I don't want to compare him to Alton Brown, but he has a cookbook that really changed the methods I used to cook. Like Brown, he puts a great deal of empahsis on the science of cooking. Even something as simple as making a perfect poached egg by using a small strainer (this video is a presentation he did at google HQ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk_IKBPkGSg and his book is presently the number one selling cookbook on amazon. http://smile.amazon.com/The-Food-Lab-Cooking-Through/dp/0393081087?sa-no-redirect=1

Yeah, definitely someone who has to understand how and why beforehand. I never liked cooking because I'd follow the recipe and it'd never turn out the same. Someone bought me Food Lab (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_XMGSK40Z92KSBKPG5ZTS) and it went into such great detail as to WHY meat tastes better when salting it first and how to properly cook potatoes. Now I love cooking. So yeah, I definitely understand needing to know more than just the steps to the answer.

If you’re willing to spend a little money, buy The Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez Alt. It is amazing. It’s a beautiful book with detailed documentation of experimentation with various methods / times / ingredients.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_.GhIAb1F6S6CG

Edit: misspelled dude’s name

Here is a nice backgrounder on the sciency side of the chemical effects - and it should be a basic part of your understanding of salt effects. The Food Lab's chapter on the science of ground meat opened a whole new avenue of cooking fun for me, just by understanding why when you add how much salt to ground meat yields totally different products. You can generally access the basic ideas by googling "food lab", including the ground meat product you want to make as a google term, if you do not have access to the book. I commend buying it, because it is the kind of reference work that cries out for annotating and browsing.

...and now for a much less technical reasons: (1) salt lightly early on, because you may want to concentrate stuff down and (2) if there is some salt there, you can easily say, "that is under salted but what else does it need?" - with no salt on board the lack of salt is all you will notice.

Balance out final heat, acid, umami, finishing herb stuff, all of which can affect final salt preference, then correct the salt if needed.

Oh!!! I just read about this in The Food Lab!

Directly from the book: “Eggshells are porous: they lose about 4 microliters of water a day to evaporation while simultaneously taking air into the space between the sheep and the inner membrane near the fat end. In very fresh eggs, the air space is tiny and the egg will sink to the bottom of the bowl and lie on its side. As eggs get older, the air space will grow, so old eggs will sink and then stand on their points as the air in the larger end tries to rise. If you’ve got an egg that floats, it’s probably past it’s prime and should be discarded.”

The book really is an incredible read, whether you cook a lot or not. I would absolutely recommend it.

Edit: between the SHELL not sheep

Surprised no one has mentioned The Food Lab given how popular it is on Reddit. Not only is every recipe in it a certified banger, it also does a great job walking you through the scientific reasons behind each recipe, so in addition to the recipes in the book you gain a ton of skills and techniques applicable when coming up with your own recipes.

I got part one (part one!) of my gift this week! Not near my phone to take a picture, but it's this bad boy! I'm fucking stoked, I love Serious Eats and it's gonna be fucking awesome to have an actual physical cookbook I can leaf through instead of bullshit allrecipes and stupid mommy blogs where you have to read through twenty pages of stupid sanctimommy bullshit before you even get to the recipe!

And holy shit, it's HUGE! It talks about everything! There's chapters on pasta, steak, chicken, all the fun stuff! And there's conversion charts right inside the cover so I don't need to ask google how much a cup of flour weighs (for the thirtieth fucking time!)

I love it! <3

Ask yourself when you go out or eat out what do you get normally? Look up a video on/or google how to make it. Those Box meals like Hello Fresh are a great way to start cooking and learning what a healthy portion is for one. They send you the meat/veg/starch/spices along with a detailed recipe and instructions. I used them for a few months when I needed ideas.

The book The Food Lab is a great book for getting you started and explaining everything in a straightforward way. I love his recipes and suggestions.

Salt,Fat, Acid, Heat is a great book and also a show on Netflix. It helped me start think of food in a broader way rather than recipe to recipe.

I’ll say safe travels in your food journey. Its not as scary as it feels. Find one dish that you love to eat and keep trying till you love it when YOU make it.

Amazon Fire Premium Headphones work perfectly and are a good quality for the price. $15 to $20.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-KA416Y-Premium-Headphones/dp/B00HX0SRXW

Also, my experience tells me that if you bought some that didn't work they were probably designed for Apple products.

I worked briefly as a butcher and, as a rule, I thought all minced beef was the same, aside from the fat content (I didn't say I was a good butcher). Eye of Round vs. Brisket? They're both extra lean, right?

Nope. After reading an article Kenji had wrote about the different kinds of beef cuts, I learned that I could make my burgers exponentially more flavourful by mixing and matching cuts.

Kenji knows what's up, and I'm heavily considering buying his book on Amazon.

No, this isn't a paid/undisclosed promotion... but if Kenji wants to throw a couple bucks my way, I won't say no.

