We can’t all be geniuses in the kitchen, even if we’ve watched the new season of The Bear. But people like cooking at home. In fact, 75% of Americans make something to eat themselves at least three times a week. Sadly, 28% also say they don’t know how to cook.
Luckily, it’s not something people are born with. It’s a skill we can all learn. To make it easier, we have some cool and simple picture-based guides for you here. They’re all about food and cooking, as shared by the good people of the Cool Guides subreddit. Feel like a beginner in the kitchen? Check these out, and let us know which ones were the most helpful!
This post may include affiliate links.
Not Sure If This Counts Because There Aren’t Actually Words, But I Just Think The Life Cycle Of A Strawberry Is Neat
Why it not having words disqualify it? This is a post about diagrams and charts. They often don't contain words.
Does anyone know why today's corporate farm grown strawberries have zero sweetness?
How To Pick The Right Watermelon
so orange, full of stretch marks, all round and not very green anymore, quite a summary of me :D
Also, by sound: knock on it, if it sounds like knocking on wood - green, more like beating a drum - ripe.
There is no male watermelon. Fruits develop from female flowers and contain seeds which are basically the same as eggs in an animal species. Only females produce eggs or seeds. Even so-called "seedless" melons have seeds. They are just undeveloped.
I usually pick by color of the rind (Deeper greens tend to mean more time in the sun), and weight. You don't want a dry watermelon, and water/juice is heavy. The fruit should be heavy for its size. The brown spot is also an indicator it was allowed more time in the sun without being disturbed as well, I believe.
Orange, with lines all over him and a dry, withered stem (we all heard stormy...)? Trump might actually be a watermelon!
Except he's just full of hot air, not delicious fruit.
Load More Replies...I use these criteria (except for the stem tail) and it's been decided that I'm the only person in my family allowed to pick watermelon because I get the best ones Every. Single. Time. I'd definitely recommend trying it!
Load More Replies...Pat it with the palm of your hand. It has to sound hollow like a drum.
A Cool Guide
Me too, I still test eggs before I use them, even if I've just bought them.
Load More Replies...Been using this for years and it does work. Eggs are often fine for a while after their alleged use by date.
A quite long while. If they do not smell as hell, they are still edible.
Load More Replies...To test if an egg is hard boiled you spin it and the tap it to stop, if it stops is hard boiled if it starts to spin its not
And those one week old eggs make the best hard boiled eggs because the shell will peel off easier than boiled fresh eggs.
There are people who would argue that this method is not always accurate. I've used this method many times. Occassionally, I find an egg that sinks, but is rotten. Trust your nose. If you aren't sure of the freshness of your eggs, crack it into a separate bowl to check; rather than cracking it straight into your other recipe ingredients. Take a sniff; if it stinks, throw it out.
There are many necessary life skills people complain that they're not taught in school. Doing your taxes is one people mention a lot in these types of discussions. I'd say that cooking is also a pretty necessary one. Yet, a survey in 2013 revealed that 28% of Americans say they can't cook.
Granted, some schools around the world include cooking education and classes in their curriculum. The UK, for example, has The Cooking and Nutrition Curriculum. The purpose of these classes, as stated by them, is to teach children "how to cook and apply the principles of nutrition and healthy eating."
When To Boil Water To Cook Vegetables
Cold water: These vegetables have lots of starch. Starch will change when heated, after this change it will have isolating effects. So in order to heat every part of the vegetable it should be heated slowly, the middle should get heat before the isolation int he outer parts sets in Hot water: Heat deletes vitamines. So you better make the time in the heat as short as possible.
Load More Replies...The plant that is called Zea mays is called corn in some countries. And the cobs are considered to be vegetables, though technically you are correct, the plant is part of the grass family.
Load More Replies...I think it's density of the vegetable, honestly. Not sure if that's the reason, but root veggies need more time *in* the water first of all, and non-root veggies tend to have more water in them to begin with.
Except if it's summer potatoes, i.e. potatoes from the new crop. They are put to cook in boiling water.
Apples On A Scale From Most Tart To Most Sweet
Red Delicious doesn't belong on there because it is the most disgusting apple, forced on American school children for decades because of corporate deals. They are the reason I hated apples for so long.
I loved those when I was a little kid! <3 I swear they have become less flavorful and more mealy-fleshed since then, though. :(
Load More Replies...You can get them in the Netherlands! I loved them when I grew up there.
Load More Replies...I've never had Snapdragon or Juici, but I've never had any of those other "sweeter" apples be as sweet as Honeycrisp, and I've had a ton of Fuji and Gala.
Certainly Red Delicious isn't sweeter than a Honeycrisp!
Load More Replies...Pink Lady from Pike Place Market in Seattle is/was the best apple I've ever had
Funny I never thought of them as all that tart, but second tartest on the chart.
Load More Replies...Burger Joint In Town
Steak should be rare. Maybe it knew fire in school, met at a party and drank a beer together but barely acquainted. The meat should be able to moo.
Rare indeed! At least for a Rib Eye or a Mignon. Toss it on a grill, wait 2 minutes, slap it with a spatula, turn it over, 2 mins, slap again and ride it out of the kitchen!
Load More Replies...My dad used to say "Just wave it over a lit candle a few times and put it on a plate for me." XD I learned from him how fabulous blue-rare steak is, when cooked properly.
Load More Replies...Yes! My dad taught me when I was a child that you always want to cook a burger (or anything else made with ground meat) way more well-done than you would cook a steak. Because the meat's surface bacteria get all mixed into the meat when the meat is ground up. I am not sure how correct he really was (this was back in the 1980s when he told me this and I honestly never thought to fact-check him in the modern era) but it is advice I have always followed. I like steaks (and every other cut of "whole" beef) as rare as I can possibly get it, but burgers and anything made from ground meat - cook it at least medium-well! I admit I have eaten a piece of raw meat a time or two (I have to keep up my "I am an actual real wolf" performance, after all!!... joking, joking) but never raw ground meat.
Load More Replies...Oh, I do love a good OTP story with my patty. Well done, BP. (pun very much intended)
I always ate beef rare, and if I knew the source, raw wasn't out of the question. But a couple of years ago, I got medium rare, and I thought it was tastier. Later learned there's a chemical reason why. At that temperature a protein is released making the meat more tender and tastier.
