Cooking tips !

[Hobby_Cooker]

Hello guys,
 
I have a problem. I want to learn to cook and need some good recipes to surprise my friends and my family.
I tried out a lot of recipes but none convinced me so I ask you whether you know some books with good cooking recipes and instructions.
I would be thankful for every good hint.
 
Best regards,
 
Hobby_cooker

[intime0]

Fair Price Finest (at Bukit Timah Plaza) has a really fun Singaporean cookbook.  Found LOTS of great recipes in it.

[Try this]

The Interwebs is your friend. Start at a site called all recipes, you can browse thousands of recipes, and compare multiple recipes for the same dish, you can bookmark and keep a recipe file on line. The best part about the site is the up to hundreds of comments after each recipe of how people have "tweaked" the original recipe for different results. It's an amazing education.

I have also used the net for everything from "how to buy avocados" to "how to whip cream". Just google and somebody's got a blog entry or posted a video. It really takes the mystery out of all the preparation techniques.

[donna hay]

check donna hay's books. she has a lot of easy, healthy quick recipes.

[First learn techniques]

You should learn techniques of cooking first.  Google websites on Allabout and zero into cooking. There are videos on various basic cooking tecniques.  And from there search for the differnt cuisines you are interested in, and select recipes that appeal to you.  Other websites also provide many cooking videos.

Happy cooking.

[t'internet]

I agree with 'try this' - the internet is great for recipes.  I get most of mine from there now.  I've used all recipes but I joined a site called food.com which is similar so you could have a look at that one too.

Think about something you really like to eat which doesn't seem too difficult and look for a good recipe for it.  I tried making Chicken Kiev the other week and while it wouldn't have won any awards, it was tasty and the family liked it - don't expect miracles.  I've been cooking for about 30 years and still have failures    But I like to experiment and that's part of the fun (the washing up not so much fun  )

[beginner?]

Sounds like you haven't done much cooking before and maybe aren't too sure of basic cooking techniques. If that's the case, it may be that although you are trying to follow the recipe, you aren't familiar with some of the instructions, which can make or break the final dish. When my teenagers started cooking for themselves, they liked the Australian Women's Weekly cookbooks (paperback format, about the size of a magazine, think I got them in Popular or Borders) as they have step by step instructions with pictures to guide you along. Once you get one dish to work well and you like it, you can google for other similar recipes or start adding in your own ingredients as you get more confident. There are a few asian themed ones like Malaysian cooking, Vietnamese, basic Chinese etc which I liked myself when I first moved to S E Asia and was cooking with unfamiliar ingredients.

[books]

Try joining the library - they have loads and loads of cookery books - all different types of food.  Much cheaper than buying recipe books and then only using one or two of the recipes.

[cookathome]

 Also, don't get too fancy with dishes that are too fiddly, with too many ingredients, fancy sauces, too many stages, too much prep etc etc. Learn the basics like how to grill fish or meat, how to make eggs/omelletes, the basics of stir frying and try some easy soups or stews (every cuisine has them). Far less stress at the end of the day and you have leftovers for lunch. All you do then is steam some veggies and you're done.

[marriedguy]

If you want a good cook book to learn technique, I suggest Jacques Pepin's 'Complete Techniques' which has a ton of photos to help you along. Great classic recipes too! I got my copy from Kinokinuya at Nee Ann City.

[ifcatscouldtalk]

I like bill granger's cookbooks, his recipe is always easy to follow.

I also go to www.tastespotting.com,

www.epicurious.com

www.bbcgoodfood.co.uk

hope this helps.