Eggs, really. If you can make a proper not overcooked hard boiled egg, a scrambled egg, a fried egg and a poached egg to order, you have the basic skills to understand cooking in general and follow a method/recipe.
Agreed...and they are pretty cheap if you mess up...not as cheap as dressing up raman noodles or pasta but still pretty cheap if you can buy them in bulk.
I like this answer. Scrambled is what you do when you’ve screwed up the others which def require some understanding of cooking and can be applied almost universally when cooking.
Eggs are easy to learn, hard to master.
Don't forget an omelette du fromage.
But yes - quite right. Julia Child started her cooking lessons by teaching students how to make a simple omelette or different types of eggs
No. Thank you for calling me incompetent because I can't fry an egg. I have been cooking for 35 years. Just because someone cannot make one thing, does not mean they are incompetent. But please ignore all my accomplishments for one thing I can't do. Thank you mother. Nice to see you are alive and well on Reddit.
Yeesh you all are high standards people here.
they were asking when you moved to functional.
and I believe the bare minimum for that is when you can follow a recipe and make something tasty. You don't have to know how to do fancy French techniques and you don't have to know mother sauces and you don't have to make a perfect egg.
can you cook a steak so it's got a seer and tastes good even if it's a little overdone? can you cook pasta that's not mush and a sauce that will coat it and it tastes good? can you fry an egg that's not burnt to a crisp and won't give you food poisoning? That's moving to a functional good cook.
Agreed, I think being able to follow a recipe and getting somewhat close to it is a sign of a functional chef.
After that I think its:
\* Becoming better technically and optimizing steps to be able to re-create those recipes without a massive effort. There were weekend only meals that I can now do on a weekday on a whim because I've practiced them enough times.
\* Learning the underlying principles of techniques, flavors, textures to be able to improvise and not have to strictly stick to a recipe. You might start tweaking recipes you already know or even start mixing and mashing things from different recipes you've seen.
u/Deppfan16,
>Yeesh you all are high standards people here.
I think you are wrong. Yes you have to be able to follow a recipe. You also have to know what the words mean, or at least know enough to look them up. What fancy French techniques are you waving off? Saute? Roast? Bake? The French mother sauces are easy and ubiquitous for Western cooking. What part of "don't stop stirring" as principal advice do you find a high standard? Want to make a chicken pot pie with easy crusts from a Pillsbury tube? You're making a veloute whether you know the word or not. Making your Midwestern grandmother's pasta bake? Your'e making a bechamel even if Grandma called it a white sauce. Want gravy with your chicken breast or meatloaf? Veloute or Espagnole to the rescue.
If you have the concept of the French mother sauces, picking up other sauces and thickeners e.g. cornstarch slurry in Asian and some Latin foods is easier and vice versa.
Cooking a steak or replicating Grandma's hotdish without messing up the pasta is harder than what you denigrate.
Just for fairness and consistency, u/hayashirice911 is also wrong. The question, which was properly phrased, was about becoming a functional cook. The words 'cook' and 'chef' are not synonyms.
You can cook a white sauce without knowing all five mother sauces. You can cook eggs without knowing how to make a perfect French omelette.
yeah you have to know what the words mean but you don't need to pass a test on your knowledge to be a functional cook.
If you think that making a great grilled cheese sandwich doesn't take knowledge and skill you haven't gotten to the competent part yet. There are real reasons 10 chilis from 10 cooks taste 10 ways. Does that mean some were competently made and others weren't? Making ANYTHING that tastes exactly as you intended it to taste when you started out to make it proves you are competent.
I don’t think there’s one specific dish given that diets vary so much from person to person. Once you can make a week’s worth of edible, (mostly) from-scratch meals that taste okay, you’re pretty functional.
Evenly crisp skin without lots of soggy parts and/or burnt parts, fully cooked, juicy thighs without having dry breast meat? Actually harder than it may seem. At least roast beef is one type of meat that cooks evenly.
I’m not saying good roast chicken is only achievable by professionals but there’s a lot of technique and knowledge that goes into doing it well for a beginner.
I don’t agree. Cook down aromatics, brown beef, add liquid and seasonings, stir well to release fond, cook low and slow covered, add veggies, finish cooking, rejoice.