But cooking is not just about making something delicious for yourself. Food literacy includes being informed about nutrition and making healthy diet choices in general. According to Monique Tello, MD, MPH, cooking at home can improve diet quality, prevent obesity and type 2 diabetes, and help people lose weight in general.
In fact, there has been evidence that cooking classes can help patients with type 2 diabetes manage their condition just as well as medication can. When people learn to cook for themselves, they eat less highly processed food and lower their sodium intake. "Hard to believe it, but time in the kitchen can be as valuable as medication for some people with diabetes," Tello writes.
Banana Ripeness Guide
yup same here. I prefer somewhere between ripe and very ripe. Yellow with a few freckles is perfect. Of course, if you are making banana bread, or a fruit smoothie/banana shake, overripe is best!
Load More Replies...I've always preferred underripe bananas. Over ripe is best left to baking,
I have found that organic bananas can be eaten with pleasure even if they are Very ripe, whilst non organic ones tend to be cloyingly sweet at that state.
Once found a jar of banana jam in a Carrefour in Nice. I loved it so much that I had to make my own: ripe/overripe bananas (cut), 3/4th of the weight of the bananas of brown sugar, (yes, it’s a lot), cinnamon (whole and/or powder), tonka or vanilla, some grated nutmeg, lime juice and lime peel (big enough so you can remove it after the cooking process). Simmer the mixture for 35-45 minutes until the sugar and the bananas have caramelized. Fill it in clean glass jars. Let it cool and indulge.
Do You Want To Raise Your Cooking Game? Learning About Aromatics Will Help Massively
One should not use EV olive oil for frying the soffritto. It has too low a smoking point.
Load More Replies...I'm not down for the Italian one. Not at all. Should be tomatoes, peppers, onions. Plus Oregano and Basil (not fennel and chilies). Def no carrots, or celery either, for that matter.
That's Spanish sofrito as well. Only onion, garlic, pepper and tomato
Load More Replies...I thought it said aromantic and wondered what this was doing here 😂
Many of the countries enslaved by the French adopted the cuisine and adapted it. See: Vietnam
Load More Replies...France is both oil and butter, butter in the north because it is a green region with many cows, olive oil in the south because the weather is good for olive trees. but both appreciate everywhere :)
I forget which region, which likes lard, and says of its cooking "sans beurre etc sans reproche" (from the parfait gentile knight, sans peur etc sans reproche)
Load More Replies...Half the population of India does not consume alum family vegetables, like garlic and onion. This chart is very western, over simplified, uninspired and honestly somewhat useless. Like, just read a few recipes if you want to create authentic dishes. Don't reduce entire countries "flavor profile" down to a handful of generic western groceries.
Yeah the star anise was also way off for India. Ground cumin & coriander surely
Load More Replies...A Cool Guide To Japanese Gastronomy Prefixes And Suffixes
If I ever go to Japan, it will be long after I have forgotten this information, but it was interesting to read at least.
If I ever visit Japan, it will be almost ENTIRELY an "eating vacation" XD I'll be visiting every single cat café and cat island in Japan too, of course, but otherwise - ALL food! XD
Load More Replies...‘Don’ IS the bowl - so not ‘usually in a bowl’. Something-don is something on top of rice in a bowl
Yes, you are correct. When I was in Japan, a potter showed me how to make a don bowl.
Load More Replies...There are a couple cooking show on the NHK World Channel that I love watching and have went to the shows website to get the recipes. My daughter did the miso butter salmon with veggies was better than what we would get in the restaurant. Check out Dining with the Chef and Bento Expo. So many of their recipes are simple but amazing!
We all eat – that's true for everyone in one way or another. Food is literally the sustenance of life, yet it can also make us pretty sick if we don't eat the right way. But do people actually know how to eat healthy? People say they want to eat healthily, as they opt for products with labels such as "multigrain," "sugar-free," and "organic."
I Bet This Is Beautiful For Pan Crust
Exactly! The only way to eat leftover pizza, especially when it's for breakfast
Load More Replies...dude...just eat it cold. Cold pizza is one of life's great breakfast foods
I thought under "Med-low" was a picture of an eye and it meant to keep an eye on it :D
just do these instructions on low the whole time
Load More Replies...A Restaurant Guide For How You Want Your Steak Cooked
That's how my mom always cooked steak - that's how she and my sister allegedly "like" it (but what do they even taste other than char/burn??) My dad always cooked his steak separately from my mom's, and he loved his rare ("Just wave it over a lit candle", he used to say.) I remember once when I was 6 or 7 I begged him for a bite of his steak - my mom had always cooked mine until then, and I'd always needed ketchup to gag it down. Once I tasted rare-cooked steak... I never looked back. Now, on the few occasions when I have dinner with my mother and sister and I order steak, my mom will literally barricade my plate with menus so she "doesn't have to look at my gross bloody steak". Lovely woman, my mother XD
Load More Replies...Superiority complex. They fail to realize that some people don’t like the taste & texture of uncooked beef. It’s about preferences1 Just because they like the taste of it doesn’t mean others should or do. My aunt always cooked their steaks rare & DONT find it appetizing. I would put it in the microwave for under a minute to cook it. I’d rather eat a steak that spent a minute in the mickrowave over bloody meat
Load More Replies...Who cares how it's cooked? All this steak snobbery is silly. Is that what they want? Are they paying for it? Are you losing anything? Let them eat their hard, dry steak if they wish 🤷♀️ it's not like the department of homeland security & properly cooked meats is going to swoop in if the chef makes a steak that is well done. Zero people care that you made them a hockey puck. 🎶" Let it goooo"🎵
But, but, it hurts my soul when I see I good cut of beef go to waste!
Load More Replies...I asked for medium rare at a Montanas and got well done. The waiter got her manager to cook me another one, it still came out, at best, medium well. That was a very sad dinner.
Do people really not know this by this point? Everything but the "it's".
This would be great, if a lot of chefs could actual cook to it. I usually order my steaks medium; too often they come out well done, even at high end steakhouses.
Some people have medical conditions that mean they would get REALLY sick if they got sick. So while Well Done is gross, it's the only safe option for some people
Well Done, means juicy enough and lots of taste. You just don't get the same taste with Medium.
A Quick Guide To Tea!
I have almost the same chart, but instead of different kinds of tea, it's just scotch. (I'm kidding. I no longer drink alcohol.)
