Your weakest area(s) of cooking expertise

I try bread at least once a month. It is only OK. Deserts in general are not my forte. There are a few things that I do well - Everything Lemon Lemon cake, OOEY Gooey Brownies and Buttermilk Pecan Pie. Knife skills - I am right handed. In '04 I was in a near fatal accident. I have two titanium plates and lots of screw in my right arm.. I also have a lot of nerve damage. I use my right hand to slice, dice, chop and mince but not at all quickly. Having a good, sharp knife helps a lot. I let the knife do most of the work.
 
Lol, sorry. My mum was the only one I knew that could start slicing a solid loaf of bread to make sammiches, the bread would be left at a 30 deg angle. She was a shocker.i always had cut a huge chunk off to get it back to 90 deg. My daughter is a lefty, and she's bad as well. Not as bad as my mum though.lol

Russ


My sister uses one of these...

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CD
 
Mrs B and I cook as a unit. We both have different weaknesses and strengths ie I dislike cleaning and prepping fish. Mrs B was a pescaterian till she met me. I enjoy butchering meat. My presentation has always been shxt, Mrs B is the artist. Her biggest weakness is she will not taste at any stage of cooking, this drives me nuts. I have to do it for her.I drive her nuts because I'm very very untidy.
 
I try bread at least once a month. It is only OK. Deserts in general are not my forte. There are a few things that I do well - Everything Lemon Lemon cake, OOEY Gooey Brownies and Buttermilk Pecan Pie. Knife skills - I am right handed. In '04 I was in a near fatal accident. I have two titanium plates and lots of screw in my right arm.. I also have a lot of nerve damage. I use my right hand to slice, dice, chop and mince but not at all quickly. Having a good, sharp knife helps a lot. I let the knife do most of the work.

I'm sorry about your accident. I struggle with knife skills due to arthritis. It usually turns out well but it's not the prettiest. ;-)
 
I would like to attempt a soufflé some day
Soufflés aren't as hard or fussy as they're made out to be. I can make a soufflé, so that tells you something right there.

Here's a video with Pepin demonstrating how to make a cheese soufflé without separating the eggs or anything. Takes minutes to put together, plus he'll show you how to make a butter rose for garnish.

I've made this several times:

View: https://youtu.be/0GAdCkLBqKk
 
My knife skills need work... but watch this video:

You don't need knife skills — just walk, don't run - YouTube

He does recognize that some skills are necessary, but unless you are cooking for a major amount of people at say, a restaurant - at home many of the skills aren't necessary.
That's something that I concluded years ago - I don't need to dice 50lbs of onions in 15 minutes. One or two onions, that's the most I usually ever work with.

I think my knife skills are better than average for a home cook (I've been complimented on them in cooking classes :laugh:, but still nowhere near restaurant speed.
 
There are two dishes I wanted to make that I need to perfect somehow before I can post them anywhere. They are in my 2021 cooking goals.

Hollandaise sauce for poached eggs, from scratch.
Vietnamese tapioca dumplings. (this one tasted fine but looked like a disaster).

One I haven't tried yet - working with phyllo to make spanakopita. I am finding the notion intimidating, but I haven't tried it yet! So, I may get this right the first time?
 
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