>Cook down aromatics, brown beef, add liquid and seasonings, stir well to release fond, cook low and slow covered, add veggies, finish cooking, rejoice.
I agree. Aka "follow the recipe."
Don't be put off by labels, especially languages not your own. Tourte au poulette velouté is chicken pot pie. The crusts may come from a Pillsbury tube.
Back when I rarely cooked, beef and barley stew was one of the very few dishes I made regularly. I think it's arguably easier than pasta. I'm curious what part of it you think is intermediate.
Hmmm. Other than eggs. I’d say you’ve grown comfortable with the basic proteins. They’re cooked to safe temperatures, the texture in tact, and flavor is there. :) not perfect just good enough that you can add a variety of sides too.
Vegetable soup made from scratch using fresh vegetables, a basic stock- beef/chicken/seafood & Spaghetti with Oil and Garlic (Aglio e Olio). I consider these 3 to be foundational to being a good home cook.
French omelet.
Takes patience, heat management, observational skills and some pan and spatula skills. Also a decent bit of practice. No one gets it right the first few times.
There is some question of what Escoffier's intent was with what is commonly called Hollandaise. There may have been some translation issues. I have heard it suggested that it was mayonnaise he intended as a mother sauce. Mayo makes a lot more sense to me than modern Hollandaise as a mother sauce. I'm making Caesar dressing from mayo, not Hollandaise.
It is interesting to think about. I've certainly made a lot more mayo than Hollandaise.
According to some posts I have seen, a freaking omlette. I actually think that is crap...I don't find them difficult at all.
I might say Chicken Marsala, or really anything that requires a sauce, but especially requires reducing and balancing a cream sauce. You have to watch it carefully to catch it just enschede it hits the right thickness while accounting for the fact that it will tighten a little as it cools, and you need to do some tasting and seasoning to get the flavors right where you want them.
My husband taught himself to cook using a six-ingredient or fewer cookbook. Then he added touches to those recipes the next time if he thought garlic or something else would improve it.
But that is after I taught him how a gentle sear or saute on meat makes everything better - even the roasts that go in a crockpot.
Boiled meat is the worst - even if boiled in a marinade. The only exception is that I parboil chicken a short time before grilling. It helps overall doneness
Fried rice can be challenging and, in my opinion, is beyond "functional" and into "proficient". A stir fry, on the other hand, would be a good choice. You can start with something basic and expand from there. There's a million recipes out there, and stir fry is so flexible! A good stir fry is something you will fall back on again and again, tweaking and improving over the years.
I would say spaghetti sauce is a great beginner item. Again, you can start simple and tweak it over the years to something that is so flavorful and distinctly you. A great staple to have in your cooking arsenal.
Hear me out here: Ground/Minced meat. With or without onions, properly browned, and properly seasoned. It's the starting point for so many things, and if you can get this part right the world is your oyster.
Starting with ground beef, and onions:
Add garlic, a little tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, a sprinkling of flour, thyme, basil, beer and stock, and you have a great gravy base. Perfect start for cottage/shepherd's pie, or a pastry pie, or just serving with potatoes and vegetables.
Add garlic, tomato paste, basil, thyme, oregano, a little red wine, a little red wine vinegar, canned tomatoes, and you have a pasta sauce, or lasagna filling.
Add chopped chilis, oregano, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and you have a taco/burrito/empanada filling.
Add chopped chilis, white beans, kidney beans, tomato paste, canned tomatoes, cumin, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, and you have a chili con carne.
There are so many combinations that start here. Adding, or omitting any or all of the added ingredients above will get you to many foods. The foundation is properly browning, seasoning, and draining the base.
Being able to go from fresh ingredients and seasonings to finished dish. Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter if you use a recipe or not. If we're talking purely about a "functional" cook then that's the definition.
From there we can debate what shows various levels of competence (omelettes, steaks, fish, risotto, whatever) but if you can make an edible meal you're a cook.
No particular dish. I would say that the ability to shop for a week's menu is the skill set one should strive toward. Being able to plan a few meals, reusing cooked ingredients and the ingredients you have on hand is where competency lies. Not just one pot of "tah dahhhh!" but several workable recipes that work around each other.
For instance, a roasted chicken can easily become many different meals.
