Basic cooking

liliesnlace85

I would say things like spaghetti bolognaise, chilli con carne and cottage pie are all simple to make but tasty dishes.

Also think about some easy side dishes, things like some roasted veg (literally put some mediterraean style/root veg like onions, peppers, carrots, parsnip, whatever) into the oven with some oil. Things like couscous is also easy to make, or simple side salads that just require some things chopped up together - and you could buy a few interesting dressings to put with them.

RAS

Ruby789 wrote: »

• Eggs: Scrambled egg (always too dry!); Fried egg (yolk usually hard, or bursts, or egg white spreads right across the pan)

This is nothing to do with your cooking. it is to do with the quality of most shop bought eggs.

A newly laid egg has a tight little white mound topped by a yellow yolk.

It has probably been in the packing line/store etc for a month or more by the time it hits the shops. By which timethe egg white has started to thin out, perhaps even run completely and the yolk has sunken into the white.

For fried eggs or anything with whisked egg-white, buy the most newly laid you can get you mitts on. For baking etc, it matters less. In fact kept very cold, they can last months.

squeakysue

I agree with other posters and would say your cooking sounds great. I am by no means a great cook but we get by. It's a lot of trial and error. Stuff like curries, chilli, bolognese etc are so simple to make from scratch when you have a decent stock cupboard. I can cook a roast perfectly (well to my family's standard anyway) yet I cannot cook rice, no matter how many times I try it in the pan so I use a rice cooker

My scrambled eggs always turn out well. Crack eggs into jug, add a slosh of milk, give it a good mix with fork or whisk. Melt butter in pan, add eggs and cook over low heat mixing as you go. My friend finds it impossible to do eggs in the pan and does them in the microwave, I tried it once but didn't like it.

Jamie's ministry of food book is a great starting point for basic skills.

sonastin

Its all about practice and confidence. I was perfectly capable of sustaining myself but no way would I have considered my food "good" when I lived on my own. (Properly on my own so no one to compare myself to, which is probably the root of the confidence issue!). Luckily for me, when I got together with my OH, his ex did all the cooking and because she'd had a bout of food poisoning once upon a time, apparently insisted on cremating everything to make sure it was done. This gave me the benefit of appearing to be a domestic goddess in comparison! Between having someone to cook for to give me the motivation to try, and using this site which gives me tips and inspiration on what to try, I reckon I've turned into a pretty decent cook these days. My mum reckons I do a better roast than her so I'll share my secrets...

Firstly, while you are learning, use a slow cooker to do the meat. Much easier to stick a chicken or a shoulder of lamb in early in the day and leave it there for an unspecified length of time than try to match timings of everything to when the meat should be done. You can do the meat in the oven when you're used to how long it takes to do everything else. Brown the meat off (optional) then put it in the slow cooker for somewhere between 6 & 10 hours with a bit of water in the bottom - maybe 1cm deep or so.

Next, when you're about an hour away from wanting to sit down to eat, peel some spuds and put them in boiling water with a bit of salt. Pre-heat the oven to something relatively hot - 200 or more. (Precision is not one of my skills!)
Once the spuds are going, peel some carrots and some parsnips. Chop them into batons around the size of your thumb. Put them on a baking sheet and coat in oil. Drain the potatoes, put them back in the pan, add a bit of oil, put the lid back on and shake the potatoes up so they rough up a bit and coat in oil. (sometimes mine have boiled too long and start to resemble oily mash - still works!). Put spuds on baking sheet (either with veg or on another sheet) and put the lot in the oven. Set timer for 30 min -only a rough guide - you need to keep an eye on them but I always forget what time I put them in and they take roughly half an hour.

At this point, I usually prep another veg for steaming or boiling - cabbage, sprouts, brocoli all take about 10 minutes so prep at this point but maybe don't put them on just yet. Have a kettle of boiling water ready to pour over when the time is right.

Time for gravy... take the meat out of the slow cooker, drain the juice off into a pan, switch the slow cooker off and put the meat back in. Leave it to rest in the residual warmth for oh, you've got about 15 minutes or so at this point before the spuds are done. Mix some cornflour (heaped teaspoon seems to work for me) with a bit of cold water - I use a small jar (like you get mint sauce or horseradish in) put the lid on and shake it up to mix it. Pour this into the meat juice, put it on the stove and keep stirring until its thickened up. Add a bit of gravy browning to make it the right colour if its a bit pale. Taste & add a bit of salt or a bit of a stock cube if its not right. Or just make the stock from a stock cube if the meat juice is fatty/insufficient/unappealing.

