Is there a be all and end all book for learning how to cook?

workaccount

Hi,
I've been trying to learn how to cook for over a year now and find myself constantly going back to pizzas, chips, takeaways and spuds and steak/chicken dinners.

I bought one or two books and have tired many recipes off the internet. Is this the only way to learn - should I be reading a book which tells me why flavours work with others and every minute detail I should follow while cooking. Most of the time the food I cook is less than nice even though I have followed the instructions seemingly exact.

If the only way to learn is by following recipes from the likes of Gordon Ramsays books how I am going to get better?

I've just found this book on amazon and I'm not sure whether I'd be wasting my money on it or not.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Simple-Recipes/dp/0471789186/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222554928&sr=8-1

Any ideas?

Faith

I've never heard of that book, but now I want it!

Delia Smiths "How to Cook" is often recommended for beginners too, but it won't teach you things like what flavours go with what.

Tree

I'd highly recommend the complete ballymaloe cookery course, shows you how to do everything.

Leith's also do fantastic bibles for cooking, they brought out a simple food one recently you might enjoy.

Learning to cook the basics by the book is probably the place to start, you can start experimenting with flavours then after that.

Magic Monkey

All-inclusive Cookery Books

• The Good Housekeeping Cookery Book is a good all-inclusive book, lots of classic recipes and covers all areas
• Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course is too, although the recipes are a bit old school
• Practical Cookery is a catering textbook, but quite good for recipes, theory, etc, especially if you want to learn things from scratch

Basic Technique

• Leiths Techniques Bible does exactly what it says on the tin
• Jacque Pepin's Complete Techniques is old-fashioned in a lot of it's content, but very good

Kitchen Science

• The Curious Cook will explain some kitchen science for you
• On Food and Cooking will explain a lot more, but it's not light reading

Why do you say the food you cook is less than nice - no flavour, poor texture, unappealing? Surely you've noticed an improvement from when you started one year ago?

xbox36016

take away and a phone thats all you nead

rockbeer

The trouble with using recipes you pull off the Interrnet is you have no idea of the quality until you try them, especially if you aren't confident about ingredients yet. You'd be amazed at how many recipes don't really work properly, even those written by reputable chefs. Knowledge and experience often allow you to assess a recipe before you make it, but as a beginner you're probably better off using a trusted source. That's what great about Delia Smith. Even though, as someone said, the recipes are a bit old fashioned, she uses no nonsense techniques that can be relied on to work. Try her "How to cheat at cooking".

A be all and end all book is difficult to recommend because there are so many different cookery styles. It really helps to know what you want to make.

I'm guessing like most people you want to learn to cook what you enjoy eating - so perhaps if you let us know what that is, we can try to direct you towards the most suitable books. A book by someone who's style you like at least gives you a chance of a reasonable result.

Sparks

At the risk of sounding like I'm repeating myself, go to youtube and search for "LikeTheHat".
And then watch every episode of Good Eats in that channel. Best programme I've ever come across for explaining how to cook - and about the only one I've ever seen that engineering types can enjoy.

csd

Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course

deisemum

Delia Smith's cookery books are very good.

Just a suggestion if you want to save money try before you buy. I rent out cookery books from my local library and then if one really appeals to me I will buy my own copy.

brettmirl

You can also usually find cheap 2nd hand ones on ebay - worth a look.

fjon

I would recommed:

Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook

I've used it tons of times, and found nearly all the recipes great.

ruben

A bit expensive maybe but The Silverspoon Cookbook is just great.
It's the bible of Italian cooking and the gift that's given as a staple to new brides. It's not an Italian cookbook but a cookbook from Italy, if you get the distinction.

DadaKopf

ruben wrote: »

A bit expensive maybe but The Silverspoon Cookbook is just great.
It's the bible of Italian cooking and the gift that's given as a staple to new brides. It's not an Italian cookbook but a cookbook from Italy, if you get the distinction.