I remember when I tried agave liquor (tequila) as a solution for my insomnia. It worked to an extent, but boy I felt crappy in the mornings XD (I still haven't found a great solution, alas - I did a sleep study ~10 years ago and apparently I have both narcolepsy AND insomnia, somehow, lol.)
Load More Replies...So I just need a cup of green chamomile elderflower lemon ginger peppermint tea and I'll feel a little bit human again 😅🙌
Came here to write this joke and you beat me to it. Well played.
Load More Replies...Adore chai. Even more so when prepped by the masters pouring it from glasses 2 armswidths apart. 🙂
Load More Replies...Bin the chamomile for sleep. Valerian is the best. Stronger the better
I wonder if this is actually true or just some made theories that have never been proven. There is so much unproven nonsense being thrown around as facts out there.
I can 100% confirm ginger tea, at least, as a solution to nausea. I get severely nauseated whenever I get a migrane (5-10 days a month) and I have a stock of ginger tea, ginger chews, and ginger tablets. They work literally instantly upon ingestion on my nausea.
Load More Replies...However, most people seriously overestimate the healthiness of their diet. A 2022 study found that the majority of people (85% of the participants) inaccurately assess the quality of their diet. " It's mostly those who perceive their diet as poor who are able to accurately assess their diet," the study's lead author Jessica Thomson, PhD, said.
Cake
and use real butter and real milk, not light, not reconstituted, which is coming from an animal :)
Haven't seen a packet of cake mix since I was a child. Then it was add an egg and water, if you now need to add egg, oil and water you might as well make it completely from scratch.
Many experts say cake mix is one of the few premade foods that is superior to scratch as they use correct flour & add some leavening ingredients that most people don’t have that give best results. Now FROSTING is different story. The can frosting can’t compete w scratch as they use oils & chemicals. Most homemade frosting is butter & powdered sugar. The Two best frosting is chocolate (on the back back of Heshey coco powder) & cream cheese (butter, sugar & creamcheese)
Load More Replies...I certainly do. A good boxed cake mix has everything in it, fine-tuned by people who know what they are doing (instead of me winging it because heck if I know how old these spices and powders I found in my cupboards actually are). For a pound-cake I will make it from scratch, but otherwise it’s my trusty A-brand cannot-fail-if-I-tried mix. And butter and eggs.
Load More Replies...Why would you want a cake that tastes like it came from a bakery? Yuck! Give me home made every time!
They mean a _good_ bakery, not the grocery store bakery.
Load More Replies...Instead of that "cake mix", take real ingredients and make it yourself.
How To Open A Lime!
Before cutting, roll/bruise the lime/lemon on the counter. This helps get the juices easier to come out.
I feel like cutting it in half is a lot easier for most people. One cut in the middle is a lot easier than four cuts off to the side. I don’t have any hand strength issues but I’m a clumsy person. I’d rather get less lime juice than risk cutting myself.
It doesn't take anymore strength to cut them this way than it does to cut down the middle. In fact, it takes less effort because you're not cutting through the core and it's easier to squeeze the wedges because you're squeezing all fruit and nor pith AND getting more juice out of it.
Load More Replies...Does this work for lemons? How bout oranges? Thanks, but I like my good old fashioned juicer. When the arthritis gets too bad, I'll revisit these instructions.
Know Your Coffee Bean
While each individual, light roasted bean indeed has more caffeine, darker roasts weigh less so you need to use more for the same beverage. Roast level alone is not an indicator of how much caffeine is in the finished drink.
Load More Replies...Yes! I'm very picky with coffee. I don't even like the strong stuff in cafe's. For me, if it's not an instant blend, I probably won't like it.
Load More Replies...I prefer arabica, but I also prefer a very bitter coffee - therefore, I continue the search! Often!
For years, the main point of reference for a healthy diet was the food pyramid. I'm a '90s baby, but even I grew up thinking grains were the building block of a healthy and nutritious diet. The USDA food pyramid has actually undergone quite a journey: created in 1992 and updated in 2005 to MyPyramid, now it seems to have disappeared completely.
A Cool Guide About Eggs
At last, someone who knows about basting. Edit: these are my people!
Have you ever ordered basted eggs in a restaurant? They look at you like you're some kind of troublemaker.
Load More Replies...Not quite! Sunny side up is an egg that's cracked into the pan and fried until the whites are just cooked and the yolk is completely runny, and is served with the yolk on top. Over easy is cooked exactly the same but flipped right at the end and cooked for a few seconds on the other side, so it's served upside down with the yolk on the bottom.
Load More Replies...Onion Use Guide
Red onion doesn’t work against mud witches though, so you need a chart to distinguish your witches
Load More Replies...I am a simple man. Onion is onion. I don't care which one I will use. Except that I like red one in scrambled eggs :p
I use red onions in everything because they're pretty. Including pickled, use white vinegar and it goes a lovely pink
Load More Replies...best ones I had were sold as "pink onions" they were milder than red onions, and sweeter, a bit like shallots. they were absolutely LOVELY for eating raw in salads. SO yummy
Know Your Coffee
Sorry, but Starbucks isn't coffee. They specialize in milkshakes and sugary beverages, not coffee. I worked in a real coffee shop for years in SF and so many people were confused when they ordered something and we gave them the real thing. I finally started asking "like Starbucks?" If they weren't a regular.
Load More Replies...So let me ask you this: is it impossible to get a cup of coffee-flavored coffee anymore in this country? Huh? What happened to coffee? Did I miss a f*****g meeting with the coffee? Huh? You can get every other flavor except coffee-flavored coffee. They got mochaccino, they got chocaccino, frapaccino, capuccino, rapaccino, alpaccino, WHAT THE F**K?! www.what-the-f**k.com! I walked into a Starbucks about a year ago, little kid behind the counter. I go, "Yeah, give me a regular." "A regular what?" "Coffee." "What flavor?" "Coffee-flavored coffee." I'll stick that menu right up your a*s, kid! Menu... coffee doesn't need a menu, it needs a cup, that's all it needs! Maybe a saucer underneath the cup, that's it! You been to Dunkin' Donuts lately? The last bastion of coffee-flavored coffee? It's gone, forget about it. You walk in there now, there's people wearing berets, they're writing poetry on computers. There's a kid behind the counter, "Would you like a cafe colada?" F no (Dennis Leary)
Load More Replies...This chart is dumb because a frappucono is a trademarked drink from coffee connection that Starbucks purchased. Also drink your coffee how you want. Just order a black coffee, I refuse to think anyone at any place that sells coffee would have trouble understanding what a black coffee is.
