbook I believe is the one used by the culinary institute of America. I picked one up off Amazon for $36 just for the hell of it. It's really interesting and reads more like an academic text than a cook book. It can be quite intense though.

A much more popular choice and a much easier read would be "The Food Lab" by Kenji Lopez-Alt who is a writer for serious eats. The book has plenty of recipes but does an unbelievably amazing job explaining the science and reasoning behind the choices that are made as well as various "experiments" that kenji does to answer cooking questions. It definitely teaches technique and really helps put you in the right "mindset" for cooking without a recipe.

Here are links to both.

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-Institute-America/dp/0470421355

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

My recommendations:

Videos:

1. Tasty videos! They’re short, so you can binge a bunch, but they’re also straightforward and usually on the simpler side. https://youtu.be/zcOsz-dHFe0
   
   
2. “Food Wishes” on YouTube. I’ve been watching them for over a decade - lighthearted, fun learning that takes you step by step through TONS of dishes. I cook almost daily, and I can credit this guy for most of my inspiration. https://www.youtube.com/user/foodwishes
   
   
3. Binging with Babish & Basics with Babish. Similar to good wishes, but a little more laid back (which is an accomplishment) and a bit higher production quality IMO. https://www.youtube.com/user/bgfilms
   
   
4. Bon Apetit! Also YouTube. So many fun personalities, everyone has different specialties, it’s like learning from experts that feel like your friends. Carla & Molly have the best recipes and explanations IMO, but they’re all wonderful. https://www.youtube.com/user/BonAppetitDotCom
   
   Websites/Books:
   
   These are more advanced, but Serious Eats (google it) never lets you down when it comes to recipes, but they’re definitely more involved (hours to days).
   
   One of the serious eats writers, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is a PhD Biologist (I think biology...) who wrote The Food Lab. This man is the god of cooking. 100% scientifically and experimentally tested, this book will teach you everything you ever need to know about cooking and then some. HIGHLY recommend getting a copy. The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_DgUuDb85KVPJ8
   
   Finally, if you don’t want to drop $20 (it’s dropped by ~60% since I bought it! Definitely get a copy!!!) on that, but want to be healthy and learn easy, flavor packed recipes, pick up a copy of The Thug Kitchen. It’s vegan, but the skills are useful anywhere and I’ve yet to find anyone - carnivores included - that’s disliked a single recipe. I got a copy for myself, my girlfriend, a good friend of mine, and my brother.
   
   Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook: Eat Like You Give a F*ck (Thug Kitchen Cookbooks) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1623363586/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_miUuDb8363PR2

I have [this] (https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087) and I love it. It uses science to explain why to do things and I need that kind of thing otherwise I'll doubt it.

I'd echo the 'kitchen stuff' idea. http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/gift-guide-basic-kitchen-essentials-home-cook-starter-kit-presents.html has a decent and thoughtful list, along with http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/12/gift-guide-essential-pots-and-pans-presents-for-home-cooks.html but if I could tell you to get a few things, I'd pare it down to:

• Enameled cast-iron pot
  
• Cast iron skillet
  
• A chef's knife (most people need an 8" knife but my hands are very small, so a 6" works for me -- the key is to buy what works for YOU)
  
  Eventually, add in a few high-quality knives (I love Wusthof and Henckels but not all of their lines are created equal) -- I lean on my paring knife and chef's knife for much of what I do, though having other knives can be nice
  
  These items are good, but equally important is to learn how to use them. Long-term, you are going to save yourself much heartache, frustration, and money if you do something terribly unglamorous: take some basic cooking classes before you start buying physical things. Learn how to use these implements properly before investing, so you become a smarter investor. What you've bought for life: knowledge. Start with knife skills (http://www.surlatable.com/product/CFA-2976678/ might work) and work up to learning other basic cooking techniques. You want to look for classes and books that don't just teach you how to make a single recipe, but to understand methods, like braising and sautéing and frying. This way, whenever you hit a rough patch in your life, you can always take care of yourself.
  
