How do I actually get better at cooking at home?

>>8417068
Cook at home, fail, cook at home again until you get good.

learn technique/ratios over recipes.

You know how I good at Counter Strike? I played almost all day for years. But you can only cook a couple meals a day, if that. And most of the time you are just chopping. So, it's a slow process.

prepare something dead simple to boost your confidence and keep going.

Aglio olio pasta for instance.

>>8417068
Practice to improve your skills and technique.

Watch experts cook and pay attention do what they do and why. This is easy with Youtube & various streaming services.

Learn about and seek out better ingredients. (note: better does not necessarily mean more expensive)

Never stop trying to improve. I'll sometimes make multiple versions of a dish and make myself blind-taste-test them to determine which changes were for the better and which were not.

Challenge yourself with new things. For example, my weak point is baking. I do an awful lot of cooking but hardly any baking. Lately I've been picking a bread recipe, once a week, at random from a cookbook I bought & then trying that recipe out until I get it right.

Another example: I often cook for my roommates. They pitch in to buy ingredients and I do the work. A couple years ago I had a roommate who kept Kosher. While I personally don't follow that restriction, I learned a lot trying to make my favorite dishes without being able to use pork in them.

>>8417068
don't grip the knife nor the vegetable as that picture shows

>>8417085
>But you can only cook a couple meals a day, if that

If you're serious about it (the same way that some people are serious about their gaming) you can cook many things in one day.

A "meal" could consist of several separate dishes. A typical dinner could have you cooking at least one vegetable dish, at least one starch, a protein-based "main dish", bread, and perhaps a dessert.

You can also cook extra and share the excess with friends/neighbors, give it to the needy, or just throw it out all in the name of bettering your skills.

I think buying and cooking from an americas test kitchen/cooks illustrated book is a good start: think taking an authoritative-sciencey approach as your core base of understanding and comfort in the kitchen is fine, but expanding from there towards an understanding of different, regional/international cuisines either classically (examples being Julia Child, Marcella Hazan) or more contemporarily (Rick Bayless, Fuscia Dunlop, Martin Tan, Zuni cafe, Mario Batali, Keller's Ad-Hoc, Maangchi), checking out more chef-driven methods that express a particularly unique perspective or have a distinct voice (April Bloomfield, Yotam Ottolenghi, Lucky Peach, Fergus Henderson); the fun of this is that by taking a perspective based approach, it allows you to draw inspiration from wherever without judgement, even someone like Guy Fieri might be able to contribute interesting ideas with regards to American comfort food. You can also expand by exploring different cooking techniques (smoking, sous vide, baking, fermenting, offal cooking) or even expand your knowledge on beverages like exploring craft beer/wine/cocktails. Also maybe challenging yourself with a more cheffy restaurant-book like the Bar Tartine books, or Sean brock's Heritage or Andy Richter's Pok Pok or the new Del Posto book. Keeping up with developments in the food world, either with magazines (Lucky Peach, Cook's Illustrated, Bon Appetite) or websites (Food52, Serious Eats that isn't just the food lab) is also a good way to inject fresh perspectives into your cooking.

Also under-recommended is to taste more of what other people are cooking. Order a dish at a restaurant that you've never tried because it looks interesting. Actively analyze what you eat when you go out and try and pick up on flavor combinations that are interesting or exciting. Maybe spend money on a fancy tasting menu place to see what professional kitchens are doing.

For technique, Chefsteps is a good starting point. I got the premium membership for free since i ordered joule when it first came out. Alot of their step by step stuff is solid for technique.

On a other note: thomas keller is great for technique and creative elements.

Batali is great for flavor but not technique (he's a bit sloppy).

Also watching old grannies cook on youtube helps, old school ways of cooking certain dishes are much better.

My weak point for example is presentation, i suck at that so what i do is plan out ahead of time and draw out what i think a dish should be plated as and going from there. I take pics and compare with myself and a few friends of mine that are in the culinary field.

>>8417102
kek

>>8417068
OP here, btw I'm a vegan.

>>8417068
buy expensive guatemalan knifes

>>8417068
Practice, experiment, and watch experts.

File: Gentle-chef-seitan-and-beyond-cookbook-images02.jpg (652KB, 1600x961px) Image search: [Google]

652KB, 1600x961px

>>8417607
>vegan

It mostly doesn't matter:

1. COOK EVERY DAY. No matter what, if you cook every day, you will get better at it over time, if through no other method than trial and error. You're vegan, so use a very simple recipe site like The Vegan Stoner.

2. SERIOUSLY, JUST COOK EVERY DAY. If you don't know what to do, find some easy recipes on youtube or a blog or something. Just give it a whack at. If you suck, re-read the recipe and figure out why. If you don't know how to do something, I guarantee you can find a Youtube video that explains it in excruciating detail (even basic stuff like learning how to cut an onion different ways, how to peal/mince ginger and garlic, how to properly caramelize an onion).

3. PLAY WITH THE RECIPES. So you can follow a couple of recipes now? Good! Now, try to start learning WHY they work. Try and find out what parts are essential and which parts are optional, and try modifying recipes to suit your tastes. When you think you know the basic concept and method, try making it without a recipe.

4. LEARN HOW TO FOOD. Learn how to make and use a roux in sauces, how to make stock from mirepoix and other vegetable bases, etc. This means learning different techniques, ratios, heuristics. Since you're vegan, in addition to those, you may need specialty cookbooks to show you how to make things like mock meat, butter, and cheese (Miyoko Schinner has respected books on cultured nut cheeses, but Skye Michael Conroy puts out more traditional methods for producing things like seitan and cheese and butter, that in my experience are more reliable). Seitan and Beyond (pic related) and Non-Dairy Evolution Cookbook are good places to start. My Sweet Vegan is a tried-and-true recipe book.

5. BRANCH OUT. Try making recipes from other cultures; try 'veganizing' recipes using your knowledge of cooking techniques, or at least your ability to recognize when animal-based ingredients are superfluous

>>8417758
This
for example. look at this guys doing japanese curry.
https://youtu.be/7emvnX9RT1A
now change the meat with tofu and you can add some beans for flavor and consistency.