Macchiato is wrong because the milk goes first and you pour the shot through it
What a waste of money. Make your coffee at home, fill a flask and take it with you.
The problem with the original food pyramid was that it had little nuance. Yes, grains are an essential part of a well-rounded diet, but only if they are whole and unrefined. The same goes for fats; the original pyramid urged people to use it "sparingly" and ignored the benefits of plant-based fats, like eating avocado.
This Is How To Measure Rice (Asian Style)
This method uses equal parts rice and water, which is what I've always done. Brown rice takes 2 parts water
Load More Replies...I had a good laugh at this XD It's oddly the same as the "Mexican style" of measuring/cooking rice which I learned as a child XD (I'm white af, but was adopted at birth into a Mexican family. My boyfriend is Chinese and we often marvel at how many similarities there are between our "cooking cultures" and favorite/comfort foods!)
Load More Replies...Filipino. Can confirm. This method has never failed me. My father taught me how to do this; and his father taught him.
Method of cooking matters. Mainly lid / no lid due to differences in evaporation. With my rice cooker it is 1:1 plus 1/2 cup. But on the stove I tend to need more water.
I've never done rice like this on the stove, but ive done it this way in the microwave. It worked fine. Do it in a glass bowl, with a loose-fitting lid if you do it in the microwave.
A Cool Guide To Spoons
I'm afraid neither my ice cream spoons (pointy end flat bowl) nor my sugar spoon (square) look like this.
I have 1 type of spoon and it's just..spoon
Load More Replies...Amen. I have an assortment of mismatched tablespoons.
Load More Replies...What about a grapefruit spoon? They have little serrations to help saw through the pith, actually very helpful.
I was going to say this! Everyone had one in the drawer & it would get used when all the other spoons were dirty.
Load More Replies...I believe salad spoons are intended for eating gelatinous or creamy salads, like the mid-century Jell-o “salad” monstrosities or potato salad. Not all salads are leaf-based.
Load More Replies...I have only tablespoons and teaspoons and are used for everything from dessert, ice cream, soup. Talent
What do you eat with a table spoon since apparently it is not soup? And please don't say tables :-P
Why does one need a salad spoon? I've never encountered a salad where I thought "I should eat this with a spoon instead of a fork"
Pasta salad can be eaten with a spoon, and rice salads, but they can also be eaten with a fork, like all other salads I can think of
Load More Replies...I consider a sugar spoon a grapefruit spoon also the soda spoon is a ice tea spoon
No- the sugar is just ridges to help control how much you put it. Grapefruit has small sharp tines on the side to cut
Load More Replies...A Cool Guide To Summer Fruit Bakes
I had a wonderful Uncle Henry (now passed) who was a professional cook in mining camps. He made a wonderful version of these that he called his "Blueberry Bang-Belly"!
I thought cobbler was a pie in a square pan like a pandowdy with a bottom crust.
In the Deep South, we pretty much call all of these cobbler; except the Pandowdy, ive seen that called Skillet Pie.
The old food pyramid also didn't differentiate between healthy and unhealthy proteins. Fish, poultry, and beans were grouped together with red meat and processed meat. Dairy was also overemphasized as a healthy food group, whereas now we know it can contribute to heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
A Cool Guide To Melons
Trivia: True melons are all varieties of the same species "cucumis melo". The horned melon is not a true melon , but a separate related species in the same genus. The bitter melon and watermelon, however, are not even in the same genus as melons. The cucumber (cucumis sativus), is far more closely related to true melons than the watermelon is.
Yup! Allergic to melon, I can eat watermelon. Did not know that Gac Fruit was a melon.
Load More Replies...The Charentais melon is mostly eaten as an entrée in France. I highly recommend to eat it cut in half, filled with a liqueur glass of Pineau (a fortified wine from the same region) and with country ham. It's delicious. Source: I'm from Charente, and people traditionally eat it this way here (in family meals though, because everyday it's not that healthy, usually we just eat it alone ;) ).
in my half portuguese family, it's Porto instead of Pineau, or with fine slice of country ham... now i'm hungry ! :D
Load More Replies...I was in a supermarket buying melon when a woman asked me why they were called after a dead film star - Sharon Tate.
Who is putting Horned Melon (aka Kiwano) in fruit salad? It tastes like nothing, and has the texture of a loogie. Please don't ruin your fruit salad with this abomination.
I have about 12 cantaloupes slowly getting ripe in my garden. A friend has dibs on the first one ready!
I thought I knew my fruits but I have never even heard of half of these
A Cool Guide For Pumpkins/Squash Made By My Girlfriend In Preparation For Halloween, Hope You Enjoy!
Did you know that butternut squash, if pealed with a vegetable pealer, oozes a clear sap that is a terrible skin irritant and can cause mild to moderate skin blistering? Ask me how I know.....
I did know that ...and I learned the same way you did. Sensitive skin sucks. :(
Load More Replies...Gah. The combination of too-high jpeg compression and a small cursive font makes this extremely hard to read. Line art and text should never be jpeg compressed!
Delicata is my favorite! I bake them and stuff them with couscous, Kale, cranberries and walnuts. Perfect for autumn.
Load More Replies...A Cool Guide To KFC's Secret Recipe?
I thought it was just chicken grease + salt. Any other Futurama fans out there?
OUR ANCESTORS CAME OVER ON THE EGG SALAD SANDWICH!
Load More Replies...I've been to the KFC museum/first restaurant and they had spice containers set out from the original restaurant and these are not what they have on display. They included mace and buckwheat flour so I'm not sure who's fibbin'
Too funny. Me pulling containers out of the spice shelf.
Load More Replies...Who is dumb enough to believe there is a « secret recipe » ? This is junk food, just like Coca Cola. This is a marketing stunt to give the illusion of quality.
If only that was all they used🙄 KFC uses MSG. Love the taste but causes me to get severe migraine & vomiting.
