Soapy water won’t strip the seasoning off a cast iron pan
Much like it won’t remove the polymerized fat off a steel pan
It’s all about the abrasives in either case. For a steel pan a baking soda paste is very effective as it is abrasive and the alkaline pH will help make any fats water soluble (by turning them into soap!). I’ve even used it to clean ovens! It’s not as quick acting as Easy Off (which is pretty much just lye in an aerosol can) but it’s way less nasty. Easy Off is also very effective at stripping seasoning from cast iron if that’s a thing you want to do.
Really dumb simple thing but it’s interesting how long it’s taken me (over 40 years) to understand the whole leverage thing you get by pressing the tip of a kitchen knife hard into the cutting board while you guide the blade down on what you’re shoving underneath. Like, instead of applying the pressure directly and awkwardly to each thing you’re cutting, attack the fuck out of the board and cut the things as a secondary effect, and it’s so much more even and easily controlled.
Just be careful with fingers. Proper technique and all.
The added alkalinity of the baking soda makes the difference in my experience, it is a poor abrasive on its own yeah. I wouldn’t use it on something that I didn’t know was lipid-based.
I will step in here and say the tip of the knife should never leave the board with proper technique! Knives cut things from slashing rather than from blunt impact so keeping the tip to the board and sliding the knife forward and down as you cut is not only safer but better on the edge and more effective
I keep my knife tip touching the board when I’m rough-chopping herbs but I think “never should it leave” is a bit too prescriptive. So long as you have a sharp knife, you’re holding it properly, and you’re not forcing the knife straight down (the less force used to cut the better, which is why sharpness is safety)
Yeah I mean that’s fair you CAN do other things, but I think it’s a pretty good rule to follow for at minimum safety especially when learning. Cause if your knife never leaves the board and you curl your fingers on your off hand you are gonna be fine
Obviously there are things too large for this or knives like bread knives where you wouldn’t cut like that but generally I think it’s a thing people should be doing
I never, ever cooked anything more complex than packaged ramen before I was 19. My mom would never have taught me any of that, since me learning something would have meant that I didn’t need her to do it anymore, and my dad was just…not a great cook. Not terrible, but didn’t care that much. So when I really tried to get better at about 23, here are a couple of things that helped me a lot:
I got good at some very basic recipes and did them over and over. Chicken and Dumplings was my go-to for a while, and grilled cheese sandwiches (make 'em fancy). You’d be surprised at how much you can learn from the basics when you literally never cooked anything before the age of 19.
Have a backup plan for when something goes wrong. And by backup plan, I mean “something frozen that you can make because the chicken is raw and now raw chicken is all over your stir fry”.
You can eat breakfast food any time!! Learn to scramble an egg real good. Sautee up some vegetables (I like to grate brussels sprouts and throw in some diced onions and just sautee it for like 8 minutes) and put it on toast. Soft boiling eggs is kinda fun. Stuff like that. It taught me, again, a ton of baaaaasic shit, and was super helpful for other shit
ALWAYS DOUBLE THE SPICES IN RECIPES FROM FOOD BLOGS. People who run food blogs think ketchup is spicy. People who run food blogs seem to be 90% white people from Portland. Double the spices.
Use lots of fat in everything, it makes it taste better. Something’s not to your liking? add more {fat of choice}.
Yeah but like, not every spice is spicy!! You can put more than 1/8 tsp of Cumin in something, y’know?
I am pretty sensitive to spiciness myself, took me like 5 years to get to the level of eating something alicia considers “a little spicy” hahaaa
but these blogs that are like “put 1/4 tsp salt” dawg nobody’s gonna taste that, put more fucken salt in, and yes i realize salt is not a spice but still
putting barely enough spice in something is a waste, i’d rather overdo it.
I’ve been cooking since i was 12 because neither of my parents can cook and I learned how to feed myself cheaply
Re: food blogs, just don’t read them at all. Food blogs are all written by people who don’t mind spending 4 hours making something that tastes like nothing but photographs well
Food blogs are for people who like the idea of self identifying as people who cook but would be completely lost when faced with a pile of ingredients and no recipes on hand.
Just buy or pirate a cookbook that doesn’t have pictures in it.
photographs should be no more than 20% of a cookbook, and they should only serve to illustrate techniques.
no definitely use food blogs, just skip all their stupid words. some of them are real good, especially the ones that are like “BUSY MOM VEGAN” kinda shit. despite the yuck of the actual words attached to the recipe, they’re usually like, super straightforward and taste good because what kid is gonna eat vegan food?? it better taste good. here’s a good recipe if you’ve got an instant pot and are vegan/vegetarian (use real butter if you’re not vegan):
(also you don’t have to use those specific mushrooms, just get like, regular mushrooms and maybe some baby bellas)
i mean, food blogs won’t get you everywhere. i also recommend Basically recipes from Bon Appetit for the beginning cook, they’re simple but they taste very fucken good. This has become a staple for me and you literally don’t even have to cut anything, and it should cost like 7 bucks to make 4 servings. (use anchovy paste instead of real anchovies)
this recipe is awesome, it also crashes my podcast player because it has a ton of super informative mini-videos for every single step and takes up too much memory on my phone. it’s worth crashing my podcast player for the videos.