  Also: get a library card. You can then go pull books like these for free, absorb the learning, and save your money to buy only the items that YOU want to keep as a permanent reference:
  
  
• Cooks' Illustrated "Science of Good Cooking" - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933615982/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_2
  
• The Food Lab: Better Cooking Through Science - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393081087/ref=pd_sim_14_1

I'm surprised no one has mentioned The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt or the site Serious Eats (sub /r/seriousseats)

Maybe a professional oven get hotter then a home over but I can't make really crispy roast potatoes by only baking. I have used this recipe a few times and it is definitely not horseshit it makes amazing roast potatoes. This guy released a really successful cook book last year, I have it and he definitely knows his shit. https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

I highly recommend Serious Eats. They've got a lot of great articles and walkthroughs. One of my favorite parts is that not only do they explain what to do, but why common convention dictates we do some things. While you're at it, I recommend you pick up a copy of The Food Lab, which contains a lot of the same material. It's very well formatted and written, and I suspect your daughter will plow through it if she's as interested in cooking as you make it sound like she is.

Those America's Test Kitchen "best-ever this"/"all-time best that" magazines are my favorite impulse buys while waiting in line. I've been thinking about signing up for full access to their site for a while. And I love Serious Eats too. :) Speaking of which, I definitely recommend picking up a copy of The Food Lab! It's great.

edit: Changed/corrected "on line" to "in line." (Recently learned that using "on line" in a non-Internet context is actually a NY regionalism, after being made fun of for saying it by my [INTP] bf.) X(

Hands down, The Food Lab (nonaffiliate link)

Kenji Lopez-Alt breaks so many cooking concepts down with science and experimenting but in a way that the average consumer can enjoy it. He shows you the process he uses and makes results easily reproducible. You can read it, you can learn from it, you can cook from it. And Volume 2 is already planned.

Edit: I feel like an idiot because I didn't even read your text. I'm not deleting it. It's so good it deserves 2 mentions :D

To expand on /u/barchueetadonai's reply, Kenji Lopez-Alt writes recipes tested via scientific method. His recipes are available on www.seriouseats.com or in his book The Food Lab.

Also, invest in a basic slow cooker. Start it before work and you'll come home to pot roast, pulled pork, buffalo chicken, meatballs, pretty much anything.

And lastly, the sous vide cooker. Check out /r/sousvide, but you can make anything from steaks to lamb to duck. But most importantly, long cooks will leave the toughest cuts of beef or pork tender and juicy.

Try 'The Food Lab' by Kenji Lopez Alt. He details a lot of the science behind cooking methods and includes experiments he's done to compare them
https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt has been a great find for me and venturing toward the deep end of cooking. He definitely doesn't try to make his recipes overly simple, but they're written well and are a snap to follow. The book is about 1,000 pages long and definitely rewards cover-to-cover reading, but my preferred way to approach it is to think of a food or class of food that I want to make (like "hamburgers" or "salad dressing") and then find it in the index. If it's in the book, it will definitely be a very good version of the recipe.

​

Reading the non-recipe sections also did a lot to help me understand what goes on during various cooking processes and has helped me step away from strictly following recipes. I still generally follow Kenji's recipes to the letter but I can adjust something from, e.g., AllRecipes to suit my tastes without compromising the end result.

​

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087?crid=1GSDX0G93DLJQ&keywords=the+food+lab&qid=1536763318&sprefix=the+food+lab%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-1&ref=sr_1_1

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498103306&sr=8-1&keywords=kenji+lopez

https://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498103333&sr=8-1&keywords=flavor+bible

And this is a good primer for traditional French techniques, which most kitchens use extensively

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-French-Cooking-Set/dp/0307593525/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1498103367&sr=8-2&keywords=french+cooking

(but ALWAYS defer to the Food Lab, they use science)

https://www.amazon.com/Im-Just-Here-Food-Version/dp/158479559X/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1498103412&sr=8-4&keywords=alton+brown

If you go through these four books, then you'll be pretty set in basic knowledge.

He sounds a lot like me. I hate clutter. I would recommend this.

If he already knows all that, then this.

If he already knows all that, then he's set for life and you can probably just stop getting him gifts now.

To anyone wanting to learn more about it, The Food Lab by J. Kenzi Lopez-Alt is an awesome book to have around. It doesn't just list off recipes, but discusses different types of foods and breaks down the different techniques most used in cooking them. So you don't just learn how to cook certain specific recipes, but how to cook things in general. I love it.

For example, there's a section about steak where he discusses all the different cuts, how they're flavored, and the pros and cons of the methods used in cooking each type. He even explains how you can rig up a ghetto sous-vide setup in a beer cooler.