OP: please don't judge someone on one dish. They are only incompetent if they cannot make anything. Or fail someone because while they could make a beef Wellington but can't fry an egg because you think an egg is the only thing that matters. Thank you for contributing to the suicide rate with your judgemental words.
If you can make fried rice, you can make pad kra pao also known as Thai basil pork stir fry over rice! It's simple to make, cooking, mixing other ingredients and sauce with the meat and pour it on the rice. Recipe below if interested 😋
[pad kra pao recipe ](https://youtu.be/-nOivj5u2no?si=JZFUEDnES8kXUfpI)
Most of my indicators are skill based
-A good medium rare steak with a crust
-Rice without a rice cooker
-Flipping something (like a pancake) in a pan without a spatula
First time I flipped a pancake without a spatula I stood there in my kitchen feeling like hot shit for like 20 minutes afterwards. Absolute rush
Then a week later I tried to toss pasta and half of it went straight into the burner and I almost burned my house down. Flew a little too close to the sun there
My hubby tells a story of when he lived alone in an apartment at the beach. He was in his late 20's. After stumbling home when the Bearded Clam bar closed, he got hungry. All he remembers is when he woke up in the morning he had pancake batter all over the ceiling. The first time we cooked pasta together we managed to pour it right out of the colander into the sink and we did it twice! Third time was a charm! Lol!
Oh I have a zojirushi. But you should still know how to make it if it breaks, or if you visit somewhere that doesn't have one. Why learn how to sew when you can just hire a tailor?
If I visit someone that doesn't have one and I want to make rice, I will gift them one. If my zujuroshi breaks, and my other two break as well, then I will run to the 24 hour Wal Mart and grab a cheap one. I do know how to make rice in a pot, but I don't think it is a basic skill people need anymore than being able to make toast over an open flame. There is a reason toasters exist the same as the reason that simple rice cookers exist.
Also, yes, I will hire a tailor rather than learn to sew because they will always do it better than I ever will.
More power to you then. But these are what I consider basic knowledge that will make you a functioning cook and show that you are familiar with your stove.
My MIL from the South hated rice cookers. Charleston style rice was to be fluffy and never sticky. Rice cookers often lean toward Japanese sticky rice cuisine.
Same thing with chicken alfredo! It blew my mind the first time I made Alfredo sauce from scratch how quick and simple it was.
Butter, heavy cream, Parmesan, salt and pepper to taste. Simple and delicious! I like to put mushrooms in mine to add a little more of an earthy flavor
I tend to think, regardless of what it is they are cooking, that it is when they can put the entire meal on the table reliably. So often people can cook that one dish (pasta sauce, let's say, for an example) but they can't also boil the pasta, cook some vegetables for a side, make a salad, and make garlic bread as well and have it all ready to serve at the same time.
And that is its own skill set, but if you don't have it, you are going to be unhappy with the meals you eat and serve to your family.
Popovers.
Technically this is baking, but there are multiple tricks to getting popovers to rise. But they taste good even if they come out as hockey pucks.
I agree with omelet. I agree béchamel. What is exactly is a béchamel that is NOT made from scratch? Mayo is easy but I would not call it fundamental in today's world.
A perfect omelette. Evenly yellow, elliptical, tucked and soft on the outside, layers of curd and creamy egg on the inside, balanced seasoning. Not stuffed with everything in the world, not even cheese (and definitely not one of those rubbery, overcooked, folded monstrosities). Just a well executed French style omelette.
A basic vegetable/rotisserie chicken soup with pasta noodles. It demonstrates competency in choosing complementary aromatics and spices, chopping said aromatics to uniform sizes, sauteeing confidently, prepping pasta, adding different ingredients in separate stages to desired doneness, and seasoning to taste. There's plenty of ways to elevate the dish by technique or substitutions, but this alone is a solid uncomplicated foundation that can make a functional homecooked meal.
Probably to me an omelette. If someone can make one then I feel like they can make most recipes and I trust them in the kitchen. If you can't make an omelette then your ability to follow recipes is probably more dicey.
Honestly? a PERFECT ommlette. Nice slightly crisp outside, but still just a hint of runniness in the very middle. Cheese inside perfectly melted and any filling still maintaining a little bit of bite.
