I know how to make Creme Brulee, it’s pretty easy. I searched for a recipe for it. The first one to pop up was from BBC.
what the heck is a ramekin?
didn’t we have a thread once where someone asked what did the rest of us use for whisking (a: real cooks use forks)? a mistake many newbie cooks make is thinking that you need a “gourmet kitchen” in order to boil an egg just-so
I have no idea where to buy vanilla pods. Maybe the herbalist on Queiles…
I know what “simmer” is from talking cooking on the Dope; for people whose mothers didn’t teach them how to cook, words like that are more alien than Lieutenant Ripley’s uninvited guest. Actually, it’s one of the things I’ve had to explain to the aforementioned kitchenmates, that when the package says “slowly” it means “you should see some small bubbles, not lots of big ones.”
The recipe assumes that the cook knows how to separate whites and yolks.
The “hot water” description doesn’t specify that you’re supposed to pour it around the ramekins (which I guess means flaneras). As it stands, I know quite a few people who’d pour it all over the tray, including onto the creme.
I have no idea why are they using this combination of “oven” and “water bath.” I guess it’s linked to the fact that Brits are likely to use the oven for things that a Spaniard would do on the stovetop…
NO MARIA COOKIE! It’s not a proper natilla or creme brulee without the cookie! We want our cookie! OK, so this is confusing only if you’re used to having the cookie (a plain Digestive works)
I can cook (I’m told very well) and there are things that I have tried to follow recipes on and the results have been… unappetising at best.
The most egregious example was probably the Clam Chowder I tried to cook last year. I love clam chowder, but unfortunately we don’t really have clams here in Australia, so I substituted Mussels, which are near enough and in plentiful supply.
Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly and whatever the hideous concoction I eventually came up with was, it bore no similarity to a seafood chowder of any description at all.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying “It’s entirely possible to follow a recipe exactly and still have it not work”.
i agree … I stunned and amazed one of my first roommates when I moved out on my parents [I moved out at 16 and emancipated]
Saturday morning, I would put the first side of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on, and start the dough. While the first side played, I cleaned the living room. Flip the record, punch down the dough, knead again. While the second side played, clean the bathroom and hallway, and tidy my bedroom. End of the second side, put on the disc for Death and the Maiden, final knead, put the dough into the bread pan for the final rise and clean the kitchen. End of the first side, dough raised, preheat the oven and pop it in. Flip record to second side and have breakfast while waiting for the bread to bake. Clean up after breakfast and decide what to make for dinner, and frequently prep and pop it into a crockpot.
Elapsed time, about 2 hours of great music, a clean flat [or at least the parts it was my turn to clean] and a start on dinner and bread for the weekend.
My mom has given me her entire cookbook collection, all 400 or so of them … she has alzheimers and no longer is able to cook more than making a sandwich or nuking soup and coffee…
mine mine mine mine!
I will admit, I have taught 12 or 13 people basic housekeeping, sewing, home finance and cooking … I have given up being amazed at the lack of what I consider basic skills for living. I have a love for cooking, and think that the lack of cooking skills is horrible.
I actually learned to cook while very young. I was heartily disappointed when Home Economics in high school consisted on learning to make cake from a mix, frost it with premade frosting, making instant mashed potatoes, mixing up salad dressing from a packet, reheating canned carrots and broiling a steak. This for 15 year olds, most of whom had to be handheld gently through the entire process. I had taken a look at the whole dinner, and instead of buying the stupid cake mix and canned frosting made a miracle whip chocolate cake with cooked fudge frosting the way my mom and I made them together for about 5 years. I peeled and cooked real fresh carrots, and made a basic vinaigrette dressing, the way I had been for several years. The teacher told me it was excellent but I failed because the school required me to make it the same as everybody else.:rolleyes:
Probably because if you did it on the stove top, you’d boil the contents of the ramekins, if you do it in the oven then you bake it instead.
I learned to cook from my mother and was helping her in the kitchen from a young age. I also took home ec at school but did that at the expense of needlework classes because we didn’t have a sewing machine at home so the only chance I would get to practice would be after school hours in the needlework room if I could get permission and a teacher to stay behind with me.
My brother, however, left home utterly unable to do more than boil an egg. Well, he knew how to boil an egg but wouldn’t do it because he didn’t like them. I suspect his first year at uni involved a lot of eating out. That would explain his weight problems!
Why do I need a device to clean and possibly lose when the egg already comes with a perfectly good shell that I can use for separating the yolk and the white?
Why do it with the shell when you can satisfy your gourmet-geekiness with a gadget?! I admit, I have an egg separator but I rarely use it as the shell is just as good, if not better, for the job.
I have often wondered if I should offer a deal: I’ll teach someone home ec skills in exchange for them helping with groceries and dinner. Like, you bring a loaf of French bread, I’ll teach you to make great spaghetti, we’ll all eat. But I feel inadequate because as homemaking goes, I’m not at all bad, but many of my acquaintances are amazing.
Ew. I actually did take home ec in junior high, and it wasn’t too bad. I particularly remember my team screwing up a pineapple upside-down cake (too much sugar, didn’t cook in the middle) and learning to sew stuffed animals and a baby blanket. Since I had a new baby sister, I picked those sorts of projects. She used the blanket for years, it had dinosaurs on it.