You might like this : The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science I got this for someone that's really into the science behind cooking and she really loved it. I don't know the ratio of meat to vegetable in here, but I'm pretty sure the book runs the gambit.

Absolutely. I have Kenji's book, The Food Lab. I don't do everthing by his methods because, for example, my wife likes beef and chicken very well done. But the fundamental science behind what he—specifically—and the site—in general—provides is excellent.

This is an amazing cookbook. I generally shy away from cookbooks as I find them pointless, given that I can use the internet to find recipes but this one is worth owning.

Here are a handful of books along the lines youre looking for. They hold a wealth of knowledge that should give you some direction on how to proceed.


https://www.amazon.com/Institut-Bocuse-Gastronomique-step-step/dp/0600634175/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498046182&sr=8-1&keywords=institute+paul+bocuse

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Good-Cooking-Illustrated-Cookbooks/dp/1933615982/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498046072&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Science+of+Cooking

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1498046072&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Science+of+Cooking

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Cooking-Understanding-Biology-Chemistry/dp/1118674200/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1498046072&sr=8-5&keywords=The+Science+of+Cooking

https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Spices-Herbs-Discover-Understand/dp/1623156289/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498046139&sr=8-1&keywords=essential+spices+and+herbs

https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Chef-Culinary-Institute-America/dp/0470421355/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498046163&sr=8-1&keywords=the+professional+chef

Hey Kenji, thanks for doing this AMA! Big fan, the The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science is always open in our kitchen.

I’ve cooked your Deep-Fried, Sous Vide, 36-Hour, All-Belly Porchetta recipe several times and it’s awesome. My question to you is how can I translate this recipe & technique to a part of a lamb?

-Would Lamb Belly be the best cut for this? Or would I have better luck using a meatier part of the lamb like a boned out chuck or leg?

-For how long and what temp would you recommend cooking it for?

-For finishing, would I be better off in a blazing hot oven versus deep-fried due to the absence of the thick skin found on the pork belly.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions!

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

This is the link for the book. I would recommend it too. My biggest problem was that I knew how to make a handful of recipes, but I really didnt understand what was happening when I mixed things in a certain order or why/how the different variations of a dish exist (poached eggs vs over easy). This book fully explains their recipes and why its being cooked that way.

I would highly recommend it if you have an analytical mindset and trying to learn processes and rules of cooking.

Kenji's method is what I use. If you haven't checked it out, his book The Food Lab is really good.

I read more of The Food Lab this week. I only have two chapters left (it's a behemoth of a book) but I had to return it to the library because I'm moving tomorrow. One of the last chapters I have left to read is about salad, which made me so sad to return it! I love salads, haha.

I seriously recommend The Food Lab to anyone who likes both science and cooking. It's a great book to just read through even if you don't actually make any of the recipes; you learn so much! It was written by /u/J_Kenji_Lopez-Alt of Serious Eats. If you're an Alton Brown fan, Kenji does work comparable to but more rigorously than Alton did/does, but with written posts instead of videos.

If you're science/detail minded, The Food Lab is a great cookbook. You'd learn not just the basics, but also how small changes in ingredients, timing and technique have significant impacts on the end result. Lots of recipes and cookbooks just give you a series of steps to follow, and more often than not you'll be alright with just that. But having a book that details how different ingredients work by themselves and with each other is a huge help in getting started.

It's also important to note that cooking is combination of art & science (in contrast with baking, which can be very specific in its process...don't get too experimental with baking until you have more experience). A recipe may ask to cook for 20 minutes, but based on the heat you're applying it was already done in 18 minutes. Do you leave it in there longer just because the recipe said so? It's not always about following a specific set of steps, you have to be able to look at the process and identify the necessary changes to achieve the result you want. And that knowledge only comes through practice and experience.

So yeah, there may be some mishaps. I like to say, "eat your mistakes". Rarely is something so badly cooked that it's completely inedible. Every mistake is a lesson on what to improve upon, and there's always room to improve.

