Cooking amateurs

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tj86430
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by tj86430 »

Web0r wrote: Thank you very much, I'll dig into details, and I'm sure I will be trying sous vide in no time!
Good luck!

one more potential downside I forgot to mention is that it is not "fast food". You need hours in most cases, and in some extreme cases even days (the longest cooking times I've seen are around 48 hours)
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by tchan001 »

Although having a vacuum sealer is useful, you don't really need it for sous vide as there is the water immersion method with just a ziplock bag.

Check out the Anova site for a bunch of info and recipes in English.
https://anovaculinary.com/what-is-sous-vide/
https://recipes.anovaculinary.com/

I also recommend watching this YT channel >>> Sous Vide Everything
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpFuax ... lFR3gWhrMw

My advice is to keep it simple when you start out. Once your passion upgrades, perhaps consider culturing your own sourdough starter for homemade sourdough bread. It still keeps within a simple budget but requires a bit of time.

Also consider getting a good kitchen knife and learn how to use a sharpening stone. A chef's knife is the one tool you will probably use the most often in a kitchen when preparing food.
Check out this videos for more info on choosing a chef knife.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO35cdWL1MQ


If you have a higher budget, you might explore gourmet ingredients and fancy kitchen tools later on.

Regarding gourmet ingredients, don't use truffle oil as most are scented with synthetic material and not really made from real truffles.
https://www.tastingtable.com/cook/natio ... iceonomics

I'm not a professional chef but just an amateur home cook with a passion for learning about good food and its preparation.

I do own some very nice chef knives. One of my newest acquisitions from this February is a 225mm Gyuto in RWL-34 steel and Redwood Lace Burl.
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Of course, such a handmade knife is much more expensive than most production knives you might find at your local department store. It would be similar to comparing a slate and shell go set from Kurokigoishi with a glass stone go set from Korea.
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by tj86430 »

tchan001 wrote:Although having a vacuum sealer is useful, you don't really need it for sous vide as there is the water immersion method with just a ziplock bag.
This is true, but without vacuum sealer getting the air out is more difficult. And if you don't get the air out, there are two potential problems:
- the bag will float
- the air acts as an insulator
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Web0r »

tchan001 wrote:Although having a vacuum sealer is useful, you don't really need it for sous vide as there is the water immersion method with just a ziplock bag.

Check out the Anova site for a bunch of info and recipes in English.
https://anovaculinary.com/what-is-sous-vide/
https://recipes.anovaculinary.com/

I also recommend watching this YT channel >>> Sous Vide Everything
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpFuax ... lFR3gWhrMw

My advice is to keep it simple when you start out. Once your passion upgrades, perhaps consider culturing your own sourdough starter for homemade sourdough bread. It still keeps within a simple budget but requires a bit of time.

Also consider getting a good kitchen knife and learn how to use a sharpening stone. A chef's knife is the one tool you will probably use the most often in a kitchen when preparing food.
Check out this videos for more info on choosing a chef knife.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO35cdWL1MQ


If you have a higher budget, you might explore gourmet ingredients and fancy kitchen tools later on.

Regarding gourmet ingredients, don't use truffle oil as most are scented with synthetic material and not really made from real truffles.
https://www.tastingtable.com/cook/natio ... iceonomics

I'm not a professional chef but just an amateur home cook with a passion for learning about good food and its preparation.

I do own some very nice chef knives. One of my newest acquisitions from this February is a 225mm Gyuto in RWL-34 steel and Redwood Lace Burl.
20200302_122300.jpg
20200302_122315.jpg
20200302_122912.jpg
20200302_123108.jpg
20200302_123130.jpg
Of course, such a handmade knife is much more expensive than most production knives you might find at your local department store. It would be similar to comparing a slate and shell go set from Kurokigoishi with a glass stone go set from Korea.
Thank you very much for the advice - and you have an impressive knives, I can give you that.
I haven't considered buying some pro-knives before, but now I'm thinking that this will be not just a good present to my wife (who is an excellent cook, which makes sense to our little lockdown challenge) but a suitable appliance for my personal cooking practice. Will dig into this. And I'm still learning about sous vide. And the method without vacuum sealer - thank you very much, that answers my basic question
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Web0r »

tj86430 wrote:
tchan001 wrote:Although having a vacuum sealer is useful, you don't really need it for sous vide as there is the water immersion method with just a ziplock bag.
This is true, but without vacuum sealer getting the air out is more difficult. And if you don't get the air out, there are two potential problems:
- the bag will float
- the air acts as an insulator
And that is the thing I haven't thought about... Will keep that in mind
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by tchan001 »

Web0r wrote: Thank you very much for the advice - and you have an impressive knives, I can give you that.
I haven't considered buying some pro-knives before, but now I'm thinking that this will be not just a good present to my wife (who is an excellent cook, which makes sense to our little lockdown challenge) but a suitable appliance for my personal cooking practice. Will dig into this. And I'm still learning about sous vide. And the method without vacuum sealer - thank you very much, that answers my basic question
If you really want to dig into knowledge about pro-knives, I suggest going to the following forum. I've learned quite a bit there even though I'm still a noob compared with many others there.
https://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Triton »

Hey guys!

