> But, even before that, I remember when I first started thinking about the way I behaved. I was still living in Boston. I had been out of kitchens for a couple years. I think I was working at Cook’s Illustrated. I had two roommates in Cambridge—one of them was my best friend. She and I had lived together since college. We had a friend visiting, and my roommate had woken up, gone to the corner store, and bought a box of pancake mix and was making pancakes. I came out of my room that morning and basically just berated her about using pancake mix when we had all the ingredients already. Our mutual friend was, like, “Kenji, you’re being an asshole. Why are you judging a person for making pancakes?” And I realized at that point, Oh, crap, why am I belittling one of my best friends in the world for wanting to make pancakes at home? I had to make a conscious decision not to be that way.
> You can train yourself, I think, to be a better person just by thinking about it a lot, and acting on those thoughts.
I used to be anti mix. Now I'm 100% on the train. The simple fact is that the extra stabilizers and emulsifiers that are added to the mix don't detract from the flavor and texture at all, if anything enhancing the texture. Mixes are engineered to consistently reach a desired result. Krusteez pancake mix is a permanent staple in my house. If I feel like baking something like brownies, or a cake I'll go out to buy a mix on my next shopping trip. Cookies are probably the only thing I won't bother due to their simplicity.
Kenji's channel and writing are great windows into how cooking does not need to follow rigid rules and precise measurements to make great food. He substitutes ingredients and uses what he has on hand all the time. Unless it's something like bread or pizza dough, where he needs the correct ratio between flour and water, he never measures or weighs anything. He frequently leaves something baking in the oven or simmering on the stovetop, promising to come back in X minutes, but it's usually Y minutes later because he's been off doing something with his wife/kid/dogs. It seems like he says things like "oops" and "but that's ok" a lot. Cooking shouldn't be intimidating. He shows how approachable and forgiving it can be.
Yup, he articulated very clearly why I often like the US-style recipes which tend to deal with cups and tablespoons, which are far less precise than grams: sometimes having less precision is freeing.
Don't get me wrong, I own a kitchen scale and it's indispensable for many baking tasks.
But sometimes seeing a pasta sauce that calls for "one onion, 175 grams" I cringe, and just imagine someone delicately shaving off bits of their onion until it weighs right, or, worse, going back to the store because their onion was 162 grams, and they thought it mattered.
Yeah I got a kick out of watching his videos and seeing him every so often pull out some slightly wilted vegetables to make his dish. Quite the contrast to seeing all the pristine ingredients on TV cooking shows.
Yeah, something I like about Kenji's approach (and Pepin before him) is that while they know the "proper" way to do things they don't treat it as a straight jacket.
Kenji shines on his YouTube channel. He has a fantastic capability to teach in a fun, nurturing manner that almost feels dad-like (this is reflected in many of the comments on his videos). I view myself as a pretty seasoned home-cook but I always learn a thing or two from his videos. Recommend!
The biggest thing I love about his videos is both showing and highlighting the interstitial moments.
A huge amount of cooking isn't actually cooking, but counter space management, dishwashing, measuring, etc. Doing that well makes cooking easy and enjoyable, as time becomes less limited. Screwing it up multiplies stress by orders of magnitude. Zen, indeed.
I do watch his videos but honestly have never tried to make any of his recipes. Pretty much all his recipes look at least slightly worse than a competing recipe in YouTube for the same dish. Or he’ll use something I will never want to keep in my kitchen.
I haven't read his book or followed him online extensively, but I credit Kenji with my first breakthrough in cooking food that was better than what I can get in a quality restaurant. His "Late Night Cheeseburger" video produced one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten, and I made it myself!
Since then I've been cooking a lot more for myself, mostly using Joshua Weissman's recipe's. His videos get annoying quickly (lots of overdone, repetitive, "meme" humor) but his recipes include exact seasoning amounts and the low end cooking time he lists is always perfect, never overcooked.
My mother cooked almost every night for us as children, but when I eat her cooking now I'm almost always shocked at how underseasoned and overcooked everything is. I'm not sure most people know how to follow "season to taste", they just throw some salt in and set the table without tasting anything, and keep some good ol' iodized salt in a shaker handy.