I'll add to that and say that 1080 Recipes, the Spanish equivalent of Silver Spoon (same publisher, size etc.), was what I bought to be my 'be-all-and-end-all' cookbook. I've since acquired Jamie Oliver at Home (it's got some nice recipes), and tend to get a lot of ideas from www.bbcgoodfood.co.uk. I'm on the lookout for a good French food cookbook, though. Toying with getting Trish Deseine's book(s) (I've made some recipes from the RTE website [onion soup, pot au feu, duck a l'orange]), but if Phaidon were to publish a French cookbook to accompany Silver Spoon and 1080 Recipes, I'd be sorted. Though that Darina Allen complete cookery course book is excellent (I leafed through it recently).

emc2

csd wrote: »

Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course

This is really good, also a friend of mine swears by Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros.

If you don't want to go down the book route try:

www.bbc.co.uk/food
www.ifoods.tv

as a starting point....

Honey-ec

DadaKopf wrote: »

Though that Darina Allen complete cookery course book is excellent (I leafed through it recently).

The Book Man brought that into work recently and I have to agree, it seemed like a very good all-rounder.

However, I cannot bring myself to buy anything associated with Ballymaloe since the whole Tim Allen/child p0rn thing...

DadaKopf

www.ifoods.tv

Got, I can't stand that guy's erzatz Gordon Ramsay'isms. The lighting/production values of those videos are awful, you can't see anything. Get a light, guys.

bonkey

workaccount wrote: »

Hi,
I bought one or two books and have tired many recipes off the internet. Is this the only way to learn - should I be reading a book which tells me why flavours work with others and every minute detail I should follow while cooking. Most of the time the food I cook is less than nice even though I have followed the instructions seemingly exact.

Here's my tuppence...

Firstly, there are other ways to learn. The following might sound obvious, but just in case...

One tip is to watch people cooking. Now...I don't mean watching TV / youTube (which I'm not knocking either, mind)...I mean watching someone you know who cooks well, when they're cooking something you know tastes nice & turns out well.

Another tip, when you haven't had the chance to watch, is to ask. If you have dinner at your mum's, or your mate's or wherever, and they've just done something excellent...ask them how they did it. Whether its their roast beef which has been done to perfection, or just that they've managed to boil their brussel sprouts and make them tasty...ask how they do it.

As to what flavours do/don't work together...there's a number of ways of learning this too.

The hard way is to try everything, and ignore the stuff that fails.

Another is to read cooking books (from different styles) and see what ingredients occur together time and time again.

You can read up on molecular cooking to find out the science behind it (which will explain why you can swap rasberry with tomato, and other apparent craziness like that).

Keep it simple as you start. Don't go with something that requires 20 different spices on day one...and then try to figure out what's wrong when its not great. Start with something that uses one, or two spices. Work you way up the chain.

If the only way to learn is by following recipes from the likes of Gordon Ramsays books how I am going to get better?

Getting better is when you get to the point where you take one of Gordon's recipes, and think to yourself "this needs a bit of oomph....I'll add some of......THIS!"...and it works. Other times you'll think "Man, that lemon is just overpowering everything". Half teh quantity next time, see what happens. It won't always work...but when it does, then you're cooking your dish and not Gordon's.

Most of what people cook (pro chefs included) have been taken from someone else - maybe adapted, maybe not, but definitely acquired/stolen. Don't be ashamed to use recipes....just don't feel that you have to stick to it to the letter if you don't like it.

As for specific books...everyone seems to enjoy different things. Mrs. bonkey and I have two shelves of cookbooks, and the collection is always growing. I won't make recommendations, other than to say...go browse something in a bookshop. If it reads well, the recipes sound interesting, and the price is ok....go buy it.

axer

Take a look at the new Jamie Oliver website for that tv series he recently did. It has some good basics and some simple recipies like the chicked wrapped in parma ham and the meatballs to get you started:
http://www.jamiesministryoffood.com

CDfm

how to boil an egg started me of as a student and you can still get it

its very very basic and any mess ups will be eatable and economical

http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Boil-Egg-Simple-Recipes/dp/0716020734