"Patrick Rodriguez" > wrote in message
keley.EDU...
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm currently enrolled in college and I want to finally learn how to cook
> for myself. I can only handle the basics: boiling ramen noodles,
> scrambling eggs, making a ham and cheese sandwich. I've always been
> meaning to enter the realm of actual cooking, but I'm either too busy or
> lazy...
>
> My question: what are some of the easier dishes to make, especially for
> someone with no experience such as myself? I'm thinking something without
> too many steps or ingredients, but is actually something to be proud of.
> And more importantly, something that would encourage me to dig deeper into
> cooking.
>
> Thanks for any help. I hope that I can at least say that I've cooked a
> decent dish before I graduate.

Brings back memories - I had to cook or starve.

My suggestions-
First, get a basic cookbook like Betty Crocker - nothing fancy. You look
up a lot of stuff even after years of cooking.
Second, get grounded in WORKING WITH the basics, which means sauces and
noodles/rice and meat/fish. Its a lot easier than you think, since most of
that cooking uses the basic mix (see below) If you can cook ramen, you can
cook any noodle or rice (instructions are on the packages).
The frying, boiling, and steaming are straightforward actions- you can't
screw it up too badly if you follow the cookbook - and these ingredients and
methods have easy tells, like smoke and black, or pale floppy veggies. An
iron pan or a grill and beer forgives a lot of sins.

two things to get up to speed in an hour.

1)- first 30 minutes:
Make a medium white sauce a couple times and don't be afraid to toss the
result. Gives a sense of what gives, teaches you that the heat in the food
has to come thru the pan and it doesn't come thru at your speed when you
turn up the heat, it comes thru at its speed (WARNING -milk tends to blacken
the bottom of the pan of sloppy stirrers and impatient cooks).
White sauce comes in thin, medium, thick, and croquette. It is the base
for gravy, hot dishes, "puddings", etc. You can quickly cover a lot of
mistakes by adding them in emergencies, they are bases for your own flavored
sauces, you get an early feel for the chemistry, and it lets loose some
creativity.
They all are basically liquid (cup), fat (tablespoon - tbs) , and
thickener (tbs). The easy one is white sauce, in 1-1-1 (thin), 1-2-2
(medium), 1-3-3 (thick), and 1-4-4 (croquette) ratios, i.e., 1 cup milk
added to 1, or 2 or 3 or 4 tbs each of flour and butter.
Heat the butter in a pan over medium heat, add flour and heat it, then
add milk "slowly and rapidly" to keep the temp up so you don't get a cool
flour-milk mix (which makes lumps) - that is, a little milk in will make the
mix a lump, adding a bit more to the heated lump makes a looser lump, a bit
more to the heated loose lump makes a slurry, etc.
Variations -Brown the butter for a different flavor, fry onions in the
butter for an onion sauce, add pepper for a pepper sauce, add nutmeg for a
scandinavian sauce, etc., etc.
Save the last batch.

2) Second 30 minutes -
Fry a pound (maybe two cups) of hamburger to crumble in half cup
increments - don't use lean until you have experience on cooking lean meat -
drain off the fat instead after cooking.
Start with a cold pan and oil and meat, then remove it and set it aside
and put the next half-cup into the heated pan, then at a higher and lower
heat. Use half cups. Fry/cook/saute each of that amount using the different
heats and look at the result.

3) boil some noodles for 3-10 minutes. Or make some toast for 2 minutes. Or
boil some rice for 20 minutes. Or if you have 45 minutes, boil some
potatoes.

Now that you have a feel for two of the basic processes of cooking - you
now can flavor the white sauce before you add it to the meat - pick your
flavor and add it to the sauce first - onion? pepper? nutmeg? canned drained
tomato pieces? canned mushrooms? Mix well.
Pour it over the drained noodles/whatever - serve with a sprinkle of
paprika or parsley or whatever on top.

You can vary this basic approach and ingredients to get stroganoff to SOS
to french sauces. Use meats/other from beef tips to veal to chicken to ham
to dried beef to mushrooms to onions to spam to combos of them all . Oils
from butter to beef fat to chicken fat to flavored veggie oils. Liquids
from milk to water-wine to coffee.

4) cook a few breakfasts of eggs, toast, coffee, and bacon. It teaches
timing and multi-tasking.


It's a lot like swimming - you try a basic stroke, and then work at it until
first you don't drown, then you work at it some more so you can stay afloat
and actually move, and then after a fair amount of practicc, you can stay in
the lanes and move pretty fast. Same stroke as ever and its the same one we
all use, its just that after a bit of practice, YOU are able to use it

fwiw.





>
> -Patrick R.
> UC Berkeley