This is the recipe (almost) from a Chicago Tribune story about the "secret" recipe and how it was found by the Colonel's nephew, Joe Ledington in a scrapbook of his late Aunt Claudia, (Sanders' second wife), that had 1/3rd more salt & dry oregano otherwise the same. Mix spice mix with 2 cups flour, soak chicken in buttermilk & beaten egg, coat once in the mixture, rest pieces for 20 minutes, deep fry in oil @ 350° F 15 mins. Fry too long will overpower the taste of the spices. The Tribune taste testers said it came very close to the Colonel's and the addition a 12th spice, Accent (MSG) made it virtually indistinguishable from KFC's. I tried making it minus buttermilk - it was almost KFC's. I'll try again with the buttermilk, 1/2 tsp MSG and maybe a little mace/nutmeg as hinted above (I think that's a missing 13th). I have to add, just the spice mix alone - with the white pepper and other spices -makes a wonderful seasoning for grilling meat and seafood... a great "secret" seasoning.
So just the most generic fried chicken ever. I don't understand how this was a "secret". It's not even good fried chicken.
The pyramid's upgrade, the MyPyramid project, was too vague, according to Harvard's School of Public Health. They emphasized the importance of physical activity, veggies were almost as important as grains, but oils were still demonized and there were no explanations about wholegrains and dairy.
Cook The Perfect Egg
I'm not generally fond of one trick pony gadgets, but I like my egg boiler
I got a dirt cheap one. It was £2.50 (about $3.20) and it's one of the best things ever. Works brilliantly and I swear by it. So much cheaper to run than boiling a pan of water.
Load More Replies...That cold start/hot start pic is nonsense. Eggs peel better or worse based on the age of the egg. In new eggs the membrane is far stickier and peels worse. The older the egg, the easier they peel. The temp of the water to start doesn't affect it.
Amen! As a flock owner, I can attest to this fact.
Load More Replies...How on earth do they count the time for the bottom picture? My hard-boiled eggs take 8 minutes from when water starts to boil
Why does every recipe for hard boiled eggs say to start them in unheated water though?
Because of the picture that started this thread.
Load More Replies...I always start my eggs in cold water, and they never look messed up. I think the ones on the left were not peeled properly. When your eggs are done cooking, pour the hot water off, add cool water, pour that off, add more cool water, gently smack the eggs against the botoom of the pan (in the water) to crack them, let them sit for a couple of minutes, then peel them. Alternately, place the cooked eggs in a food storage container with some water, put the lid on and violently shake the container, then peel them. My cousin does it the second way. I have nothing against that method, I just like cracking them individually; I think I enjoy the sensory input.
4 minutes with salt and little strips of various types of bread in an egg cup. Yum!
I eat tons of hard boiled eggs, the best way is start off with boiling water, add eggs boil for 13 minutes then ice bath for 15 minutes. Peel immediately and the shells just fall off I can peel 18 eggs in less than 5 minutes this way
I'm going to try this, I've yet to get a perfectly peeled boiled egg.
Load More Replies...I don't have an issue boiling eggs, just getting the blasted shell off!
Also how high (altitude) you are, when you cook them 😅🙈 my 3 min eggs usually take 5 min 30 seconds.
Load More Replies...A Cool Guide To Place Settings
The informal is my formal, normally it's on the couch with a fork and a movie.
The "formal" on this chart scares the hell out of me.
Load More Replies..."Just start from the outside, and work your way in" - Molly Brown, to Jack.
I’ve never seen this level of stuff used anywhere. I feel like you would only see this dining w royalty at an important celebration
Load More Replies...My folks raised me to set up the informal table 3times a day every day for years. To the extreme of them measuring the distances with a ruler. These days I only do it for guests or holidays but I do love an artistic, thoughtful tablescape with beautiful plates, stemware, candles or flowers, etc.
I just use a spork from KFC to avoid the confusion. It also comes with a napkin and little salt and pepper packets so I don't need to worry about shakers.
I have never dined in a formal setting where all the plates would have been set on the table. I suppose that's how they do it in Downton Abbey, but usually when this level of formality is involved, they bring you the food plated rather than in a serving dish.
From An Old New Hampshire Cook Book!
I have seen an old cookbook with a recipe for cooking venison. First ingredient: One deer! It didn't say the number of servings, but I imagine you could feed quite a lot of friends with a whole deer.
But you get >2 rolls per person, makes up for the coffee deficit. And you can have my oysters
I can imagine there would probably be a LOT of "trading", just like we did at lunchtime in grade school/elementary school! ;) "Here, you can have my bag of Snack-Ens if I can have half of your sandwich..."
Load More Replies...In 1890, that might have been enough caffeine for the average human XD these days, we require MUCH more! /jk
Load More Replies...This reminds me of an article in an Australian Scouting magazine that listed the amounts of food provided for the first Jamboree.
I have a similar cookbook that has been passed down through the family. It's about 200 years old (older, I actually think), and besides recipes (spelled 'Reciepts') it has home remedies from stain removal to curing ailments. I guess that I'll have it donated to a library or something once I'm gone because no one else in the family is interested.
Today, the USDA food pyramid is actually a plate, similar to a pie chart. The biggest chunks are dedicated to vegetables and grains, with foods and protein taking second place. Dairy is off to the side, emphasizing that it has to be low-fat or fat-free.
Harvard University has its own version of the plate. It's similar to USDA's, but they stress the importance of wholegrains, healthy protein, healthy oils, water, and staying active.
A Cool Guide To Dried Chilis From Cooks Country
Sadly mexican cooking ingredients are almost unavailable in Australia outside of capital cities. Even online I'd have to order restaurant quantities to get anything.
The "New Mexican" is the ripe version of green chile, it's called red chile. It's made into decorative bunches called ristras & then ground into power that is used to make red chile sauce.
I remember when I lived in New Mexico, USA, and they would roast chiles everywhere. It has to be the best smell in the world!!!
A Cool Guide To Choose The Right Salt
Also smoked salt, and there's a lot more flavored salt that doesn't have a lot of artificial stuff
Load More Replies...Of all of these, only table salt normally has iodine added. If you don’t have other dietary sources of iodine, don’t eschew the table salt! Iodine is essential for thyroid health!
I love chicken salt! I'm in the USA but order Anchor (Australian) "Chippy" chicken salt a lot! If you've never had it, you're missing out!
Load More Replies...fragile is the right word for the fleur de sel, cost a fortune and doesn't salt anything
Cool Potato Guide For Beginners
That is just three types of potatoes. Not all "red" potatoes are for salads. There are thousands registered potatoes. By "thousands" I mean that I can order over 4000 variants. Do you want them big, small, round, weird, yellow skin, red skin, white,... for quick consumption or for long storage?