In the meantime, when the spuds and carrots/parsnips are starting to brown, put the *green* veg on. (usually with one hand while the other is stirring gravy - helps to keep the kettle within reach!)

It should all start to come together at around the same sort of time but you can speed things up or slow them down depending where everything else is up to. If your sprouts aren't done but the spuds are, turn the oven off. Dishing up takes time so leave the "slow coach" to last for plating up. If you dish up onto warm plates, the first things out of the pan won't go cold.

That's how I mastered the art of a roast dinner from a standing start. Still a bit hit and miss when I do oven roasts but it kinda works. Veggies can be varied a bit - sometimes I do carrot & swede mash instead of roast veg for example - but to begin with I stuck to what worked.

Nargleblast

To brush up on techniques, or even just to get back to basics, try any of Delia's cookbooks, or Jamie O's Ministry of Food - borrow from your local library and have a read, well worth the effort.

Sally_A

A roast is simpler than you think......best thing you can do is to count down until cooking time.

Say for example you want feeding at 1400hrs, and have a 5lb chicken.

Chicken is 20 mins per lb + 20 mins for good luck, so a 5lb chicken is 2 hours (180 - 200C depending if a fan or convection oven)

12.00 noon - chicken in.
Prepare other veg and accompaniments.
1.15 - spuds in for roasting (45 mins for an average sized spud + quartered parsnips)
1.30 - stuffing in.
1.40 - veg on the hob, start with carrots, add broccoli, sprouts (at 1.45) and peas at (1.50) in cooking order, and save the water to make gravy.

Check the chicken is done by stabbing the thickest part with a skewer, the juices should run clear - it can be removed anything up to 30 mins before carving as if covered with foil will keep the heat in.

Total aside, but at Christmas when people worry about the size of their oven - the turkey can easily be taken out 1 hr before dish up time, cover it in foil and it will rest and maintain the heat. Freeing up the oven for stuffing, cauli cheese, snips, roasties,chipolatas etc.

Chris25

I cook my scrambled eggs in the microwave & always take them out before fully cooked as they continue to cook in the heat & I like mine soft.

It's probably better to take them out, whisk with fork & then if not done put them back in again for about 30 seconds & try again, than overdo them. It takes practice but you soon get to know when they're ready.

I've just remembered that I got some poaching pockets from poundland - they're like teabag material that you dop the egg into & then put the whole thing into hot water. Someone recommended them to me - you get 8 in a pack. I'll probably try them out tomorrow morning - something like that might help you?

meritaten

Ive been cooking for nearly fifty years - and still cannot do poached eggs!
the way I do scrambled is to beat a couple of eggs (in a cereal bowl) with a tablespoon of milk and put in microwave on high. set timer for 2 mins. after 30 secs break it up with fork, ding another 30 secs and it should be starting to set around the edges give it another 30 secs, now this should be nearly done if it only has a little liquid on top take it out and mash with fork, add your salt and pepper now. sounds a faff but it isn't! I put the timer on to stop it burning if I get distracted!

cutestkids

I am another one who has been cooking from scratch for over 20 years and still can't do poached eggs, I succumbed to those poaching bags as well and they do work quite well.

I would also say that rather than doing scrambled eggs in a pot try using a frying pan, the eggs are quicker to cook and it is easier to see when they are almost done, take them of the heat before they are completely done and keep stirring the heat from the pan will be enough to finish them off.

MrsE_2

Sally_A wrote: »

A roast is simpler than you think......best thing you can do is to count down until cooking time.

Say for example you want feeding at 1400hrs, and have a 5lb chicken.

Chicken is 20 mins per lb + 20 mins for good luck, so a 5lb chicken is 2 hours (180 - 200C depending if a fan or convection oven)

12.00 noon - chicken in.
Prepare other veg and accompaniments.
1.15 - spuds in for roasting (45 mins for an average sized spud + quartered parsnips)
1.30 - stuffing in.
1.40 - veg on the hob, start with carrots, add broccoli, sprouts (at 1.45) and peas at (1.50) in cooking order, and save the water to make gravy.

Check the chicken is done by stabbing the thickest part with a skewer, the juices should run clear - it can be removed anything up to 30 mins before carving as if covered with foil will keep the heat in.

Total aside, but at Christmas when people worry about the size of their oven - the turkey can easily be taken out 1 hr before dish up time, cover it in foil and it will rest and maintain the heat. Freeing up the oven for stuffing, caulii cheese, snips, roasties,chipolatas etc.

That's exactly how I started learning to roast & I used that method for years - the countdown.
OP - buy the ministry of food by jamie Oliver, it's brilliant. Tasty everyday items cooked from scratch.