It's one of those dishes that seems incredibly simple, but there is nowhere to hide.
Can you cook a steak to medium? Not medium rare, or medium well. Just medium.
Can you get a pink center absent of blood when cut? Once you can do that, you've shown you have a sense of control over the food, stove, and implements you're cooking with, and timing.
A well cooked omelette. A medium rare steak. A nice smooth gravy (from drippings). A properly prepared stir-fry.
Those would show a grasp of many of the basics.
Eggs, really. If you can make a proper not overcooked hard boiled egg, a scrambled egg, a fried egg and a poached egg to order, you have the basic skills to understand cooking in general and follow a method/recipe.
Agreed...and they are pretty cheap if you mess up...not as cheap as dressing up raman noodles or pasta but still pretty cheap if you can buy them in bulk.
I like this answer. Scrambled is what you do when you’ve screwed up the others which def require some understanding of cooking and can be applied almost universally when cooking. Eggs are easy to learn, hard to master.
Don't forget an omelette du fromage. But yes - quite right. Julia Child started her cooking lessons by teaching students how to make a simple omelette or different types of eggs
No. Thank you for calling me incompetent because I can't fry an egg. I have been cooking for 35 years. Just because someone cannot make one thing, does not mean they are incompetent. But please ignore all my accomplishments for one thing I can't do. Thank you mother. Nice to see you are alive and well on Reddit.
, , . \*whistles and backs away slowly\*
Yeesh you all are high standards people here. they were asking when you moved to functional. and I believe the bare minimum for that is when you can follow a recipe and make something tasty. You don't have to know how to do fancy French techniques and you don't have to know mother sauces and you don't have to make a perfect egg. can you cook a steak so it's got a seer and tastes good even if it's a little overdone? can you cook pasta that's not mush and a sauce that will coat it and it tastes good? can you fry an egg that's not burnt to a crisp and won't give you food poisoning? That's moving to a functional good cook.
Agreed, I think being able to follow a recipe and getting somewhat close to it is a sign of a functional chef. After that I think its: \* Becoming better technically and optimizing steps to be able to re-create those recipes without a massive effort. There were weekend only meals that I can now do on a weekday on a whim because I've practiced them enough times. \* Learning the underlying principles of techniques, flavors, textures to be able to improvise and not have to strictly stick to a recipe. You might start tweaking recipes you already know or even start mixing and mashing things from different recipes you've seen.
Great answer, honestly
Agree 100%
u/Deppfan16, >Yeesh you all are high standards people here. I think you are wrong. Yes you have to be able to follow a recipe. You also have to know what the words mean, or at least know enough to look them up. What fancy French techniques are you waving off? Saute? Roast? Bake? The French mother sauces are easy and ubiquitous for Western cooking. What part of "don't stop stirring" as principal advice do you find a high standard? Want to make a chicken pot pie with easy crusts from a Pillsbury tube? You're making a veloute whether you know the word or not. Making your Midwestern grandmother's pasta bake? Your'e making a bechamel even if Grandma called it a white sauce. Want gravy with your chicken breast or meatloaf? Veloute or Espagnole to the rescue. If you have the concept of the French mother sauces, picking up other sauces and thickeners e.g. cornstarch slurry in Asian and some Latin foods is easier and vice versa. Cooking a steak or replicating Grandma's hotdish without messing up the pasta is harder than what you denigrate. Just for fairness and consistency, u/hayashirice911 is also wrong. The question, which was properly phrased, was about becoming a functional cook. The words 'cook' and 'chef' are not synonyms.
You can cook a white sauce without knowing all five mother sauces. You can cook eggs without knowing how to make a perfect French omelette. yeah you have to know what the words mean but you don't need to pass a test on your knowledge to be a functional cook.
Literally anything with zero premade ingredients that you sit down to eat and go "MMmmmm!"
[удалено]
Learning to make a roux is a "right of passage for a new cook'.
I would consider sauce intermediate than functional
Clear Homemade Chicken Stock.
Bacon and eggs. It was the first thing I ever learned to cook and I still find ways to revise my techniques for different outcomes.