I've been experimenting with fermentation during lockdown, and I have a recipe to recommend: ginger beer.
The recipe is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqPko6a3Wh4

It's going to cost only ginger, sugar, water and time, and it's a delicious beverage which can easily replace a light beer or lemonade.
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Web0r »

Triton wrote:Hey guys!

I've been experimenting with fermentation during lockdown, and I have a recipe to recommend: ginger beer.
The recipe is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqPko6a3Wh4

It's going to cost only ginger, sugar, water and time, and it's a delicious beverage which can easily replace a light beer or lemonade.
Great recipe - and looks easy enough even for me! Thanks for the advice, I'll try it as soon as I stock up on ginger.
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Triton »

Web0r wrote:
Triton wrote:Hey guys!

I've been experimenting with fermentation during lockdown, and I have a recipe to recommend: ginger beer.
The recipe is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqPko6a3Wh4

It's going to cost only ginger, sugar, water and time, and it's a delicious beverage which can easily replace a light beer or lemonade.
Great recipe - and looks easy enough even for me! Thanks for the advice, I'll try it as soon as I stock up on ginger.
Glad you liked it. Some additional advice: in the video it says that the ginger bug will become fuzzy in 3 days, but it can take a lot more time. It's best to use filtered water and organic ginger, and if it really doesn't start, you can add some raisins (they have natural yeast on their skin).
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by tchan001 »

I still have some sourdough starter in the fridge. I wonder if it would help if I introduce a tiny bit into a ginger bug to get it started faster.
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Web0r »

Triton wrote:
Web0r wrote:
Triton wrote:Hey guys!

I've been experimenting with fermentation during lockdown, and I have a recipe to recommend: ginger beer.
The recipe is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqPko6a3Wh4

It's going to cost only ginger, sugar, water and time, and it's a delicious beverage which can easily replace a light beer or lemonade.
Great recipe - and looks easy enough even for me! Thanks for the advice, I'll try it as soon as I stock up on ginger.
Glad you liked it. Some additional advice: in the video it says that the ginger bug will become fuzzy in 3 days, but it can take a lot more time. It's best to use filtered water and organic ginger, and if it really doesn't start, you can add some raisins (they have natural yeast on their skin).
Thanks for the advice - we had just installed our faucet water filters last year, so this might come in handy with beers fermentation.
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Triton »

tchan001 wrote:I still have some sourdough starter in the fridge. I wonder if it would help if I introduce a tiny bit into a ginger bug to get it started faster.
I don't know about that, but you can make kvas with it I think. If you don't know it, it's some kind of bread beer.
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Web0r »

Triton wrote:
tchan001 wrote:I still have some sourdough starter in the fridge. I wonder if it would help if I introduce a tiny bit into a ginger bug to get it started faster.
I don't know about that, but you can make kvas with it I think. If you don't know it, it's some kind of bread beer.
My mother-in-law used to make this. It's not beer, much more like just beverage which tastes really like beer, but softer and sweeter (if the process was followed properly). But yeah, you definitely can use that sourdough starter for this.
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Web0r »

Hey guys, I got a little question here... The weather is really good now, so I just unpacked my grill... And decided to start from the thing I never did before - grilling vets. While I was searching the web, found a lot of article about veggie kabobs. But the ingredients are different in any source I can find. Maybe somebody have experience in this and can share some real-life experience on grilling vegetables?
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Re: Cooking amateurs

Post by Triton »

Web0r wrote:Hey guys, I got a little question here... The weather is really good now, so I just unpacked my grill... And decided to start from the thing I never did before - grilling vets. While I was searching the web, found a lot of article about veggie kabobs. But the ingredients are different in any source I can find. Maybe somebody have experience in this and can share some real-life experience on grilling vegetables?
Hey! I'm no expert in grilling but you don't need to add anything for grilled peppers or eggplants to be delicious!
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