Kenji used to be part of Milk Street and occasionally is still a guest on their videos or podcasts.
I’ve had many cookbooks at home over the years but their recipes are far more practical for the home cook and are tailored to ingredients you can usually get at an American supermarket. Plus they have a lot of recipes that from start to finish are an hour or less including prep time.
I’ve been watching Kenji’s YouTube channel for quite a while and it’s one of my favorite channels. One of his favorite chefs is Jacque Pepin (and mine!) and it shows. He’s not pretentious, mellow, substitutes ingredients the recipe calls for with ingredients he actually has in his house, and geeks out on history and science. Lastly his dogs are pretty darn cute and get to taste some great dishes.
I've found Ethan Chlebowski and Kenji's videos really put in a lot of great, simple tips that make for some good cooking. For the most part, their videos aren't necessarily about the dish itself but the processes whilst cooking them. Kenji's boiling eggs video and Ethan's risotto-like pasta video have helped me immensely and just watching them cook has added some great techniques to my own repertoire. It really does help that they're quite honest about making mistakes and tend to include how and why they failed sometimes
Cooking is the Perl of life activities in that "There are many ways to do it." and we all tend to optimize for different things.
I live with people with dietary restrictions, so I tend to make everything from scratch because I optimize for not killing my housemates. But I have found it's an added advantage in that if I'm mostly getting staples and assembling things myself, I both have a simpler time shopping and much less trouble meal planning because I can late-bind what I'm making since I've got ingredients for most common (for our household :) meals handy.
But that doesn't mean mixes/pre-made stuff is bad. If it's optimal for you, go for it. :)
Agreed. If anyone is looking to make a classic dish, browse right to Serious Eats and avoid the SEO recipe spam on Google. You’ll save time, bypass the big-data overlord and end up with better-than-restaurant quality food.
Never had a recipe of his let me down, but his chicken adobo recipe (where you simmer a sauce of sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar for like an hour) practically destroyed my wok's seasoning. The sauce was almost caramel like by the end of it, which let to a ton of caked on burnt bits I could only scrape off aggressively, and then the vinegar evaporation created what I can only call steam bubbles in the patina that caused them to flake off like paint chips. I had to pretty much scrape everything off and start from scratch on reseasoning the wok after that. It's still not quite back to what it was before "the Adobo event" (as my girlfriend calls it).
Still a delicious recipe, but, I learned to use my deep saute pan for it in the future.
I'll put in a plug for some friends of friends. Check out Backhaus if you're ever around San Mateo. Gourmet bread and pastries and whatnot. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is one of their financial backers / advisers [1].
I love Kenji’s cooking videos! You definitely learn a lot. I love how he brings his experiences and knowledge learned into his recipes. I remember watching a Japanese Chicken Katsu video of his, and the fact that he compares how salting affects the juicyness of the final product gives a simple homecook the knowledge they need to know that can possibly be applied to some other recipe later on.
I’ve followed Kenji since Food lab and was delighted to discover his youtube channel during the lockdown, but is it just me or it kind of scary that after all he has done most of his income comes from youtube now? Another tech monopoly with incredible power hoovering up all sorts of value just because its so useful and dominant.
> How do I, as someone who’s not Chinese—I’m half Japanese, I grew up in the U.S.—write all this stuff about Chinese recipes with any authority? Why should people trust me? And why is it O.K. for me to be doing this?
Why do the Chinese get to wield supreme executive authority over throwing some random ingredients into a thin pan on high heat? What kind of Food Holocaust do people think is going to happen if some random food blogger who isn't Chinese writes about woks? Chinese food (as if you could say exactly what is and isn't Real Chinese Food without starting a Food Holy War) isn't going to be obliterated by it.
The whole cultural appropriation thing is dead to me at this point. Yes, your book's sales might tank if some lunatic with millions of fans decides to excoriate you for being ignorant or disrespectful to some cultural trope like "the right way to stir-fry" or something. But they might also ignore you. I don't think it's worth giving yourself anxiety just to make sure you "have the right" to write about some subject. Just try to be a good person, do your work, and stay off of Twitter.
