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048 – Cooking

An empty kitchen. A loaf of bread on the counter. It's my time to shine. An Actual Vroom: Would you happen to have some cooking advice by any chance? Kiddo, I’m brimming with cooking advice. Teaching someone to cook is maybe my favorite thing to do.  Unlike most things in life, cooking really isn’t as hard as it looks. If you take your time and prepare, anyone can cook a decent meal. Let’s start with equipment. As you gain experience, you’ll figure out what kind of tools you prefer. But if you’re a brand new cook, here’s a list of starting equipment that will get you really far. One big pot for soup and pasta. One smaller pot for sauce, porridge, egg etc. (optional) Frying pan. A good chef’s knife. Knife sharpener. Chopping board, wooden. Vegetable peeler. Assorted utensils. Big colander. Pot holders or oven gloves. A kitchen towel. If you can spend real money on anything, spend it on the knife. A good chef’s knife can make all the difference.  When I was in chef school, we got started with a Victorinox 22cm/8inch chef knife and that baby lasted forever. I saw some online for maybe $60. If that’s within your budget, it’s a good place to start. Keeping your knife sharp is also important, so get yourself a sharpener. IKEA has them for about $10. Learning how to sharpen a knife takes a little practice, but it’ll save you a lot of bloodshed in the future. As for pots and pans, try to find one with a thicker bottom, even if it’s cheap. Thin bottoms burn food more easily. Avoid non-stick and teflon as much as possible, unless you like the taste of microplastics. Speaking of microplastics - wooden chopping boards, every time. Plastic is a soft and flexible material. The surface can close up over your knife marks, trapping food particles. Next time you use it, here’s last week’s chicken. Utensils are the most flexible and the cheapest category on the list. You’ll probably figure out what you need pretty quickly, but my recommendation is at least one spatula and one cooking spoon, maybe a soup ladle if you want to make a lot of soups and stews. It may seem like a lot, but you don’t have to get all of it at once. Some things, like pans and colanders, you might be able to find second hand in pretty good condition. With the equipment sorted, I’m going to teach you some cooking techniques by sharing a simple recipe. Butter chickpea curry. I’ve cooked this recipe for maybe fifteen years, and no longer remember where I got it from. It’s simple, it’s vegan, it’s gluten free and you can easily make about a billion variations. You need: one can of tomato soup. One carton of coconut milk. One can of cooked chickpeas. As many potatoes as you want. Some oil. That’s it for the basic recipe. I’m also going to add one onion and some curry powder, but you don’t have to. Start with preparing your ingredients. Open your soup can and coconut milk and set aside. Open the can of chickpeas and drain the liquid. If you want to, you can use the liquid to make vegan meringues but that’s not basic. Peel your potato. The rule is that you always move a blade _away_ from you, but when it comes to peeling I always do it towards me. I feel I have more control like this, but you can just as easily push the peeler away from you. Time for the onion. First, cut off the top and then the root. Be very careful! Round objects have a tendency to slip! Set the onion cut side down and split it in half. Always keep your fingers away from where your knife is going. Peel off the onion skin. Place the onion half cut side down on your chopping board. Are you ready? Time for Onion Cutting Class! You can cut an onion many different ways. In half-moons, in wedges and diced. For this recipe I usually go with wedges but I’m going to show you how to dice an onion. First, how to hold the knife. You want the handle comfortably in your hand. You might be tempted to put your finger on top of the blade — don’t! Aim for a firm but not tight grip. Practice. You’ll figure it out with time. Using the thinner end of the knife, start by cutting the onion length-wise, but leave a little bit at the end so it still holds together. You can cut it straight from above, but if you’re feeling confident you can also angle the knife along the curve of the onion like so, and get a more even dice. If you want an even finer dice and you feel comfortable with your knife skills, you can also cut it horizontally before the final cut. With the onion sliced lengthwise, you can go ahead and cut it across. Remember! Your fingers should be nowhere near the edge of the blade! If you feel unsafe at any point, chunky onion is better than chunks of finger!  Put the onion aside and focus on the potato. First, carefully cut it lengthwise, place it on the cut side, and cut it lengthwise again. Then cut across to get pieces of roughly the same size. Equally sized pieces are important, so that everything cooks in about the same time. If they’re too different, you’ll have pieces of raw vegetable. That’s all the cutting done! Good job! Get yourself a glass of water, and then we’ll move on to cooking! Get your large pot and place on the hob that is roughly the same size as the bottom of the pot. That way, you make use of all that heat and get an even cook. Turn the heat to high. Add a little bit of neutral vegetable oil and let it heat up. Once you suspect that it’s warm enough, drop in a piece of onion. If it sizzles, you’re good to go! Lower the heat and add the rest of the onion. Stir them around until they start to look translucent. You don’t want them to brown, just sweat a bit as they say in the biz. Add the curry powder if using, and stir that around. I’m using about two teaspoons. Some spices require heat to really activate and release flavour — curry, chili and cardamom for example all benefit from frying in a little bit of oil. Be careful so your onion and curry don’t burn! Once fragrant, add in the drained chickpeas and potato. If you’re not using onion and curry, welcome to the recipe! Add some oil to your pot and join us! Stir everything around for a couple of minutes, letting the chickpea and potato warm up and get coated in oil and spice. Add your tomato soup and coconut milk. Pop on a lid and let simmer until it’s done. ‘Until it’s done?’ I hear you shriek. Yes, until it’s done! I’m a big fan of tasting food as you go, especially to check for doneness. Even something simple like cooking a potato can be difficult to time out correctly. What kind of potato? Was it cut or whole? Peeled or not? Salted water? Was the potato cold when it went in? After about fifteen minutes, get yourself a spoon and fish out a chunk of potato. If you don’t want to bite it, you can put it on a plate and cut it. Does it feel done? Does it taste done? If you’re happy with it, it’s time to eat! Congratulations, you’ve cooked a whole meal! Like I said, this can be varied a multitude of ways. Want to serve it with rice, or bread? Go ahead! Want more vegetables? Add some fresh spinach at the very end! Or maybe pop in some frozen green peas? Not a vegetarian? Add some left over chicken, or crumble crispy bacon on top. A dollop of yoghurt? Sure! Some tofu? You do you. There is no end to the variations you could make. You could make it spicier, or milder. More tomato? Less tomato? Beans? The world is your curry. Another thing there is no end to is what I could say about cooking but alas this comic has to end sometime. Do you have specific cooking questions I could help with? Send me an email! I’m going to eat this whole bowl now. Love you, kiddo. See you soon!