Never heard of them. Then again I'm from the world of the Bidtstar, Bintje and Elgenheimer.
I'm not much of a cook, so I prepare all potatoes the same way - baked in the oven. I really like the red ones.
Try this super easy recipe for your red potatoes! Slice potatoes about 1/4 in thick. Put in a bowl and coat with bottled Italian salad dressing (or use any oil-based dressing) then lay slices on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 25 minutes, flip slices over, and continue baking until both sides are crispy, about 20 minutes. Makes a great side dish for a barbeque. You can use any kind of potato, they'll all taste great!
Load More Replies...Nadine potatoes are red but yellow inside. And always mash well. Yum.
I prefer to use red potatoes for baked potatoes. I hate the skin on russets; it's always gritty, no matter how well you scrub it.
A russet falls apart when making chips. The red rooster is better for them
In the end, there's no ultimate guide about healthy eating, as health and science journalist Kristen V. Brown writes for Bloomberg. "The truth is that we are still learning about what makes people lose, gain and maintain weight. And as we learn, the guidelines will probably change, too."
The Only Wine Chart You'll Ever Need
This may be typical, but not accurate. The vintner can make almost any wine dryer or sweeter.
If one is looking for a dryer or sweet wine in general, this is a good breakdown. But there will be dryer/sweeter variations within each family, vintage, area of grape harvest, kind of fermenting process, etc. Even the type of pollinators for the grape plants can impact the dry/sweet component of a particular year's grape harvest.
Load More Replies...That makes no sense at all. The sweetness of any wine is 99% due to the process and not the cepage. This is pure misinformation.
They're conflating sugar content with aromatic fruitiness. There are dessert-style fully sweet (sugary) wines of nearly all of these grapes: Sangiovese (occhio di pernice vin santo), or chenin blanc (vouvray moelleux). There are non-sweet Rieslings (German Trocken or Grosses Gewachs). Moscato /Muscat can range from dry (not sweet) to off-dry (Moscato d'Asti) to fully sweet (Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise). This chart is meaningless.
i want to try an actual ice wine. I've had ice wine tea that was delicious. My favourite wine, though, is Riesling.
Ice wine is AMAZING. I hope you get a chance to try it someday! I'm not a huge wine fan at all, but ice wine is absolute perfection (any dessert wine is, honestly.)
Load More Replies...I miss my Grüner Veltliner, Gelber Muskateller, Spätrot Rotgipfler, Roter Veltliner, Uhudler and Schilcher ... 😅
Don't refer to the 'sweetness' of a red in Europe unless you are drinking an American wine. You will be judged.
I believe with red, you use the term full-bodied instead of dry, but seems pretty accurate. The sweet end of both lists makes me shudder.
Not sure I'd put garnacha as drier than zin because I've had some pretty dry zins from Cali and they are really good.
Ok Now You Know
In Southern California, we used to have a dairy company (farm?) called Broguiere's. They were a small dairy company. They had some of the BEST chocolate milk and eggnog I've ever had in my entire life. The company got bought out and no longer has its own dairy herd, and the products are not the same any more :(
My father used to work at the Hood plant in Binghamton, back when it was still Crowley Foods!
The milk I use comes from oats and is much better for you, the environment and the poor cows whose babies are taken from them within an hour of birth so you, you poor uneducated human, can drink its milk. Humans are the only species to drink the milk of another animal.
Vegetable Cooking Times
Don't know about bell pepper, but a mushroom soup is delicious
Load More Replies...One of my favorite comfort foods is sautéed potatoes with onions and sausage. Plus…..hash browns are a thing lol
Load More Replies...Who on earth boils broccoli for 10-15 minutes? Yumi apparently, but what on earth has Yumi been smoking? That is way too long for broccoli, that completely ruins them. Yuck. This makes me seriously doubt the rest of the chart.
Honestly, this is the worst advice I've ever seen, the whole chart.
Load More Replies...You can also bake beets and they come out very tasty that way. I usually make them into a salad after they are baked.
I roast almost all veggies. Golden Beets are especially tasty!
Load More Replies...Yumi is making some pretty mushy veggies at her house. It may be Yumi, but it's not yummy.
Big 'pine mushrooms' where I lived, a slice was like a steak for vegetarians.
A Cool Guide To How To Cook Different Kinds Of Rice
Yeah, not really a delicate flavour. And I think the texture is also a very important characteristic. I add them for texture more than for taste, the texture is so heavenly, and so completely different from other rices (probably because it's not actually rice).
Load More Replies...Long- and medium-grain rices are absolutely NOT for risotto. Risotto needs a short-grain rice.
Would be nice to include info about varieties like basmati, jasmine, sticky, etc.
Wild rice is not a rice, it's a species of grass! There are literally dozens of types of rice, and we in the western world are inlikely to see many of them, but if you live in SE Asia you will have a greater choice.
Writing as person of northern Italian background, NEVER EVER **EVER** use a long grain rice for Risotto! NOT EVER! The **ONLY** rice you should **EVER** use is the short grained (almost spherical) Arborio rice! I suppose (says she reluctantly) you *could*, at a *pinch*, use either Carnaroli, or Vialone Nano rice, but trust me - you're far better off with Arborio!
Cooking times, but no water amounts. Different rices, require different amounts.
I LOVE wild rice! (I love all rice actually) but wild rice is so damned expensive. It's like $8 US for a 16 oz box and white rice is like $5 for a metric ton! LOL!
Black rice is missing. It makes a delicious sweet rice pudding.
A Cool Guide To Banana Types
Shame there’s no taste guide. Which is the sweetest? Where are they grown?
Well, the gros michel used to be widely available and is what banana candy tastes like. Then a fungus wiped out a lot of them. They're hard to find now; the Cavendish is what you most commonly see on store shelves nowadays.
Load More Replies...I really want to try a gros michel. They were the main banana export until the 1950's, and most banana flavoring used in foods is still based on their flavor.
The Blue Java isn't actually THAT blue, just a little greenish-blueish. Most photos on the internet are enhanced to make it seem more interesting. https://brisbaneediblegardening.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/blue-java.jpg?w=622
Does the macho plantain go around starting fights with the regular plantain?