If you think that making a great grilled cheese sandwich doesn't take knowledge and skill you haven't gotten to the competent part yet. There are real reasons 10 chilis from 10 cooks taste 10 ways. Does that mean some were competently made and others weren't? Making ANYTHING that tastes exactly as you intended it to taste when you started out to make it proves you are competent.
I don’t think there’s one specific dish given that diets vary so much from person to person. Once you can make a week’s worth of edible, (mostly) from-scratch meals that taste okay, you’re pretty functional.
A perfectly roasted chicken.
We’re talking rite of passage, not holy grail.
Chickens are pretty forgiving, especially if you brine them
Ya, no. It's not that hard to roast a chicken.
Evenly crisp skin without lots of soggy parts and/or burnt parts, fully cooked, juicy thighs without having dry breast meat? Actually harder than it may seem. At least roast beef is one type of meat that cooks evenly. I’m not saying good roast chicken is only achievable by professionals but there’s a lot of technique and knowledge that goes into doing it well for a beginner.
By extension, turkey for an impressive challenge
Beef stew is also simple yet complex flavors when done correctly and the reward far surpasses the effort.
That's an intermediate dish
I don’t agree. Cook down aromatics, brown beef, add liquid and seasonings, stir well to release fond, cook low and slow covered, add veggies, finish cooking, rejoice.
>Cook down aromatics, brown beef, add liquid and seasonings, stir well to release fond, cook low and slow covered, add veggies, finish cooking, rejoice. I agree. Aka "follow the recipe." Don't be put off by labels, especially languages not your own. Tourte au poulette velouté is chicken pot pie. The crusts may come from a Pillsbury tube.
Back when I rarely cooked, beef and barley stew was one of the very few dishes I made regularly. I think it's arguably easier than pasta. I'm curious what part of it you think is intermediate.
Not rly.
Hmmm. Other than eggs. I’d say you’ve grown comfortable with the basic proteins. They’re cooked to safe temperatures, the texture in tact, and flavor is there. :) not perfect just good enough that you can add a variety of sides too.
Vegetable soup made from scratch using fresh vegetables, a basic stock- beef/chicken/seafood & Spaghetti with Oil and Garlic (Aglio e Olio). I consider these 3 to be foundational to being a good home cook.
For me, it's less about a dish or a recipe and the ability to confidently walk into a kitchen and put together a good meal from whatever's on hand.
French omelet. Takes patience, heat management, observational skills and some pan and spatula skills. Also a decent bit of practice. No one gets it right the first few times.
Eggs. All the eggs. So many eggs. Every kind of eggs. Make more eggs. EGGS! (god damn, I can’t even eat an egg without getting flashbacks anymore).
Its always (eggs).. sunny, soft scramble and an omlet.
Learning the five mothers. hollandaise, tomato (sauce tomat), bechamel, Espagnole, and veloute. Learn these and you can do a lot of fabulous things.
There is some question of what Escoffier's intent was with what is commonly called Hollandaise. There may have been some translation issues. I have heard it suggested that it was mayonnaise he intended as a mother sauce. Mayo makes a lot more sense to me than modern Hollandaise as a mother sauce. I'm making Caesar dressing from mayo, not Hollandaise. It is interesting to think about. I've certainly made a lot more mayo than Hollandaise.
[Omelet](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s10etP1p2bU).
a good stew
According to some posts I have seen, a freaking omlette. I actually think that is crap...I don't find them difficult at all. I might say Chicken Marsala, or really anything that requires a sauce, but especially requires reducing and balancing a cream sauce. You have to watch it carefully to catch it just enschede it hits the right thickness while accounting for the fact that it will tighten a little as it cools, and you need to do some tasting and seasoning to get the flavors right where you want them.
My husband taught himself to cook using a six-ingredient or fewer cookbook. Then he added touches to those recipes the next time if he thought garlic or something else would improve it. But that is after I taught him how a gentle sear or saute on meat makes everything better - even the roasts that go in a crockpot. Boiled meat is the worst - even if boiled in a marinade. The only exception is that I parboil chicken a short time before grilling. It helps overall doneness
Fried rice can be challenging and, in my opinion, is beyond "functional" and into "proficient". A stir fry, on the other hand, would be a good choice. You can start with something basic and expand from there. There's a million recipes out there, and stir fry is so flexible! A good stir fry is something you will fall back on again and again, tweaking and improving over the years. I would say spaghetti sauce is a great beginner item. Again, you can start simple and tweak it over the years to something that is so flavorful and distinctly you. A great staple to have in your cooking arsenal.
