• kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I’m pretty sure most cooks use spices according to their internal feelings on what contexts the spices work well in. Basically the smell test except they have enough experience with the spice already to just do it in their head. Pretty sure this isn’t that unusual.

  • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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    9 hours ago

    Blindly following recipes I will never get. How can you be comfortable with depending on a stranger’s whims for what you eat ?

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
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      1 hour ago

      I almost always follow a new recipe the first time around to understand what the dish is generally supposed to be. After that, I start riffing off of it to make it what I want it to be. But you gotta know which general direction the dish was originally headed before you can successfully play with it if you’re a Home Gamer in the kitchen.

    • Bob@feddit.nl
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      4 hours ago

      I think that’s why some people “can’t cook”. They treat a dish like a magic potion, where you’ll destroy the house if you add 2g too much chilli or something.

    • groet@infosec.pub
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      5 hours ago

      Ever been to a restaurant, ate a meal cooked by somebody other than yourself? Pre-made frozen meal? Fast food?

      Dont want to sound mean or anything but most people are comfortable with having somebody else prepare a meal, so why is it different when you prepare it but somebody else tells you how to do it?

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      And the taste changes with salt, with heat, with boiling, with cold extraction (like an overnight marinade). You really just have to experiment.

    • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works
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      16 hours ago

      tried beer for the first time yesterday, thought it would be better than the smell. Nope. Struggled through 3 sips then gave it to someone else 😭 I don’t really get alcohol tbh. Ive only had like 3 or 4 drinks but no matter what it is they all taste bad :/

      • Sivecano@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        13 hours ago

        It’s a bit of am acquired taste but beers are by far not all created equal. There’s a stupid amount of diversity and large differences.

        But if you don’t enjoy it don’t feel the need to force yourself.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        11 hours ago

        So, the first thing you need to know about alcohol is it’s an intoxicating drug. It is a depressant, its short-term effects include reduced inhibitions which in the moment can feel like increased confidence, and overall reduction in physical motor skills, plus a mild euphoria. Also makes your face feel slightly numb. That’s most of alcohol’s selling point.

        Alcohol on its own is rather unpleasant to have in your face. A lot of cocktail culture sprung up around hiding alcohol with other flavorings so they’re in any way pleasant to swallow.

        You might try something like whiskey and coke, I’d specifically go with American or Canadian whiskies here; scotch doesn’t really bring the right flavors for this. There’s a reason Jack Daniels or Crown Royal are stereotypes. Vodka can also be a way in; it doesn’t bring a lot of flavor of its own so adding it to fruit juices can get you used to booze within familiar flavor profiles. Don’t worry about sticking to posted recipes, drop a tablespoon of vodka into a tall glass of orange juice and see what it does, then start upping the ratio.

        Get used to that, you may then start exploring cocktails, getting into wine or beer, or neat spirits.

      • Taleya@aussie.zone
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        16 hours ago

        I fucking haaaaaaate hops, i hate the smell, i hate the taste, i also hate beer because i can literally smell the fermentation and it smells rotted.

        Plenty of other ways to get turnt out there my friend

      • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        It’s an acquired taste.

        Unless it’s an IPA, they’re gross and if someone drinks them then I assume they’re just suffering to be pretentious.

        /s?

        As for other booze, just make it like something you like to drink. Fruity vodka and sprite is banging. Rum and coke is a classic. I like creamy stuff so I put vanilla vodka, bailey’s, and milk together.

          • bluewing@lemm.ee
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            1 hour ago

            It’s not that I hate IPAs, I don’t per se. I’ve home brewed IPAs for myself even though I prefer ales. The problem started with micro breweries trying to out do each other in seeing just how much hopps could be jackhammered into a beer. And it’s turned beer drinkers in pretentious snobs because they have no clue in what the reason is for IPAs to even exist in the first place or even how it’s supposed to originally taste.

        • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          A lot of IPAs are gross. Some are quite good. Bitterness is the most maligned of all tastes. Tons and tons of bitter things that people love and every one of them is a love/hate acquired taste thing.

          Grapefruit, bitter melon, bitter black coffee, any sort of bitter beer (IPAs aren’t the only one), heck even burnt sugar!

          The biggest problem with IPAs is that crappy/inexperienced brewers use the bitterness of hops to cover up brewing defects. This leads to really gross aftertastes or overwhelming bitterness and only hipsters like drinking that crap.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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            11 hours ago

            For a hot minute there near the end of the Obama administration, craft beer was a thing in this country and we had some excellent beers. Then Trump got elected and I haven’t seen a craft beer that wasn’t an IPA or a token jet black “oatmeal stout” since.

            • bluewing@lemm.ee
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              1 hour ago

              The “craft” part got killed in the commercialization of the genre. So it’s become the modern version of Pabst. And there is a contraction of micro breweries at the moment as beer drinkers are slowly learning to pass on all the crap out there.

              • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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                11 hours ago

                It’s a thing that happened and I’m not sure by what mechanism. 2018, lots of microbreweries and brewpubs most offering a wide variety, by 2021 you’ve got seven IPAs and one token stout on the menu.

                • bluewing@lemm.ee
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                  1 hour ago

                  Mostly because they can’t be good at all of them. And there were/are a lot of bad brewers out there that don’t care about mastering the craft.

                • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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                  9 hours ago

                  We’ve moved on to sours or IPA/sour combos. I drink them because they are delicious to my palate. Always drank my coffee black even as a kid. I like bitter.

                  Honestly I fucking hate the term hipster. I’m not hip, I’m a laborer in my 40s. It’s just another way for people to divide each other.

                • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
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                  11 hours ago

                  Oh I don’t disagree with you. I’ve looked for decent non-IPA microbrews and have been puzzled at the lack of selection! I just wasn’t aware of the timing.

      • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        16 hours ago

        Beer is definitely an acquired taste. Plus there is a big fad around IPAs lately which are stupidly bitter even by beer standards

      • ...m...@ttrpg.network
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        11 hours ago

        …let me introduce you to single cask-strength malts: one drop, drawn delicately through your lips, let diffuse across your palate by capillary action, that’s how i learned to appreciate alcohol for the first time after four decades of not getting it…

        …the great thing about cask-strength sipping whiskies is that one bottle can last years if kept properly sealed between pours…

        • bluewing@lemm.ee
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          59 minutes ago

          There is soon a great winnowing of craft distilleries coming also. There is a glut of barrels growing in rick houses are we speak and production is dropping. MGP, (probably the largest producer of custom/aged spirits for “craft” whisk(e)y brands in the US), has announced large cut backs in their production. The market share for spirits is declining in the US as the younger customers are swinging away from spirits to other types of intoxicants.

      • Baguette@lemm.ee
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        16 hours ago

        Im not usually a fan of alc but I do enjoy rice wine (korean flavored ones) and choya plum wine. Maybe you could try those? They’re moreso a sweet alcohol and doesnt have that weird earthy bitter taste imo

    • ...m...@ttrpg.network
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      11 hours ago

      …that’s pretty much my improvisational style, everything eyeballed, nothing measured: sometimes things turn out amazing but of course the cost of those happy surprises is that i’ll never make it the same way again; couldn’t if i tried…

      …i dated a girl who dogmatically followed published recipes, considered any deviations anathema to the authors’ labor developing them, and she was horrified to watch me cook…

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      19 hours ago

      for me it’s easy because i mostly remember what i just made. but that’s also because i pay special attention to what i do and what comes out afterwards, kinda to do semi-structured research.

    • SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      9 hours ago

      It requires more precision, sure, but there are absolutely bakers who can taste a dough and tweak the water/flour/oil etc. ratios to get the perfect bread.

      It’s only different from other kinds of cooking because most people haven’t developed those senses. If you knew what you were doing, you could bake from scratch without a recipe easily and go by “vibes” (i.e. based on sensory input).

        • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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          21 hours ago

          Baking is actually ranching.

          Yeast is closer to the animal kingdom than the plant kingdom. It’s a living organism you need to feed so it will grow your food. You need to make it comfortable and give it an environment to thrive and then kill it when it’s the yummiest.

          • dumbass
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            13 hours ago

            Man, now I love making bread even more.

      • Lem Jukes@lemm.ee
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        21 hours ago

        You can still get jazzy with it tho once you understand tha chemistry well enough.

    • TOModera@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      Baking by vibe takes some work, and you should practice recipes by the letter before trying it, but it can be fun. It’s more so knowing the impact of what you’re adding.

      Spices, for instance, can be added by vibe to some recipes. Flour, on the other hand, should be weighed out and a firm knowledge of ratio to fat rather then vibes.

      • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        I had to bake by vibes one time because I started a recipe then realized I didn’t have eggs and the friend the cake was for is lactose intolerant. Used a can of coconut milk. Turned into brownies instead of chocolate cake, but they were good enough that I’ve been intentionally making them since.

      • NeatoBuilds@lemmy.today
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        22 hours ago

        So like cooking, if you are making a recipe of something new it’s important to follow the recipe to know how it tastes then next time you know what to tweak to make it taste more like what you like

    • EpeeGnome@lemm.ee
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      22 hours ago

      With a deep enough knowledge of how baking works, it can be done. My sister improvises baked goods very well. The sad thing is that when one turns out amazing instead of just good, she can’t replicate it because she doesn’t know the recipe. I’m particularly sad I’ll never again have the amazing butter rum pound cake she made for her daughter’s birthday last year. She tried to make it again later, but it just wasn’t the same. :(

  • qyron@sopuli.xyz
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    19 hours ago

    Considering the majority of flavours we experience are in fact smells, if you can cook by your nose you’re usually pretty safe on how the end result will come out.

    I’m not a foodie nor a chef but I’ve been able to break apart and reproduce restaurant dishes just by smelling.

  • tfw_no_toiletpaper@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    Isn’t this just a sign of inexperience? If you have been cooking for a reasonable time, you will know which spices to use when going for what sort of flavour.

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      19 hours ago

      yeah but there’s also a lot of people just seeing cooking as a chore and never really paying attention to it, therefore not learning much or anything at all.

      it takes patience and a bit of dedication to actually learn cooking in a reasonable way. otherwise you’re just following recipe.

  • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    My chef yells at me because I do this all the time.

    Though he’s mainly mad because I didn’t measure a single fuckin thing and can’t recreate it