I always thought it would be a great idea for an after school program. Not for the little wee kiddies perhaps, but for slightly older kids.
Have them over after school and teach them to cook something simple. From beginning to end, so when the parents come to get them they also get a dinner that’s ready to go into the oven, or dessert that’s already made!
Make it fun for the kids, very hands on. The encouragement factor would come from wowing the parents that now don’t have to do dinner prep!
Yeah, there would be costs involved, but if your kid came home with dinner 2-3 times a week, it’d be worth it, right?
When I was in high school, back in the Dark Ages, we had Home Ec classes for guys: Bachelor Living and Bachelor Foods. I took the latter one semester, and the lessons have served me well. They taught me all the basics of cooking, and by reading and experimenting, I turned myself into a damn good cook. (But only that. Luckily for me my wife is a great cook.)
MilliCal did do something like this – only it was just a single food item at a time. Still, it taught her the basics of cooking. Pretty good for a public school program.
Our Home Ec class (early '80s) was co-ed, and I recall cooking (don’t remember what we made) and machine sewing - the boys made collared shirts, and the girls made the same thing but longer for a nightshirt.
OMG yes! Celtling is 2 1/2 years, but she helps unload the bottom of the dishwasher (one plate, fork, spoon, at a time), helps move laundry from the washer to the dryer (one sock, one shirt, etc.), stirs a bit on whatever I’m cooking, and helps take out the trash (pulls the little loops out of the top and pulls them tight for me, then holds on to one side and “helps” me carry it out. It would be a whole lot faster to do it myself, and not have to put her shoes on before taking the trash out, or wash her hands before emptying the dishwasher. . .
But that’s exactly what my Mother did. Cookies were baked while I slept (or tried to, I still remember the frustration of that whining mixer right under my bedroom floor) and housework magically occurred while I was at school (whether done by her or the maid.) On the few occasions when I did see her vacuuming or mopping, she made it clear that she was furious about her lot, and bitterly assured me that I would get to do something more important with my life than “just cleaning up after some man.”
So yeah, I think at least some of the Mothers of the 70’s did purposefully build their children to proudly avoid housework. It was not at all uncommon in our neighborhood for the stay-at-home Moms to feel somehow less-than because they didn’t do office work.
I consider it part of my job to make housework a fun time of togetherness, even if I have to surreptitiously re-do some work when she’s not looking. I want her to have the skills, take pride in the work, and feel that sense of combined effort that makes a family really cohesive.
But I’m still going to grab the occasional pre-cooked chicken at the grocery store, and I don’t apologize for it.
Why use the shell when you’ve got the tools needed for the job attached to the ends of your arms? Just use your hands - cup one hand, fingers loosely together but still separated, hold this hand over the bowl, crack the egg into it, let the white strain through your fingers. If needed, roll the yolk to your other hand more separating.
I can use the shell, sure, but my hands are so much more convenient. And they’re certainly clean - I’m pretty OCD about washing my hands before cooking, and rinse them frequently (or wash them again, depending on what I’m cooking) during.
Because then I have to wash my hands yet again… and I already wash 'em a gazillion times a day, and even more while cooking (can’t get around it while handling meat.) The shell works just fine, and my hands don’t get slimy.
Not with a proper baño maría, you don’t: what boils is the water, with the ramekins being heated by the water bath. Actually, normally I wouldn’t use something bought specially for the creme: either “recycled” earthenware (red clay, lacquered on the inside but not on the outside) or regular café con leche cups.
I got lucky. My mother figured that working was not going to come with a housekeeper or robotic maids. Since she worked (part time) we pitched in.
When my own kids were little I had a housekeeper. When the kids got a little older, I dropped the housekeeper. I want my kids to know how to vacuum (that’s easy), and dust (that’s easy) and they are getting to laundry age. My daughter is an ok cook for ten. They can both make scrambled eggs or hot dogs or frozen pizza (which is as much as my father can manager).
My mother is a great cleaner - but no Martha Stewart. So I grew up in a house where sometimes the cake fell, but with warm pudding over the top it still tasted great. Where the linen cabinet was folded and tidy, but not color coordinated. Lots of casseroles to stretch the family dollar. And since she worked, we got good at pulling together tater tot hotdish or tuna ala king.
ETA: However, like dangermom, I wasn’t necessarily ready for the lessons - a lot of them needed to sit in my head until I was out of college, needing to feed myself, do my own laundry, and the dust started gathering thick on the coffee table.
I’m not claiming that using clams would have somehow magically fixed this chowder, but a very common problem with people not being able to follow recipes is that they substitute an ingredient in a way that doesn’t really work. My suspicion with clam chowder is that there are dozens of ways to make “clam chowder”, and about the only thing they all have in common is clams and a bowl. Yours didn’t even have the clams :). Maybe it was just some bizarre regional style you hadn’t encountered before?
The other mistake that I’ve seen many times is just not being attentive enough. It’s easy for an inexperienced cook to forget one ingredient, to accidentally add it twice, or two mix up teaspoons and tablespoons. A good friend of mine is a passable to bad cook because, though he tries to follow recipes, he doesn’t really stay focused on them, leading to problems like the above. A single mistake like that can pretty easily turn food inedible.
(a plain Digestive works)