It sounds daunting at first, but it's like learning a new language or riding a bike. Eventually, the general knowledge from all the different recipes you cook compounds and you'll "just know" how the process is going without even looking at it. Have fun with it, it's a really useful skill.

alton brown is a good place to start, and I would also recommend the food lab (https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483749194&sr=8-1&keywords=the+food+lab) if she has some interest in science. He does a good job of explaining the why's, and it will teach her to ask good questions early and not just take it all on faith

You might consider buying his book. Full color, >1000 pages, and full of his amazing writing. The photos are also very helpful and interesting.

I only started cooking when I started law school summer '15, and now hosting dinner parties is my favorite way to de-stress. It's such a great hobby. And you have a great excuse to practice mixology, too...

Anyway, Kenji is probably my favorite human being. Follow him on all the social media things. You'll be glad you did. He tweeted me back when I asked him questions on Thanksgiving. I love him.

This rumour supposedly has to do with the high mineral content of the water creating greater crunch in the crust. It was disproven by Kenji Lopez-Alt in his book The Food Lab (https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0393081087?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title). It’s a great read if you’re looking to understand the why behind food science.

I don’t know much about a reddit about cooking but you might want to check out this book. I got it to learn to cook for college and I love it (to be honest I haven’t gone through too many pages of it but I love it so far).

He has a book out, it’s called The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_hbXaBbEGGKKD6

I haven't read all of the comments, so someone my have mentioned this but; buy some cook books! There are 1000's out there but here are a few decent ones:

​

Ingredient is a great book for understanding how different things interact and change each other

​

Salt to taste is one of my personal favorites, and has a wealth of knowledge, it offers insight on improvisation and may be one to get down the line

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The Food Lab is a great book for base knowledge, it has tons of great recipes and it attacks them from a more methodical approach

​

There are tons of other great books out there, Escoffier, French Cooking with Julia Child, The Flavor Bible etc....

Anthony Bourdain's 'Les Halles' and Paul Bertolli's 'Cooking by Hand' will have special places in my heart. My personal most recent addition was 'Bottom of the Pot'

To add onto this, make what you like, as OP said. Build on it and don't be afraid to try anything new to add ingredients that you enjoy!

Watching some shows can help give you ideas too, I particularly liked salt fat acid heat, Netflix series based off the book. Wonderful insight into the importance of the corner stones of cooking.

Also food blogs can be a good resource, when I started out I jumped between a few of them looking for recipes. I found 2-3 of them and cycled them into a rotation. I highly suggest this recipe for spaghetti to start out with.

An example with what I said earlier for trying new things, I subbed out the veal / pork for 1lb of Italian sausage. It's one of my more favourite meals now.

Finally, I don't know if it's been recommended, but The food lab is a great book. It explains so much and the science of cooking. If you can't pick it up online, it's worth looking at a library to see if they'd have one.

Hope some of this helps and you have a great time cooking!

The Food Lab is really good.

If you're new to cooking and want to understand why and not just how, I strongly recommend the book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

For my inlaws, FMIL is getting ready with us and we are paying for her hair and makeup, and getting her a small embroidered handkerchief. For the two of them together, we are giving them a nice frame with an IOU and this cookbook because they really enjoy cooking and are pretty sciencey... They're also impossible to buy for and this was the only thing I could find that FH didn't veto.

I'm buying this book for everyone on my list that loves cooking. It's great!

Lots of people will say to look at the Instant Pot which is a combination electric pressure cooker/slow cooker/rice cooker ("multi cooker"). I had a bluetooth enabled "IP-SMART" 6qt model of theirs (actually three: first had a safety recall, second was dented on arrival, third still exhibited regulation issues). Lots of people are happy with Instant Pots, but I had a lot of issues with the pressure control being flaky for certain recipes. Additionally, much of what makes slow cookers safe when you are out of the house is their low wattage heaters... typically 250-400W... and low complexity (basically it's a small electric blanket that is wrapped around a very heavy ceramic pot). The Instant Pot has a 1000W heater, and is more complex (microcontroller + a thermocouple), so this negates some of the safety aspects of unattended slow cooking... though it is UL listed and has a thermal fuse in case anything goes wrong.