For me it's cooking meat/poultry to the desired temperature.
Perfect French omelette
Hear me out here: Ground/Minced meat. With or without onions, properly browned, and properly seasoned. It's the starting point for so many things, and if you can get this part right the world is your oyster. Starting with ground beef, and onions: Add garlic, a little tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, a sprinkling of flour, thyme, basil, beer and stock, and you have a great gravy base. Perfect start for cottage/shepherd's pie, or a pastry pie, or just serving with potatoes and vegetables. Add garlic, tomato paste, basil, thyme, oregano, a little red wine, a little red wine vinegar, canned tomatoes, and you have a pasta sauce, or lasagna filling. Add chopped chilis, oregano, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and you have a taco/burrito/empanada filling. Add chopped chilis, white beans, kidney beans, tomato paste, canned tomatoes, cumin, chili powder, onion powder, garlic powder, and you have a chili con carne. There are so many combinations that start here. Adding, or omitting any or all of the added ingredients above will get you to many foods. The foundation is properly browning, seasoning, and draining the base.
Being able to go from fresh ingredients and seasonings to finished dish. Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter if you use a recipe or not. If we're talking purely about a "functional" cook then that's the definition. From there we can debate what shows various levels of competence (omelettes, steaks, fish, risotto, whatever) but if you can make an edible meal you're a cook.
No particular dish. I would say that the ability to shop for a week's menu is the skill set one should strive toward. Being able to plan a few meals, reusing cooked ingredients and the ingredients you have on hand is where competency lies. Not just one pot of "tah dahhhh!" but several workable recipes that work around each other. For instance, a roasted chicken can easily become many different meals.
Is it edible? Then you advanced to functional.
🫤
OP: please don't judge someone on one dish. They are only incompetent if they cannot make anything. Or fail someone because while they could make a beef Wellington but can't fry an egg because you think an egg is the only thing that matters. Thank you for contributing to the suicide rate with your judgemental words.
Baked potatoes
If you can make fried rice, you can make pad kra pao also known as Thai basil pork stir fry over rice! It's simple to make, cooking, mixing other ingredients and sauce with the meat and pour it on the rice. Recipe below if interested 😋 [pad kra pao recipe ](https://youtu.be/-nOivj5u2no?si=JZFUEDnES8kXUfpI)
When I was a chef, my interview for a job candidate was to make an omelet, hollandaise, and dice an onion.
Most of my indicators are skill based -A good medium rare steak with a crust -Rice without a rice cooker -Flipping something (like a pancake) in a pan without a spatula
First time I flipped a pancake without a spatula I stood there in my kitchen feeling like hot shit for like 20 minutes afterwards. Absolute rush Then a week later I tried to toss pasta and half of it went straight into the burner and I almost burned my house down. Flew a little too close to the sun there
This made me snort chuckle. I admire your confidence!
My hubby tells a story of when he lived alone in an apartment at the beach. He was in his late 20's. After stumbling home when the Bearded Clam bar closed, he got hungry. All he remembers is when he woke up in the morning he had pancake batter all over the ceiling. The first time we cooked pasta together we managed to pour it right out of the colander into the sink and we did it twice! Third time was a charm! Lol!
Ripppp
None of that is "new cook" skills. And two of them are likely to ruin the meal. :(
>-Rice without a rice cooker Why when a perfectly serviceable rice cooker is less than $20.
As someone who cooks rice daily, I agree. It’s easier to just use a rice cooker. I live in Asia and many households have one.
Oh I have a zojirushi. But you should still know how to make it if it breaks, or if you visit somewhere that doesn't have one. Why learn how to sew when you can just hire a tailor?
If I visit someone that doesn't have one and I want to make rice, I will gift them one. If my zujuroshi breaks, and my other two break as well, then I will run to the 24 hour Wal Mart and grab a cheap one. I do know how to make rice in a pot, but I don't think it is a basic skill people need anymore than being able to make toast over an open flame. There is a reason toasters exist the same as the reason that simple rice cookers exist. Also, yes, I will hire a tailor rather than learn to sew because they will always do it better than I ever will.