Such a pity 90% of what's in the shops are Cavendish, to me they are dry and fluffy feeling in the mouth. I've had small ones in Asia (dunno which ones, but maybe Pisang raja or gold finger) they are moist and firm and so much tastier.
I always get the Chiquita bananas. They have their name on with a sticker.
Still hanging in there. This from Wiki- Panama disease, a wilt caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense, wiped out vast tracts of Gros Michel plantations in Central America, though it is still grown on non-infected land throughout the region.[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana
Load More Replies...Cooking Conversions
In the metric system, everything is measured in increments of 10. 1kg of water = 1 liter of water = a cube 10cm per side. Water boils at 100 degrees C, and freezes at 0 degrees. But feel free to keep your 5,280 ft in a mile, 3 feet in a yard, 16 ounces in a pound, 8 fl oz in a cup, etc.
Load More Replies...And 31 gallons to a barrel of beer. There are different numbers for things other than beer (wine, crude oil etc.). Each substance has its own barrel size. What fun.
Load More Replies...I thought 20 drops to the ml so 100 drops for a teaspoon?
Nope. Metric does not compute. They started saying when I was in 3rd grade we were going to chaito the metric system and 55 years later we still haven't and probably never will.
Best Rated Cheese Dishes
Exactly. Just Some dude, I'm guessing. Quite a few of these dishes are just disgusting pub food and most of my favorite ways to eat cheese are missing. The USA, one of the world's most vast cheese markets, is represented by cheese fries, curds and mozzarella sticks. Puke.in.my.mouth. I eat good cheese every day, but I'm not eating this garbage.
Load More Replies...the idea of cheese fries being above paneer makhani and arepa de queso is a crime....
Palak paneer is a long way down too.
Load More Replies...Aggreed, I can eat Raclette any day of the year. However I don't trust this list one bit.
Load More Replies...How To Cook Bacons
I genuinely tried being vegetarian once and it was bacon that brought me back. (Now I’m flexitarian, which means I eat vegetarian for half or most of my meals and only have meat a few times a week - it’s been the most easy diet to maintain so far because I love veg recipes and health benefits but I also love meat!)
Load More Replies...None of these are correct because it's not crumbling into pieces. :p
I wish I knew my mom's secret technique to how she cooked bacon when I was a kid. All I can really remember is we had a really deep pan-thing (almost a wok) and she would stick the bacon on the "sides" to start with, and then when some of the bacon fat melted and ran into the bottom of the pan, she would push the bacon down into it. Cooked for idk how long, then right out onto a paper towel to pat some of the grease off. She somehow could cook it to the PERFECT crispness. I have NEVER had better bacon in my entire life. The "sous vide" bacon LOOKS the closest, physically speaking. My mom is a terrible person and the #1 abuser in my life (still!) but man could she cook bacon XD
where's the proper, back bacon though. this is all just fat with minuscule threads of meat in it.
I usually use the oven method. I do have a sous vide, I'll have to try it.
A Cool Guide To Eggplant Varieties
I gotta be honest, I thought the largest one would be the African Eggplant. 😉
It would be nice if this graphic also stated what makes each of these different other than appearance…
I have never understood how the aubergine emoji is meant to resemble a male member. That's not what they look like! Only the Chinese variety shows a resemblence.
Chinese eggplant is also called elephant tusk. Then we have grafitti eggplant, and the regular white eggplant that gave us eggplant's name
And I thought they were all Indian eggplants. Too many eggplant dishes in family involving too many kinds of ‘brinjals’.
So that's where the name in Portuguese (beringela) comes from!
Load More Replies...I have never even seen those two on the left. I am mostly familiar with no. 3./ 4. The Chinese variety is seasonally available at my local supermarket, but it's expensive.
A Cool Guide Of What 1500 Calories Look Like At The Most Famous Fast Food Restaurants
I'm a little annoyed. As a Southerner, calling Hardee's "Carl's Jr." is borderline sacrilegous.
Load More Replies...The calorie counts on some of these don't bother me so much as the sugar content. The orders from Dunkin' or Tim Horton's would put me into a Diabetic coma, and I don't have Diabetes.
This is why I stick to things like kids' meals when I go to these places. Smaller portions but a little bit of all the things you want.
As a proud midwesterner, the fact that they don't have Culver's is killing my soul
Culver’s is absolutely the best fast-food burger!
Load More Replies...Which one are you looking at? I can eat an entire chipotle burrito in a sitting but I couldn’t eat most of these
Load More Replies...I'd like to point out that you can eat fast food in moderation on a normal 2000 calorie diet, and this chart kinda proves that so long as you skip the stuff like desserts. Some of these are pretty egregious though.
I have to wonder how they figure out calories for such complex dishes.
16 Different Ways To Cook A Turkey
No. I prefer to use a flamethrower, faster and more effective.
Load More Replies...You CAN safely deep fry a turkey: place the turkey in the pot while it's empty, fill with water. Remove turkey and measure how much water is in the pot. That's how much oil you'll need. No more spills of boiling oil and fires! 😋👉🍗
I was getting ready to comment that you absolutely should not “fill” the pot with oil! That creates spillage and pain.
Load More Replies...Just don’t bother, it’s not a tasty meat, if it wasn’t for Christmas no one would eat it. Honestly, other than Christmas when did you last think, oh must get a turkey?
In the US, turkeys are more strongly associated with Thanksgiving than Christmas. So for us, the last time we thought “must get a turkey” would have been before Thanksgiving last year. Also, if you think turkey isn’t tasty, you probably have had only dry, overcooked, underseasoned white meat. As with chicken, the dark meat is more flavorful and moist, and the whole thing absolutely needs to be cooked no longer than necessary. And proper seasoning is a must as well.
Load More Replies...Trash can! Best method! (No I don't mean throw it away you can legitimately cook a turkey in a trash can.)
Smoked turkey is my favourite. I had it the other night with salad
It’s a preparation method, and prep is part of the cooking process.
Load More Replies...Donut & Wine Pairings
Donuts and wine…American food horror stories I’m too European to get.
As an American, this sounds disgusting to me as well. I don't know if this is an American thing as I've never heard of it. But then again, I've never heard of a lot of the crazy isht people do here either.
Load More Replies...I applaud the self sacrifice that went into this research, but have these results been peer reviewed and duplicated?