My recommendation if you are interested in pressure cookers and slow cookers:

1. Presto 8qt stovetop http://www.amazon.com/Presto-01370-8-Quart-Stainless-Pressure/dp/B0000Z6JIW $69 More volume than electric pressuer cookers (8qt > 6qt) which is important since safely pressure cooking needs lots of headroom between the food and lid valve so as not to clog. Typically headroom is 1/3rd volume for most foods, 1/2 for foamy foods like rice, etc. Thus a 8qt pressure cooker effectively has a volume of 4-5qt. When using it without building up pressure, it can double as a large 8qt stockpot. I ended up preferring stovetop over electric since I can get an initial brown on meat without having to use multiple pots, and I don't have to wait for an electric heater to come up to temperature (10+ minutes on the Instant Pot for me).
   
   
2. Hamilton Beach 6qt set'n'forget slow cooker http://www.amazon.com/Hamilton-Beach-33967A-Programmable-6-Quart/dp/B00EZI26DW $50 Check reviews on thesweethome.com for it, but it beat out a lot of more expensive crock pot models. Oval shape lends itself better for some slow cooker recipes, such as mini, chocolate lava cakes, roasts, etc.
   
   $120 for both.. around the ballpark of the cheaper Instant Pots, you gain an additional pot for stove use, pressure cooker is of bigger size, slow cooker is safe unattended and a more conventional shape, and IMO will last longer. You lose automatic rice cooking capabilities but... by a $20-$30 rice cooker and probably get better rice, or just do it on the stovetop.
   
   By the way, no idea what food you like to eat, but these are two of my favorite cookbooks if you are getting started and wanted to build up some experience:
   
   

• America's Test Kitchen 100 Recipes http://www.amazon.com/100-Recipes-Absolute-Best-Essentials/dp/1940352010/ Good for in-depth explanation of 100 recipes across a pretty big range of techniques.
  
  
• Cook's Illustrated Cookbook http://www.amazon.com/Cooks-Illustrated-Cookbook/dp/1933615893/ Shorter explanations but lots and lots of recipes.
  
  And major shout out to Kenji's (from Seriouseats.com) new book if you want more detailed science information:
  
  
• The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking through Science http://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087
  
  This post ended up being much longer than I expected, but those are my recommendations if you are just starting out. ;) The main thing I've learned since beginning to cook is that 90%+ of the recipes online (and even in print) are untested crap, and to look for recipe sources you can trust. The second thing is that a finished recipe is much more dependant on the technique (the steps you use to modify ingredients at specific times, temperatures, and textures) and way less dependent on the ingredients themselves (you can easily sub ingredients for many recipes once the core techniques are understood).

Just started reading J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's "The Food Lab" and this is the technique that he recommends, too (though he uses EVOO). Tried it once already and I'm totally sold.

Recipe is from The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt and they tasted awesome.

The recipe itself is really simple:
1/2 Cup Buttermilk
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
2 Cups Flour
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 1/2 Teaspoons Kosher Salt
8 Tablespoons Butter
2 More Tablespoons Butter (Melted)

• Preheat Oven to 425 F
  
• Dry ingredients and butter blitzed in a food processor
  
• Combine everything in a bowl with a spatula
  
• Roll it out
  
• Fold it
  
• Roll it out
  
• Add Cheese/Chives
  
• Fold it
  
• Roll it out
  
• Cut it out
  
• Brush with melted butter
  
• Bake 15 minutes
  
  I'd recommend getting the book as it goes into much better detail about not only processes and technique, but the reasons behind them. Great book!

1. This Slide because my daughter loves to climb on everything and her outdoor toys are here favorite toys and this could be used inside too when it's too cold out or raining. She's got so much cabin fever right now. This is a great way for little ones to burn off energy inside or outside.
   
   
2. This office chair I work from home on a laptop so I need a good, supportive chair for my lower back pain. This chair is ergonomic and great for use when you're online!
   
   
3. Memory foam cool pillow. Everyone could benefit from a high quality, comfortable pillow to improve their sleep!
   
   
4. This book on making yourself happier this is an awesome book!! It's a creative way to find more happiness in your life and help depression and anxiety. This book would be a great tool for anyone.
   
   
5. Cooking, with SCIENCE how cool is this?! It's using science to learn awesome ways to cook!! This is for anyone who needs food to survive, but hates those annoying kitchen fires!