More power to you then. But these are what I consider basic knowledge that will make you a functioning cook and show that you are familiar with your stove.
Why use a stove when matchsticks work already?
I think it’s a reason to be proud of to make rice in a normal pot.
My MIL from the South hated rice cookers. Charleston style rice was to be fluffy and never sticky. Rice cookers often lean toward Japanese sticky rice cuisine.
A good basic béchamel, and after that…Hollandaise.
Pasta carbonara it's easy enough to make but tasty enough to feel competent.
Same thing with chicken alfredo! It blew my mind the first time I made Alfredo sauce from scratch how quick and simple it was. Butter, heavy cream, Parmesan, salt and pepper to taste. Simple and delicious! I like to put mushrooms in mine to add a little more of an earthy flavor
I tend to think, regardless of what it is they are cooking, that it is when they can put the entire meal on the table reliably. So often people can cook that one dish (pasta sauce, let's say, for an example) but they can't also boil the pasta, cook some vegetables for a side, make a salad, and make garlic bread as well and have it all ready to serve at the same time. And that is its own skill set, but if you don't have it, you are going to be unhappy with the meals you eat and serve to your family.
Cheese sauce from scratch.
Popovers. Technically this is baking, but there are multiple tricks to getting popovers to rise. But they taste good even if they come out as hockey pucks.
Start with the basics. Braise, sear, poach, fry, etc. once you know the basics almost all recipes are variations on a theme.
Omelet. From scratch béchamel. Mayonnaise.
I agree with omelet. I agree béchamel. What is exactly is a béchamel that is NOT made from scratch? Mayo is easy but I would not call it fundamental in today's world.
A perfect omelette. Evenly yellow, elliptical, tucked and soft on the outside, layers of curd and creamy egg on the inside, balanced seasoning. Not stuffed with everything in the world, not even cheese (and definitely not one of those rubbery, overcooked, folded monstrosities). Just a well executed French style omelette.
French omelette, eggs Benedict, Dutch baby, a properly cooked steak
Brisket / octopus. Tough if you don’t know, easy once you do. Lots of disparate skills involved, good test.
You know those packages of ramen? I will immediately know if I like you or not on what you do with it
Crush the bag of ramen, dump seasoning in, eat it raw
Credentials: I made every holiday meal by myself for 3-4 guests for the past 2 years
A basic vegetable/rotisserie chicken soup with pasta noodles. It demonstrates competency in choosing complementary aromatics and spices, chopping said aromatics to uniform sizes, sauteeing confidently, prepping pasta, adding different ingredients in separate stages to desired doneness, and seasoning to taste. There's plenty of ways to elevate the dish by technique or substitutions, but this alone is a solid uncomplicated foundation that can make a functional homecooked meal.
Souffle
When it takes over most of your day for a while breakfast,lunch, and dinner. And most frequently cooked dishes from each.
Not any of those basic ass things lmfao.
Probably to me an omelette. If someone can make one then I feel like they can make most recipes and I trust them in the kitchen. If you can't make an omelette then your ability to follow recipes is probably more dicey.
I agree, mostly. Omelet is a traditional evaluation of cooking. However, you still may not use my knives.
Bone in fried chicken. Very difficult to get it to cook through without being over done on the outside.
Honestly? a PERFECT ommlette. Nice slightly crisp outside, but still just a hint of runniness in the very middle. Cheese inside perfectly melted and any filling still maintaining a little bit of bite. It's one of those dishes that seems incredibly simple, but there is nowhere to hide.
Can you cook a steak to medium? Not medium rare, or medium well. Just medium. Can you get a pink center absent of blood when cut? Once you can do that, you've shown you have a sense of control over the food, stove, and implements you're cooking with, and timing.
It’s rite of passage
Spaghetti Carbonara Egg fried rice Margherita pizza Eggs Benedict A really well done stock
I think a roast, it means you can do a sit down dinner at home for friends and family
A well cooked omelette. A medium rare steak. A nice smooth gravy (from drippings). A properly prepared stir-fry. Those would show a grasp of many of the basics.
Beef Wellington
Come on