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Do you ever try recipes you see on cooking shows?

gln1955

gln1955

Supporting Member
Aug 25, 2014
12,850
61,668
70
Ohio, USA
#1
I've always enjoyed cooking and since my semi-retirement have taken over the kitchen at our house. I watch a lot of TV chefs, but rarely actually try to make their dishes.

A couple weeks ago I watched Sara Moulton make a polenta lasagna that looked really good. I gave it try last week and yeah it was good stuff.

I'm going to make an effort to follow up on more TV chef recipes.
 
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#2
My fiancé and I have been utilizing cookbooks a lot recently, and the food has been consistently excellent. There are a lot of good recipes that can be found online as well that may require just some minor tweaking. We make it a point to try one new recipe a week. If we like it, we save it in a little recipe box we keep on the counter. Overall, it has been a pretty nice hobby for us, and we’re definitely improving our cooking skills.
 
#4
Yes sir. We do all the time.
It started for me with Martha Stewart and Emeril way back in the 1990's.
Nowadays we watch Jamie Oliver, my favorite, and Geoffrey Zakarian. We like the Voltaggio Brothers, but they usually cook a little too fancy for me.
Pati Jinich is great for us for Latin dishes.
During the pandemic we came in contact with some folks in Thailand and Laos that hosted 'cook with us' Zoom sessions. We made all kinds of neat dishes from various regions in Thailand and Laos. They send you a full list of ingredients a week or so ahead of time, you do some prep, then jump on Zoom and they walk you through making the dish. Usually it was about 6-7 people total, including them.

-Mike
 
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#6
My wife is a top cook. She has been cooking since the age of 5 and watches A LOT of TV shows and seen it all and has it been absorbed and she can lecture on why exactly something is donea specific way..

SHe also tells me the costs of all the recipes.
 
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#7
Yep! My favorite is Alton Brown. He used to do a show called Good Eats. I have 5 or 6 of his cookbooks. By and large, most of his recipes are pretty good. But even he knew he made some mistakes. That's why he did a couple of seasons where he "reloaded" some of his old episodes with fixes to the problems. I like his show because he explains the whys, not just the hows.

I do have cookbooks from other TV/Media chefs and the recipes I've made have been good. My cookbook selection various a great deal as I like to try a lot of different things.

If your looking for a good recipe to try, Emeril's Chicken Marsala is very good.
 
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#9
When I was a kid I watched Good Eats. Myself and my family have the books related to the series. When it comes to stuff I watch right now? Not too often do I do that, but I've got a good stable of recipes that turn out well and a general knack for trying stuff out and have it at least become something decent. I don't often cook with a recipe at this juncture, but I'll probably get back into it a bit to get some more general concepts for my repertoire.
 
#11
I watched the cooking channels regularly for about 5 years. I Learned a stack about cooking - skills, knowledge, experience and those produce confidence.

1. The show I learned the most from was Food Safari by Maeve O’Mara (Australian, travel). She travels the world, records locals cooking local dishes, and explains the cooking processes in enough detail to help you reproduce it authentically.

https://www.youtube.com/@foodsafari5591/videos


2. Most technical - Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Book and TV series. It gives the secret formula to understanding our taste buds and how to make any meal great.

[This invalid link has been removed]


3. Most entertaining were

- Heston’s Feasts (UK). He brought the magical and adventure to actual cooking - an edible volcano dessert, recreating medieval feasts, how to make the worlds best battered fish and chips (fries).

- Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown (USA, travel). Felt like I was a tourist discovering hidden eatery gems.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyRqK5BQ11x2CIhj7h0jpK7jPSghU6o2O
 
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#12
Sbassman Scratch said:
The gym I go to has a bunch of TVs and one of the is usually tuned to a cooking show. Learn to cook while you work up an appetite.
But I wonder how many people watch exercise videos while they cook.
Click to expand...

Gaffigan does a bit about that. He talks how he was walking on the treadmill at the gym, and on the TV in front of him they were making brownies. He stopped his workout, then on the way home from the gym picked up some brownies.

-Mike
 
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#13
I would but only if I had someone to chop everything up for me and measure them into those little glass bowls. That's the most fascinating part of cooking shows for me! "Just a dash of this...and a handful of that". Easy peasy!

I'm more like the first person that gets booted out of an Iron Chef episode. "Where'd the damned salt shaker go?"
 
#16
Yes and no. I have watched dozens of different cooking shows and always learn something, but rarely copy a recipe. America's Test Kitchen is a fantastic source of good techniques and practices. You can't take everything they say 100%, sometimes their "expert" is far from an expert. They did a cocktail shaker test/demo where the guy made so many bartending 101 mistakes (open end of the pint glass shaker TOWARDS the customer?!) I was embarrassed for him. Overall a bunch of their tricks really do work, like how they fine dice an onion. Wish I had known that one when I still worked on kitchen lines.

One actual recipe I got from ATK was for a one pan, stove top, skillet "lasagna", made from dry noodles. Really! I actually tried it just because I didn't believe them, lol. Not only did it work, it was fantastic. A bit of fuss, but a real trash cooking triumph. America's Test Kitchen's Skillet Lasagna | The Leonard Lopate Show | WNYC
 
#17
I've been cooking for our family for the better part of 40 years. I've been following this guys recipes as I have been on a bit of a Jamaican food kick.
This oxtail recipe is the bomb!

One thing that I have picked up from Deddy is to soak chicken and pork in water and vinegar to remove loose processing "debris" and blood from the meat. It's remarkable how much comes out of the meat using this process.
Boxing day is the day our family gathers for our Xmas meal. No one wants turkey, roast beast etc after having all that at home the previous day. I decided to make them Oxtail. 14 people, half of which have never tried Oxtail. Well after the first bite, they all went back numerous times and they destroyed 8lbs of Oxtail. I was happy they enjoyed it, but disappointed that there were no leftovers! LOL
I still use Emeril's "Bam" spice mix on many things, tweaking it occasionally.
Fishheadjoe
 
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#19
Absolutely.

My wife loves the Pioneer Woman. She has made many of her recipes and I have enjoyed them greatly. She also has made several from Trisha Yearwood's shows. I have enjoyed them as well :)

My fascination with cooking shows started here and here .

I'll watch virtually any cooking show be it game, instruction or travel.
 
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#20
Funky Ghost said:
Absolutely.

My wife loves the Pioneer Woman. She has made many of her recipes and I have enjoyed them greatly. She also has made several from Trisha Yearwood's shows. I have enjoyed them as well :)

My fascination with cooking shows started here and here .

I'll watch virtually any cooking show be it game, instruction or travel.
Click to expand...

My first cooking show would have been this

 
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