I was into his videos for a few months but I couldn’t stand how much of a narcissist he is. He literally says he invented the reverse-searing technique.
I’ve seen him state that he doesn’t expect people to do all of the extra labor intensive steps. He’s showing you all the things you can do and how they enhance, you choose how far you want to take it.
I’ve been following his stuff since the aughts. At this point I almost never make his recipes as stated. I’ve learned which techniques I find worth it, which I don’t, and in others I’ve folded in things he came up with later on his own journey
> Kenji's cooking methods are always 10x more effort for 10% better food. Great for supertasters, not necessary for most of us.
I think he may have that tendency somewhat but it's not as nearly as bad as some other places like Cook's Illustrated (where I guess he used to work) which really tend to add unnecessary steps for very small improvements.
At serious eats he sometimes made multiple versions of recipes, an easy version and a more complicated version, to make it possible for people to decide which they want to make. On his videos he often explains optional steps that can be omitted.
Also, FYI that's not really what "supertasters" means (it doesn't mean people who have a discerning palate and can pick out subtle flavors, it means people who are hypersensitive to certain bitter flavors).
That's just the food lab/serious eats stuff IMHO. Those things are purpose built to be "what if we turned everything up to 11 and made the best possible X/Y/Z?". If you read Modernist Cuisine it's exactly the same thing and you'll spend two days making a single cheeseburger (with from scratch bread, cheese, mayo, grinding your own beef, sous vide cooking the patty for hours, etc).
Watch his youtube channel and more recent stuff, it's a lot more toned down and accessible to everyone.
I think the divide is the craft & process vs the outcome. If you like cooking as a hobby, Kenji’s methods are fun. If you’re just cooking for an outcome, you’re right, his methods aren’t the fastest. Think of it like any other weekend project you do - odds are a generous application of money or existing expertise gets the job done faster than you poking around and trying stuff, but is that really the goal?
This is definitely true of some of his methods, but not all. His 3-ingredient mac and cheese was a game-changer in my household. A recipe that simple has no business producing such good results.
I use his Food Lab book a lot, and I think most of the recipes are very practical. There are a few over-the-top recipes but they're usually paired with easy versions.
Like, you could make his bolognese recipe that takes a bajillion ingredients, or you could make the quick+easy bolognese recipe on a weeknight. Same with French onion soup, or chili...
[+] [-] jt2190|4 years ago|reply
> You can train yourself, I think, to be a better person just by thinking about it a lot, and acting on those thoughts.
[+] [-] zinclozenge|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tinym|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tayo42|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gullywhumper|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mabbo|4 years ago|reply
He literally says while recording "Doesn't matter, still pizza. Actually, that's what I'm going to name this episode."
It doesn't matter that it was very not Instagram-worthy. What matters is that it's still pizza and he's still going to feed his family with it.
[+] [-] SamBam|4 years ago|reply
Don't get me wrong, I own a kitchen scale and it's indispensable for many baking tasks.
But sometimes seeing a pasta sauce that calls for "one onion, 175 grams" I cringe, and just imagine someone delicately shaving off bits of their onion until it weighs right, or, worse, going back to the store because their onion was 162 grams, and they thought it mattered.
[+] [-] gyc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonwatkinspdx|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luxurytent|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ethbr0|4 years ago|reply
A huge amount of cooking isn't actually cooking, but counter space management, dishwashing, measuring, etc. Doing that well makes cooking easy and enjoyable, as time becomes less limited. Screwing it up multiplies stress by orders of magnitude. Zen, indeed.
[+] [-] ramraj07|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ngngngng|4 years ago|reply
Since then I've been cooking a lot more for myself, mostly using Joshua Weissman's recipe's. His videos get annoying quickly (lots of overdone, repetitive, "meme" humor) but his recipes include exact seasoning amounts and the low end cooking time he lists is always perfect, never overcooked.
My mother cooked almost every night for us as children, but when I eat her cooking now I'm almost always shocked at how underseasoned and overcooked everything is. I'm not sure most people know how to follow "season to taste", they just throw some salt in and set the table without tasting anything, and keep some good ol' iodized salt in a shaker handy.