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482778088&sr=8-1&keywords=Food+lab

So I don't actually own these two but I was clicking through the Amazon Gift Guide and they both sparked my interest enough to check them out. They're on my Christmas list for sure haha. :)

• Thug Kitchen
  
  This book is awesome. Seriously awesome. It's wonderfully irreverent, well-illustrated, well-organized, it has plenty of really pitch perfect recipes that are simple and inspiring. Probably my favorite thing about it though is the intro since it has a really great holistic approach to just being in a kitchen and choosing food mindfully which is something I appreciate SO much over just a cookbook that is a list of recipes. All the recipes are vegetarian so just keep that in mind. It's kind of the schtick of the book "hey dumbass, eat more vegetables"
  
  
• The Food Lab - Cooking Through Science
  
  For similar reasons as above, I liked this because it EXPLAINS the process of cooking and not just telling you what to do. This is really helpful for me in understanding what I'm doing and creating a strong mental connection to actually learning it. The intro is once again filled with lots of great insight explaining why you might make the choices you make in a kitchen. It can feel a little bit like a textbook at times, but honestly I kind of like that, especially because it's something I'm highly interested in and motivated to learn. Being both studious and epicurious, I was really drawn to this book as I was learning more about it. I will probably buy this book. The recipes, as I can tell from what I saw, aren't really "health-conscious" per se. I think the bigger downside is the potential to turn into a really really obnoxious food snob. But hey, maybe that's a good thing, too. Lol
  
  

My husband and I are really bad at picking out gifts for each other, so we usually decide what we're going to get together. This year we bought The Food Lab, which is a sciency book about cooking (which we both enjoy) and Pandemic, a co-op board game.

My husband also got me a Kindle for my birthday, so if she likes reading I'd say that or a nice hardcover (or hardcover boxed set) would be a nice gift. Otherwise maybe a cool trip together to a fancy place for a weekend - it doesn't make for an amazing gift-opening experience, but maybe you can buy some small items that represents the trip.

It's pretty hard to give ideas without knowing what your wife likes - the Kindle was probably one of the best gifts I received, but it'd be a shitty gift for a non-reader, for example. Gifts related to hobbies are always cool - for my husband's birthday we went to a cycling place together and he picked out some new gear which was then my gift to him.

• Cooking for Geeks
  
  
• The Food Lab
  
  
• Alton Brown: EveryDayCook
  
  Publix publishes recipes in its stores, and I have one of their binders with a handful of the ones I thought seemed good.
  
  Also have to second The Joy of Cooking (mentioned by someone else).

I think one of the best books that has come out in a long time is 'The Food Lab: Better home Cooking Through Science' from Kenji via Serious Eats.

http://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449865838&sr=8-1&keywords=the+food+lab

I dare say it is even a better first read than Harold McGee's books for new cooks.

Seconding The Food Lab from Kenji. Only cookbook I have two copies of and both get used at the same time every once in a while. Thomas Keller's for French Laundry is beautiful and has some great recipes, but it's much rarer that I'm in the mood to tackle one of his recipes.

The Food Lab is the perfect book to start with.

You could buy The Food Lab, it has a lot of science as well as technique and recipes.

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

And like the other person said, subscribe to Cook's Illustrated.

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Kitchen-Cooking-School-Cookbook/dp/1936493527/

Both are incredibly clear, well-illustrated and written, and provide not only instruction on basic cooking techniques, and help a novice cook select the equipment necessary for a successful kitchen. SeriousEats.com and AmericasTestKitchen.com are great resources as well if you're not keen on buying a cookbook.

Alton Brown's Good Eats is also a great how-to resource presented in a friendly, informative and entertaining format.

Finally, I like to recommend You Suck At Cooking to people who say they can't cook. Yes, the videos are mainly comedy skits involving ridiculous things being done to produce, but there are actually some really good nuggets of information skillfully hidden in the chaos of what's going on. It barely qualifies as instructional, but it certainly is entertaining and involves food.

I cannot find the recipe. But in Kenji's "Food Lab" book there is a simple garlic butter recipe. It is great because it is simple and typically we have the items on hand to make. It is quick. And like you, when you need a break from tomato type sauces, it is a great alternative. I searched for the recipe but could not find. Here is a link to the book on Amazon in case you wanted to check it out. [Book](https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536950027&sr=8-1&keywords=food+lab)

His Cookbook: The Food Lab is fantastic! It's not keto-centric but there is some really good info on technique. We made the brussels sprouts with bacon recipe the other day and it was amazing! Great info on searing meat, hamburgers, cooking fish, etc!