I have done a cupcake and wine pairing (I live in the Western Cape in South Africa which is a big wine region) that was surprisingly good. Not sure about donuts and wine. Pretty sure it is only a matter of time before a local winery tries this.
I am not eating a sour cream donut with Prosecco! That definitely needs a Sauvignon Blanc.
Cooking Oil Smoke Points
Different category. Butter is an animal product. The chart says cooking oils. Just sayin....
Load More Replies...This chart is wrong. I'm not even gonna waste the time to rearrange it to be accurate, but it is just wrong. I have no idea where the data came from, but I truly believe someone just guessed. So very.wrong. do not use this as a reference.
Most of avocado oil bought in the United States is adulterated with all kinds of other stuff. So if this was done with American avocado oil that wouldn't even be close.
Salmon Cuts Guide From My Grocery Store
That's what they are calling "bites". Never used that term in Alaska, but the collar meat usually goes with the head.
Load More Replies...A Cool Guide To Sushi Etiquette
I've lived in Japan for over 25 years. Where I live, I never see signs like this. The only one you absolutely do not do is the last one. NEVER ever ever stick your chopsticks upright in your rice bowl (for the dead), don't pass food from chopsticks to chopsticks (that's how you pass the bones around after cremation at a Japanese funeral ... and yes, been there, done that). Death taboos are very strong. Although, it's not like Grandma's gonna beat you with a stick. They'll just say don't do it. As for mixing wasabi and soy sauce? That's how my inlaws always did it, and they were very traditional. Some of the others aren't really taboos. It's just easier to eat sushi if you do it the right way.
Up vote for accuracy, and when I lived in Japan I always mixed soy and wasabi and still do.
Load More Replies...Why not mix wasabi and soy sauce? I was literally told to do that by a Japanese woman
While I agree, I also think it is nice to play along with the customary rules, especially in a more traditional eatery.
Load More Replies...within 30 seconds? is it frowned upon to enjoy and savour your food?!
More like “how not to eat sushi”. There’s not a single suggestion of what you should do.
Some of the sushi places around me serve nigiri portions that are simply too big to eat in one bite.
Fried Eggs By Fat Used, Pan Type, And How Fully Cooked!
Mmmmm eggs medium easy in bacon fat, and the bacon wrapped in the toast to wipe up the yolk. Add coffee and fruit, and Bob's your uncle (unless you don't have an Uncle Bob).
Agreed - bacon-fat-cooked eggs are the best thing on the planet. If one does not have bacon fat around, butter is the only acceptable replacement, IMO XD I'm also a fan of extremely-sunny-side-up eggs with some bread nearby to soak up the extra yolk <3
Load More Replies...People getting their grease too hot, that's why the eggs are burned on the edge.
they all look burned around the edges, except the butter and water one. and they all have bubbles that suggest they were cooked on too high a heat
A Cool Guide I Found About Cooking Steak In Landers
Surely the thickness of the steak affects how long you need to cook it?
Of course it does. Charts like this are made by people who have never cooked.
Load More Replies...This contradicts the previous guide. On that one, I would have chosen medium rare. This one I would chose medium.
This is a terrible guide and I hope nobody ever uses this. It depends on thickness and cooking temperature. Direct heat is great for searing or thin cuts, but will give you a brown well done ring on the outside. Use indirect heat first and sear at the end 10-15 degrees below your target temperature for done Ness, or a reverse sear sear first. Always pull five degrees below target temperature for carry over cooking as the heat from the outside balances with the inside temp. So I pull at 120-125 for medium rare and let sit for five minutes.
I don't know why there is anything else than "rare" on the scale? and what about "bleu"?
Once I got a sous vide, I haven't cooked it any other way. Makes even cheap steak taste awesome.
Nah, just give it to me, I'll give it a good home... in my belly ;)
Load More Replies...Guide To Types Of Fiddleheads For Cooking
I've never heard of fiddlehead, only pikopiko, but I am guessing it's the same thing for different flora zones? Meaning these are young fern shoots(growths), and are edible
Load More Replies...The fiddleheads we eat in Alaska taste slightly sweet and crisp like good celery with a slight lemon aftertaste when fresh, but they become mossy/wood flavored as they start to unfurl.
Load More Replies...We do in the spring time in New England, USA. Mostly ostrich ferns. I boil mine, then sauté in butter. They taste something like asparagus.
Load More Replies...I ate fiddleheads at a restaurant by the beach in Nova Scotia - delicious!
The most important thing is to collect the fiddleheads yourself, and know what species of fern you are collecting. Some species will make you sick, so it'll they don't taste good from a sample bite, spit it out. Ferns should be safe without having to cook, or you are risking food poisoning.
A Cool Guide For Air Frying
It doesn't mention what wattage is in use, but these times seem way off. After 16 minutes at 400°, French fries would be reduced to charcoal briquettes in my air fryer.
A Cool Guide To The Cooking Oils
Refined "industrial" oils are actually best for some purposes. Bonus fact: canola oil is the same thing as rapeseed oil.
Though Coconut oil is no superfood, sorry. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-there-a-place-for-coconut-oil-in-a-healthy-diet-2019011415764
Canola and corn oil are the the best for deep frying. My great-granny used corn oil her whole life, ocassionally deep fried stuff, and lived to be 95. I think I'll take my chances.
We can't use the fingers to widen the photos anymore so l have to download whatever chart l want to read. Please BP think of the long sighted, presbyopic old bags here.
It might be your device, or browser, that isn't allowing zoom; I can zoom BP on mine. Try long-pressing on the photo and choosing "Preview Image". You should be able to zoom from there.
Load More Replies...I wish there was more posts about cooking/food and less about stupid celebs and what to buy on amazon kinda shít.
This is an awesome article! I've saved this & taken some screen shots for reference. Best I've ever seen for all round food articles. Hats off to all the contributors!
We can't use the fingers to widen the photos anymore so l have to download whatever chart l want to read. Please BP think of the long sighted, presbyopic old bags here.
It might be your device, or browser, that isn't allowing zoom; I can zoom BP on mine. Try long-pressing on the photo and choosing "Preview Image". You should be able to zoom from there.
Load More Replies...I wish there was more posts about cooking/food and less about stupid celebs and what to buy on amazon kinda shít.
This is an awesome article! I've saved this & taken some screen shots for reference. Best I've ever seen for all round food articles. Hats off to all the contributors!
