Family Cooking vs Gourmet Cooking

[karadawn]

I admit, I watch a lot of reality cooking shows like "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Hell's Kitchen". Some of the things they make are dishes I've never even heard of, but they always look really appetizing and something I'd WANT to make.

Although, in your average family kitchen, how realistic are some of the foods you see on those shows?

We make the most traditional foods, like lasagna, pizza, chicken (without fancy additives... just salt-and-pepper baked chicken), and other "boring" foods. I'm afraid if I go any further outside the box, my kids won't eat it at all. I'm also afraid my budget won't allow for some of the crazy ingredients the "fancy" foods require.

Have you ever tried cooking a higher-class dish? How did your family like it?

 

[Food4thought]

I think you cannot beat good home cooking when dining with the family and gourmet meals can be left to restaurant cooks and dinner party hosts. That does not mean you should not experiment, if you want to, with gourmet cooking at home.

I cook all my own meals. I can do Italian, Indian, Chinese or traditional and generally I stick with those styles of cooking. Gourmet meals generally requires expensive ingredients which I can't afford.

 

[OhioTom76]

It can be very easy to waste a lot of money on specialty ingredients trying to create these recipes at home. I got into a bad habit of doing this for a while, until I finally took a step back and got my grocery shopping back under control.

It helps to have a better understanding of the recipes themselves, and how they have been prepared historically. Often times these TV chefs will "guild the lily" and add a bunch of extra ingredients that aren't necessarily needed, just to change up the traditional recipe somewhat, and/or make it more complex. Or they will use exotic ingredients in place of simpler ingredients that are more commonly used in the dish. For example, if you wanted to try making a curry dish, just buy the curry powder pre-made, if the recipe calls for making the curry powder from scratch - you would waste a lot of money buying all those ingredients separately, and may never end up using them all.

Similarly, fresh herbs can drive up the cost of a dish. At my local grocery stores, they sell for nearly $5 a piece. Consider substituting some of them with dried ones you already have on hand, and/or pairing the selection of herbs down or swapping them out with less expensive ones that won't negatively affect the dish.

If you want to try making a home made stock for example, you can actually make a perfectly good chicken stock with just onions and garlic, along with some sea salt and ground black pepper, maybe a bay leaf if you have it. If you don't have fresh celery and carrots and fresh herbs on hand, don't bother - they're not 100% necessary for it.

Most of the time, you don't need to go out and buy all the specialty oils they use such as truffle oil or walnut oil and others either. Just stick with what you've got on hand, such as Canola or Olive oil. Even Peanut oil can be kind of expensive in some areas, whereas vegetable or canola oil would work just fine in it's place, such as in Chinese cooking.

 

[karadawn]

I think driving up my grocery bill would be one of my biggest concerns as well. As far as the fresh herbs go, we are working to get a small herb garden growing in the kitchen. So far we've planted basil and cilantro, two herbs I use a lot of in the summer when the tomatoes begin to ripen.

Maybe I've been looking at it the wrong way and possible over thinking it. Maybe all I really need to look into is playing with spices and other cost-effective ingredients to add something special and unique to the dish. Like you said, they add a bunch of unnecessary ingredients just to step up the value or wow the judge. I have no one to really wow, but rather just a family to feed that can be quite picky!

 

[Jade]

I think you can have both and just cook home-styled dishes but plating them in a fancy way. I've done this myself when I cooked chicken ala king and put dainty little portions on each plate, but although it looked great, it really wasn't enough to be filling and everyone just ended up getting seconds sans the fancy plating - including me. It was a nice experience and made for pretty pictures, but besides that, I didn't really find it all that practical for daily dishes at home so I'm sticking with just rustic cooking and presentation as always.

 

[crimsonghost747]

I rarely make anything special since I only cook for myself and money is also something to think about. It would be pointless to spend an hour in the kitchen making a $10 meal for myself when I'm just as happy with pasta in a tomato sauce that probably costs $2 and is ready in 15 minutes.

So no, I never really try to cook any of those fancy things at home. If I do, it's usually my own version of the recipe, something that is a bit easier and faster to make.

 

[Chris_A]

I think all those special and high class meals are way overrated. Street food or food that you cook at home, with patience and time, will always beat those that are available at high class restaurants which charge you half your monthly wage for a meal. Most of those dishes fancy themselves because they look so awesome on plate, but don`t have the necessary flavor to back it all up.

 

[Verity Darkwaters]

Many time high class meals are just a waste of money. You're really paying for the ambiance and art on the plate. However, I find that it is actually fun to do once in a while for a special date or something. Or I make my own version of the recipe so I'm not paying $50 on 2 plates of food.

I really enjoy family cooking, it is more comfort food, cheaper, easier, but you can still make it look very nice as well. You just have to know how to place it on the plate.

 

[Ellyn]

I'm definitely not a gourmet chef, not classically-trained, right now I even consider myself closer to Tatsuya Ishida's "Bachelor Cooking Show" comic than anything. I just like to experiment with food. I get nervous when cooking or baking for other people, and I definitely couldn't take the stress of running a restaurant with its turnover rates and all that!

The recipes that I do look out for are usually peasant dishes or street food from exotic places, or just little tips on presentation. I guess that technically mixes it up a bit--but I'd never say it's gourmet. I'm just interested in foods that are...well, interesting! Sure, I'd maybe like to try a roast swan one day, but right now my culinary muses that make me go, "ooh, I really want to try making that!" lean more towards fresh-baked bread buns, cakes, pies, colcannon, obanyaki, martabak manis... most recently I tried out corn and chili beef with beans wrapped in cabbage leaves, and before that it was "hey, what'll happen if I boil oatmeal in malt soya milk instead of water?" The most gourmet that I get is probably Hollandaise sauce, and I almost certainly never do that right...just palatably.

In short, family cooking, peasant dishes and street food all the way for me. Although some tips and tricks of chefs can be interesting.

 

[dustysmommy2013]

I love to watch those kind of shows too but I could never be a judge because I could never eat some of the really weird dishes that are featured. For me, you just can't beat a homemade meal of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Normally, that's what you would get at a restaurant around here too. Sure, we have the fine dining restaurants but even those are really nothing compared to what is shown on TV.

The dishes that really astound me on these type of shows are the appetizers. Stuffed grape leaves? Peanut butter sauce? Come on! Whatever happened to good 'ol mozzarella sticks or potato cakes?

 

[forextraspecialstuff]

When I'm cooking I tend to mix it up, traditional family meals, a little gourmet, maybe something that seems like something we wouldn't like. I figure if worse comes to worse there's always ordering pizza. Where we live, when you go out you can find a restaurant to fit pretty much anything you want. Since we're trying to save some money now and don't go out as much I'm trying to bring that feeling to our kitchen.