The Food Lab. It's a cook book and goes into why and how everything works. Haven't read the entire thing yet, but an absolutely fantastic way to learn different things about cooking. Also, one of the ways I learned was to look at multiple recipes to get the idea of how to do it and watch YouTube, and sort of mix things around to where you like it.
Link: The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf

Edit: as far as the healthy and cheap goes, if you have a crock pot, ask your butcher for things like knuckle bones from beef, chicken backs, necks, gizzards, and other things like that. They make super healthy and usually cheap. Any questions on things like that PM me. I'm a butcher and have an pretty good idea of what's good for what

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Kenji is actually a redditor and I would highly recommend picking up his book "The Food Lab", it is fantastic!!

Try the foodwishes channel on youtube. You could also get The food Lab. The book explains why you do things a certain way and what happens when you do. It also gives you an idea of what you need (knives, pots,...) to start cooking.

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

It's college textbook sized and has tons of good stuff

Holy smokes, ya'll nuts.

Serious Eats is science based, headed by J Kenji Lopez-Alt, and he just recently put out a book the size of a bible, and should be treated as one also.

The diagram demonstrating the subtle differences from this article is also present in the book: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/04/does-pre-salting-eggs-make-them-tough.html

Basically gonna echo most of the answers already posted, but just to pile on:

• 8" chef's knife. 10" is longer than may be comfortable and 12" is longer than necessary, but 7" may start to feel a little short if she's ever slicing large melon or squash. I'm a casual knife nerd and I have knives by Wusthof, Victorinox, Shun and Mac. My favorite.
  
  
• This Dutch oven. Enameled and cast iron just like the Le Creuset that a few other comments have mentioned, but much, much cheaper. I own two and they're both great. I also have the non-enameled version for baking bread, but I don't recommend it for general use unless you're a Boy Scout. Here's an entertaingly-written blog post comparing the Lodge vs. Le Creuset in a short rib cookoff.
  
  
• This cutting board and this cutting board conditioner. The importance of an easy and pleasant to use prep surface can't be overstated. I'm listing this third on purpose; this is one of the most important things your kitchen can have. A recipe that calls for a lot of chopping is no fun when you're fighting for counter space to do the chopping, or doing it on a shitty plastic board.
  
  
• A cheap scale and a cheap thermometer. Seriously, these are as important as the cutting board.
  
  
• Just gonna crib this one right off /u/Pobe420 and say cheapo 8–10" (I recommend 10–12" but that's my preference) nonstick skillet. One note I'd add is that pans with oven-safe handles are a bit more dual-purpose than pans with plastic or rubberized handles. You can't finish a pork chop in the oven in a skillet with a rubberized handle. But one could say you shouldn't be cooking a pork chop on a nonstick pan to begin with. The important thing is to keep this one cheap: you're going to be replacing it every couple of years, there's no getting around that. For my money $30 or less, and $30 is pretty expensive for these things.
  
  
  

• Cookbooks
  

  Nothing inspires cooking like a good cookbook collection. The great news about cookbooks is that they're often bought as gifts or souvenirs and they make their way onto the used market cheap and in great condition. Here are my suggestions for a great starter shelf:
  
  

1. The Food Lab by J. Kenji López-Alt. I kind of hate that this is my number one recommendation, but I don't know your wife and I do know J. Kenji López-Alt. This one is brand new so you're unlikely to find it used and cheap, but as a catch-all recommendation it has to take first place. Moving on to the cheap stuff:
   
   
2. Regional French Cooking by Paul Bocuse. This is possibly the friendliest authoritative book on French food out there, and a hell of a lot easier to just dive into than Julia Child (Julia is the expert, and her book is an encyclopedia). Bocuse is the undisputed king of nouvelle cuisine and people like Eric Ripert and Anthony Bourdain (so maybe a generation ahead of you and I) came from him. Paul Bocuse is French food as we know it, and yet this book—an approachable, coffee-table sized thing—still has a recipe for fucking mac and cheese. It's outstanding.
   
   
3. Theory & Practice / The New James Beard by James Beard. These will completely cover your entire library of American cooking. Nothing else needed until you get region-specific. When you do, go for something like this.
   
   
4. Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. When she died, the NYT ran a second obituary that was just her recipe for bolognese.
   