There is always room for improvement in any industry. Whether you're chasing that knowledge for yourself at home, receiving it in a classroom, or earning it on the fly in a professional setting. Just because you're self taught, does not take away from a bit of your credentials. Continue to work hard, follow your passions, ask questions, and learn from your mistakes. One of the best resources for a self-taught chef, is cookbooks. You can never have enough. I typically find ones that I'm interested in, and check my local libraries to see if they have them. I'll have them for a couple weeks, so I read them, cook from them, and study them during that time. If it's a valuable addition, I add it to the collection or to an Amazon wish list. I don't have any cookbook recommendations for sushi or sashimi in particular, but I do highly recommend The Food Lab as well as The Flavor Bible as a two of the best resources to any cook, ever. As for knives, it's not at all uncommon for BoH employees to rely on house knives, but it's considered it a lot more professional if you bring your own. I recommend browsing over at r/chefknives to get an idea of what you may be looking for.

Yeah, you can't go wrong with Kenji's recipes. If you don't have it already, I highly recommend his cookbook. You don't get it so much for the recipes in it (as most of his recipes are available on-line) but for the deeper understanding as to why recipes work and the little things you can do to really up your cooking game.

I personally do not have it, but Kenji Lopez Alt of Serious Eats has the book The Food Lab which may be exactly what you're looking for. I use Serious Eats blog all the time and a lot of the amazing recipes come with explanations for certain methods and what result you'd like to achieve and a little bit of the science behind it - it's not too heavy on the science details where you feel bogged down, but just very informative.

ATTENTION FOODIES

If you have a person in your life who likes to cook and you need an Xmas gift for them, The Food Lab is wicked cheap right now on Amazon. u/Tiglathpilesar and I both have that book and it was over $60 bucks when we bought it. It’s now $30. It is a doorstop heavy book (get the hardback) with gorgeous pictures and fascinating information on how to cook practically anything that isn’t related to baking.

It’s on sale for $20.92 at Amazon and Walmart.com if you weren’t aware already!!! Buy some more presents lol

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0393081087/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_W3WNFbR170YSA Arriving late November

http://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Food-Lab-Better-Home-Cooking-Through-Science-9780393081084/45762501 Arrives early November

J. Kenji López-Alt is basically meme-level revered at this point. You can check out his book, The Food Lab, for all of the objective info you are looking for. He has a ton of articles on www.seriouseats.com as well.

Kenji put this on deep discount - it's about half off:
https://smile.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=the+food+lab&amp;qid=1604267796&amp;sr=8-1

Don't forget to your use smile URL.

Well i know that SOME have been made but, i either can't find a review or they're discontinued.

Amazon Fire Earbuds

Samsung's

I think they're just rare.

J Kenji Lopez Alt’s book Food Lab is just like this!! The science behind different dishes and experimenting with different recipe parameters!

Thermapen is a great idea; in a related cooking vein this book is very highly regarded and uses science to explain and improve cooking https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-KA416Y-Premium-Headphones/dp/B00HX0SRXW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1468753935&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=fire+earphones
The sound on these is awesome, and the mic is very good although maybe a little too sensitive, just tuck it under your shirt to muffle it a bit.

the amazon headphones should work, and they are designed similarly to the iphone earbuds

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-KA416Y-Premium-Headphones/dp/B00HX0SRXW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1469800995&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=amazon+headphones

Amazon Earbuds are my favorite cheap earbuds. They sit in your ears pretty flush, so they're easy to lay on. Flat cable doesn't tangle too bad, and the buds themselves click together with magnets. Big fan of these.

Food Lab is LEGIT! been following Kenji on SeriousEats.com for a long time. Saw his book for the first time last weekend at B&N. $50 in the store!?! I just ordered it this morning on Amazon Prime for $30

https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

If you did lose it, or you didnt get one, dont worry, its a regular "headphone" cable with 2 male endings...

just go to any electronic store and get a 3.5mm audio extension able with 2 male ends. shouldnt be more than $5

This very long and fancy one costs $7 on amazon.

I can't say enough good things about the LucidSound LS35X wireless headset that was recommended to me by someone right here on the sub.

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JSYH33

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I got these when my Turtle Beach Xbox Stealth 700 headset mic started crapping out.

These work wirelessly with the Xbox as soon as you turn them on, with no setup or dongles or anything. The battery life is great and the audio is superb.

But make sure you set your Xbox audio to Stereo (instead of Windows sound or whatever it is). PUBG only has stereo sound.

I got one for my car from Amazon. The AmazonBasics one, I believe. That thing has been slammed in the car door, sat on, trapped in between the armrest and still works like new. So it's pretty durable.

It looks and feels pretty premium too

I'm a big fan of The Food Lab, I've seen a lot of things said incredibly simply that a lot of industry professionals get wrong.

Something like this?

Buy "The Food Lab", by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (Kenji to you :)) https://www.amazon.com/Food-Lab-Cooking-Through-Science/dp/0393081087

Read it, follow his advice, try some recipes and do the experiments. If he tells you to stick your hand in a pot of cold water and then turn on the heat, do it.