[+] [-] mabbo|4 years ago|reply
I believe it's some kind of social experiment. Like his entire online persona is an experiment.
[+] [-] binarycrusader|4 years ago|reply
https://www.177milkstreet.com
They have a bunch of free videos on YouTube:
https://youtube.com/c/ChristopherKimball%E2%80%99sMilkStreet
Kenji used to be part of Milk Street and occasionally is still a guest on their videos or podcasts.
I’ve had many cookbooks at home over the years but their recipes are far more practical for the home cook and are tailored to ingredients you can usually get at an American supermarket. Plus they have a lot of recipes that from start to finish are an hour or less including prep time.
[+] [-] dylanz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aniforprez|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dvtrn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chair6|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eschneider|4 years ago|reply
I live with people with dietary restrictions, so I tend to make everything from scratch because I optimize for not killing my housemates. But I have found it's an added advantage in that if I'm mostly getting staples and assembling things myself, I both have a simpler time shopping and much less trouble meal planning because I can late-bind what I'm making since I've got ingredients for most common (for our household :) meals handy.
But that doesn't mean mixes/pre-made stuff is bad. If it's optimal for you, go for it. :)
[+] [-] simonw|4 years ago|reply
I've been following his stuff on Serious Eats (and The Food Lab book) for years. I've never had a recipe of his let me down.
[+] [-] anthomtb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tylerflick|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|4 years ago|reply
Still a delicious recipe, but, I learned to use my deep saute pan for it in the future.
[+] [-] jeffwilcox|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaycebasques|4 years ago|reply
[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/kenjilopezalt/status/104862447412...
[+] [-] isatty|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NelsonMinar|4 years ago|reply
Enjoyed this article and how personal it was. Helen Rosner is a great writer.
[+] [-] francislata|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] porknubbins|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anamax|4 years ago|reply
There are hundreds if not thousands of flours and each cake mix has a mix of flours.
How many people have more than four flours? How many emulsifiers?
[+] [-] mhb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] turkishlurker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|4 years ago|reply
Why do the Chinese get to wield supreme executive authority over throwing some random ingredients into a thin pan on high heat? What kind of Food Holocaust do people think is going to happen if some random food blogger who isn't Chinese writes about woks? Chinese food (as if you could say exactly what is and isn't Real Chinese Food without starting a Food Holy War) isn't going to be obliterated by it.
The whole cultural appropriation thing is dead to me at this point. Yes, your book's sales might tank if some lunatic with millions of fans decides to excoriate you for being ignorant or disrespectful to some cultural trope like "the right way to stir-fry" or something. But they might also ignore you. I don't think it's worth giving yourself anxiety just to make sure you "have the right" to write about some subject. Just try to be a good person, do your work, and stay off of Twitter.
[+] [-] ripper1138|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xdfgh1112|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jghn|4 years ago|reply
I’ve been following his stuff since the aughts. At this point I almost never make his recipes as stated. I’ve learned which techniques I find worth it, which I don’t, and in others I’ve folded in things he came up with later on his own journey
[+] [-] resoluteteeth|4 years ago|reply
I think he may have that tendency somewhat but it's not as nearly as bad as some other places like Cook's Illustrated (where I guess he used to work) which really tend to add unnecessary steps for very small improvements.
At serious eats he sometimes made multiple versions of recipes, an easy version and a more complicated version, to make it possible for people to decide which they want to make. On his videos he often explains optional steps that can be omitted.
Also, FYI that's not really what "supertasters" means (it doesn't mean people who have a discerning palate and can pick out subtle flavors, it means people who are hypersensitive to certain bitter flavors).
[+] [-] qbasic_forever|4 years ago|reply
Watch his youtube channel and more recent stuff, it's a lot more toned down and accessible to everyone.
[+] [-] mabbo|4 years ago|reply
I find most of his recommendations made me a faster cook.
[+] [-] roughly|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xcde4c3db|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ripley12|4 years ago|reply
Like, you could make his bolognese recipe that takes a bajillion ingredients, or you could make the quick+easy bolognese recipe on a weeknight. Same with French onion soup, or chili...