   
5. Christ, top five. Who gets 5th? I'm going with From Curries To Kebabs by Madhur Jaffrey. Don't get bamboozled into buying "Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Bible" which is the same book, repackaged and priced higher. You want the one with the hot pink dust jacket, it's unmistakeable. This is one of those end-all books that you could cook out of for the rest of your life. It covers almost every diet and almost every country that Beard and Bocuse don't.
   
   
6. Honorable mentions: Here come the downvotes. Pok Pok by Andy Ricker. If you're American and you want to cook Thai, this is the one. Ten Speed Press can go home now. The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Rosen (so close to making the list). I shouldn't need to say much about this; it's the book of diasporic Jewish food, which means it covers a lot of time and almost every possible country. It's a no-brainer. Thai Food by David Thompson (a perfect oral history of Thai food for English speakers, only it doesn't include Pok Pok's precise measurements, which in practice I've found important). Flour Water Salt Yeast by Ken Forkish. Not for someone who just wants to become a baker, this book is for someone who wants to make Ken Forkish's bread. And for a casual bread baker I can't imagine a better introduction. Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table by Mai Pham. Andrea Nguyen is out there and Andrea Nguyen is awesome, but I really like Mai Pham's book. It's accessible, reliable and regional. You don't get the dissertation-level breakdown on the origins of chicken pho that you get from Andrea, but the recipe's there, among many others, and it's fucking outstanding. Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. This vegan cookbook is dope as hell and will really expand your imagination when it comes to vegetables. This could actually have been number five.

There's also a version they put out for home cooks called Modernist Cuisine at Home that's also amazing and far cheaper. The Food Lab is another great option.

The bible at this point is The Food Lab which is more about food science and less about recipe how-tos. They also have a site where among recipes and other things they have a section dedicated to techniques. Long before I even heard about Food Lab I learned most from Chef John so you might want to give that a shot as well just make sure you start with some basic recipes so you don't get overwhelmed. Your can start by making a fancier steak 🙃

Check out The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, written by Kenji Lopez-Alt from Serious Eats.

I'm an engineer, and The Food Lab website has long been my go-to for recipes and techniques. The cookbook weighs about ten pounds, filled with the same meticulous, data-driven approach to food. For example, everything you ever wanted to know about making chicken stock: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/10/how-to-make-rich-flavorful-easy-chicken-stock.html

If you are honestly out to learn how to cook,

I recommend the food lab

This book has been absolutely amazing and explains everything at a very good scientific level. I sense you might be the type to enjoy it if it was explained it that way.

If not, Gordan Ramsey's Home cooking is pretty good.

Check out "The Food Lab" by Kenji Lopez. It will change your world.

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_ARKrDbYTGC25P

Calphalon is one of my favorite brands. Their pans and knives are pretty great for their price point. Get at least one stainless steel and nonstick pan. 8 inch knife is important, but make sure it's fully forged. Also, this part of J-Kenji Lopez Alt's book, The Food Lab, is a very helpful guide. I'd highly recommend purchasing it.

If you're into Middle Eastern food, Zahav is incredible. I'm biased because I'm in Philly but the restaurant has won James Beard awards for Outstanding Chef and Outstanding Restaurant, and the book has recipes for everything they serve and a lot more.

For a more general book, The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is pretty great. Most of the recipes are on the Serious Eats website but it's nice to have the physical book.

I would always recommend anything from America's Test Kitchen. I bought this on a whim when I first got really into cooking and it's amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485533534&sr=8-1&keywords=food+lab

If he likes to know WHY things work, which for me it's essential, then this book is awesome. The author really explains why and how things come together to get the best result. He's an editor from seriouseats.com, I also recommend that website also.

You missed that part about preservatives. You put your noodles into liquid, and how do we turn hard noodles into soft pasta? Liquid. I thought you were asking about it over the course of a couple of days, but it doesn't take that long.

There's a reason that we only boil pasta for about nine minutes. The process breaks down the starches that keep it rigid. But once you've gotten to a certain point, you don't need heat anymore for the water to keep breaking down the starches. End result, mush.

Preservatives in commercial soups stop the process. Completely drained pasta also won't mush because there's no liquid for it to absorb. But put it in soup... bye-bye starch.

Cooking is basically chemistry, and you might want to give this book a read to understand the processes better.