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[nenjin]

I don't think there's anything a culinary school can teach you that you can't teach yourself. Either way, you're paying for groceries or you're paying for classes.

The biggest benefit of culinary classes is they get you to make things you're not inclined to make yourself. It can build confidence. But the fundamentals are only really for people who are totally lost. I think the skills they teach are things anyone can pick up in the kitchen themselves. (When equipped with the appropriate mindset, of course.)

[Eagleon]

You'd be surprised how many fundamentals you miss by cooking without instruction. Things that are simple, but not immediately obvious to casual experimentation, like the fact that making caramel is really ridiculously simple, or how to make a roasted turkey without everything drying out and being horrible (it's not magic) Obviously it's not something I'd recommend if you're seriously strapped for cash or time, but it teaches more than "This is a spatula. You use it for flipping things. Let's make grilled cheese!"

[Xazo-Tak]

Work with ingredients by attributes, not names.
For example, Sweet Chilli Sauce has the attributes Medium Sweet, Very Weak Chilli, and Moderately Viscous Sauce, as well as a many other less important ones.
First attribute means I can use it as a sweetner for savoury dishes, since it's a savoury ingredient, but should take care where sweetness would be weird.
Second attribute means that it doesn't really make things noticably spicer because it's so weak, but not less spicy since you can barely dilute spicyness with even very weak spicyness.
Third attribute means it's not watery, but it can still be mixed easily with any nonsolid, though difficulty may be had with the very solid.

[Azthor]

There are formal theories to cooking, which is to say, techniques and de d schools, but before and after, come intuition and skill that can only be developed through practice. If you cannot properly manage even a basic dish, trying your hand at anything more elaborate won't do you much good, and yet, likewise, no matter how much practice you have, you won't get any farther without pushing into new horizons.

It must, however, be said there are always limitations when you are working with a conventional kitchen, be it in the quality and range of both the tools and ingredients available, temporal dispendium or something else altogether; that and, culinary being an art, there are depths only some will be able to achieve, practice and study be damned.

The above considered, if it is a hobby, just keep trying and read on it whenever you feel up to trying your hands at a new method or an improving a current recipe. If, on the other hand, you wish to pursue culinary professionally, by all means, do undergo formal education on the topic.

[Neonivek]

the fact that making caramel is really ridiculously simple

Sort of... There is a secret with Caramel. While there is a "Perfect" preparing temperature, depending on the recipe or who you are cooking for... changing the time you cook may be advisable.

That is something that would take practice.

Yet that wouldn't be something you would learn without knowing it is there in the first place since you would be "following the recipe"... which is what you said.

how to make a roasted turkey without everything drying out and being horrible

Honestly I've almost settled on the reality that turkey will always be dry... hmmm

[nenjin]

Honestly I've almost settled on the reality that turkey will always be dry... hmmm

Nonsense. You can brine it, stuff an orange in it, cook it on a beer can, wrap it in foil.....there's plenty of ways you can make a turkey and keep it juicy.

[Nivim]

 I ran into a blog not too long ago that offers information allowing you to elevate your cooking to over 4000ft above sea level.

 Hummingbird High is the records of a person trying, and eventually succeeding, to adapt various favored recipes (or guesses at recipes) to high-altitude versions. Sadly, although it has an index for the finished recipes, it does not have one for the experimentation making up most of the blog; so have "The Science of 'Hey, That's Not So Bad': Chocolate Cupcakes Edition" (includes quotes on how cocoa powder works), "The Science of 'Wait, What?': Red Velvet Cupcakes Edition" (includes analysis table), and "High-Altitude Hummingbird Bakery Red Velvet Cupcakes, Pt. 1: Refusing to Accept the Easy Path" (includes groaning).
 Chances are good the above will be completely useless to you directly, but it's a perfect example of how a ~neurotypical person handles experimenting to understand how recipes and ingredients work.

[Vector]

And for the neuroatypical of us, there's "cooking for engineers."

[Nivim]

Is there an extended version of the cooking tests section? Seems small relative to the total recipes on the site. (Also, I vaguely remember passing through this site looking for an analysis on how various kinds of flours work relative to each-other-- that search continues.)

[Tellemurius]

And for the neuroatypical of us, there's "cooking for engineers."

im all over this one

[Muz]

You'd be surprised how many fundamentals you miss by cooking without instruction. Things that are simple, but not immediately obvious to casual experimentation, like the fact that making caramel is really ridiculously simple, or how to make a roasted turkey without everything drying out and being horrible (it's not magic) Obviously it's not something I'd recommend if you're seriously strapped for cash or time, but it teaches more than "This is a spatula. You use it for flipping things. Let's make grilled cheese!"

My brother has gone to two major cooking colleges. You'd be surprised at how many fundamentals the professional culinary places miss out on! They're certainly better than nothing... I'd recommend an initial 6 month course which teaches you basic cutting principles. But you get diminishing gains from then onwards. And even then, you can learn to cut from textbooks and Youtube.

I see it something like engineering, it's impossible to get ALL the techniques and recipes done right. Many culinary schools also have to deal with complete idiots who can't do a proper degree, so they water down the course and leave out many theories. Most will specialize in one or another and the ones that teach you everything don't go into much depth.

If you're getting good books, a lot of them teach fairly advanced stuff. It's just that learning cooking from a book is like learning to drive from a book.

I think that you should avoid recipes as far as possible to develop an intuitive feel for which ingredients goes well together. Use all your senses to interpret the dish you're cooking. For example there is a certain sound when something is about to get too well done and stick to the saucepan or the smell of meat when you know it's ready.

Analyze everything you're doing and try to gauge its impact on the dish, afterwards evaluate your food and try to think of ways to improve it.

Don't be afraid to experiment with your food and try new things. Every failure is in itself a small victory.

I tried that. You still need to compare things to something, very hard to build a recipe from scratch.

I find the most effective way to learn cooking is to pick a recipe you really love. Break it down to the bare bones. And then experiment with variations to perfect it.

For example, I tried to learn to make lemon & herb fish. Looked up recipes... there's maybe 10-30 good ones to choose from: different fish, different herbs. I wrote all of them down, and compared them. There were some things that 80% of them shared, whether in ingredients or cooking style.

Write down and keep that cooking style & ingredients. That becomes your template. Then write down every other possible variation. Cook and eat your base template recipe first. If you have good intuition.. say what's missing, like too much salt, too tasteless, not sour enough. Try and cook the variations one at a time and note down the results. You should probably note down things like one being too sweet, or something like rosemary not going with fish. You might even try and add chillis or other things and see how it goes.

I run a small F&B franchise which develops new products. What keeps me ahead from the rest of the back is that my R&D team are trained engineers/technicians who actually document everything. They teach you documentation in any science/engineering class, because the scientific method works. Pretty much all my hit 'unique' recipes are variations off a major recipe.

Best way to devise new recipes is not just to wing it and hope you remember the proportions next time, but proper documentation and experimentation. You'll get a better feel for things by controlling the ingredients and seeing what the changes add/remove from it.


Maybe I should teach some tricks in a 'cooking guild' thread later, when I have time.

[scrdest]

I recommend something similar to Vector:
The Science of Good Cooking

I'd say that cooking is kinda like music. You can do it by the book - following a recipe or sheet music - and you'll end with something that is pretty good, but not at all original; and you can improvise.

If you improvise, you can try intuition - you just stumble around until you stumble upon something that sounds good - or you can try learning the underlying rules and play with them to create something that's both well-crafted and original in execution.

[MaximumZero]

One word: Sriracha.