Ask HN: Hackers who cook

[Cherian]

While going through a ProductHunt post[1] I came across a fellow HNer[2] who was following NYT Cooking[3] and cooking with a plan on a regular basis. I was very curious to understand how he spaces time to cook and work. And the type of stuff he cooks.

Which kind of inspired me to start working on project to follow someone and get inspired by their – meal plans, shopping patterns, recipes, hacks, tips etc (Another inspiration [4])

I am trying to find hackers who cook at home on a regular basis (even if its only 2-3 times a week).

If you cook, some questions:

1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

Disclosure: I run Cucumbertown (http://www.cucumbertown.com/), the Tumblr for cooks.

[1] http://www.producthunt.com/posts/new-york-times-apis

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cdavis565

[3] http://cooking.nytimes.com/

[4] http://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/comments/2gutuk/26_2021_1592_grocery_list_meal_plan_and_recipes/

Edit:

Seems like this was taken off the homepage for some reason. The comment rate’s coming down.

Thanks a lot for the encouraging comments. A short but exciting Q&A. If you can help me out more, please reach me on [email protected]

[q845712]

1. i view cooking and writing software as a creative act. Making food is a pleasant contrast to making software because the projects are short and the asthetics are straightforward: do i, and whomever else i'm cooking for, think this is delicious. With practice, i can cook a higher grade of food than i can afford to eat out, just like buying nicer alcohols is cheaper at a liquor store than a bar.

i look forward to cooking and find it relaxing, particularly when it's just for my own household - small quantities of food for people whose tastes i know well.

2. i plan a few days ahead and i go shopping every few days. some days i spend the majority of my spare cycles imagining and re-imagining how i'll cook dinner with the ingredients i've got at home.

3+4. i cook mostly vegetarian / pescetarian and try to use whole grains and complex carbohydrates, probably less carbs than e.g. sandwiches or pasta? i often start with a protein source and then try to make it a balanced and tasty meal.

5. plan ahead. treat the whole thing as a meditation: chopping is a deep consideration of the vegetable, cleaning is a meditation on the colors and shapes as they reveal themselves beneath the food-dirt.

[weavie]

1. I find the more natural (less processed) the food is, the better it is for you. I cook to ensure I know as much as possible what is in my food. Where possible I get my food from the butchers and green grocers and only go to the supermarket where necessary.

2. I don't plan ahead more than a day.

3. I cook meat and veg in some combination. If it was just me it would be a simple mix of meat with some veg and spices, probably with little variety. But I need to keep everyone happy, the wife is pretty picky and there are the kids. So I have to cook a variety of shapes and flavours. Our youngest kid is a good eater, probably because we have always fed her whole foods and little junk. Although she always prefers pizza and icecream she will eat most things we put down for her.

4. I try for paleo and succeed 80% of the time.

5. It is worth having a few dishes that you can consistently cook well. Once these are mastered then it is possible to start creating variations in those dishes to suit any situation. You can become quite versatile with just a few basic dishes.

Should also add, if you really want good food, grow your own. The difference in taste between a freshly picked tomato and a supermarket bought one is a world apart. This is what I am going to be focusing on next year.

[Cherian]

I am looking to building something that breaks the monotony of “mastering”. People tend to cook the mastered ones for a lifetime.

[lotharbot]

1) Cheaper. Healthier. Tailored to my personal tastes, accounts for my particular allergies/sensitivities. Saves time and aggravation with my autistic four year old. And it's enjoyable.

2) If something is on sale at the grocery store, I'll plan out a specific meal around it (steak and peppers, for example) but otherwise I don't make a detailed plan.

3) I do a lot of one-pot or two-pot meals. One pot is grain (rice, pasta, or potatoes) and the other is a meat-veggie mix. Sometimes it's curry, sometimes it's more beef-and-tomatoes, sometimes lemon chicken with asparagus.

4) I have in the past done weight watchers (the points plan that was popular in ~2008). This is easily adaptable -- the meat-and-veggie dish is usually fairly low calorie and nutritiously filling, and using brown rice or whole wheat pasta with a small portion size keeps the points down.

5) I think of the dishes I make as essentially templates. I know how to make a decent Chicken Vindaloo, but I can turn it into Pork With A Different Blend of Spices And Veggies using the exact same cooking techniques and it's still good.

My favorite tools: a deep frying pan with a lid, a slow cooker, and a pressure cooker (especially for rice -- I live at altitude.)

[peterevans]

Cooking is a form of engineering. I like that there's a science behind it, and I like that if you become any good, your standard-of-living (of eating?) will be vastly improved.

Tip #1: get a good knife. If you can, go to a store that'll let you actually hold a knife prior to purchase, to test its heft and balance. Find one that fits you comfortably. (I like Shun knives, but this is a pretty personal topic; don't let that be my personal endorsement so much as my personal choice.) The knife should be sharp, and you should keep it honed with a honing steel. Eventually it may get dull to the point where you might want a whetstone to sharpen it again, but you'd probably need to use your knife a decent amount before it gets to that point.

Tip #2: mis-en-place, which is French for, basically, putting things into place. Your mis is your work station. Clean your counters. Get out your cutting board. Have a bowl for food waste (e.g. the ends you cut off a carrot, the skin off a potato that you peel) and somewhere to put food once you have finished whatever you are doing.

Tip #3: prep work will make your life much, much easier. If the dish calls for diced onions, then you should dice your onions before you turn the heat on the stove. Having all of the vegetables chopped, things marinated, meat salted and spiced, whatever -- ahead of time -- will make the act of cooking about ten times less stressful than otherwise.

Tip #4: taste your food. Needs some salt? Add salt. Maybe some pepper will make it pop. This is a hard thing to quantify; how things taste and what you think you will need is partly your palate, which you can develop beyond what it is now, but some stuff (salt makes things taste better -- to a point, beyond which it just makes things taste like salt) is universal. Just don't be afraid to try some things, in small measures at least, and taste it to see where it's at.

[darkarmani]

> Eventually it may get dull to the point where you might want a whetstone to sharpen it again, but you'd probably need to use your knife a decent amount before it gets to that point.

I completely disagree. It gets dull slow enough that you don't notice it, but there is a difference after 1 month and big difference after 4 months. Although it probably takes a year to get as dull as most people's knives. Although you did mention Shun knives which are much harder than the German steels.

[haliphax]

1. Both. It's cheaper, and often better than anything I can find in the small town where I live.

2. We plan MOST of our meals in a week, but leave a night or two open for flexibility and/or a restaurant visit.

3. All kinds of shit! My wife is an avid Pinterest user, and I am a former professional gourmet cook.

4. Nope.

5. LEARN HOW TO PROPERLY USE AND MAINTAIN KNIVES. That is the biggest tip that I can possibly give.

[Cherian]

Two things common in many replies:

1. Meal plan days ahead.

2. Learn to use knives

[tptacek]

We cook recreationally and to avoid feeding our family processed food.

We try to keep a 1-week meal plan, but it's very hit or miss. We're happier when we have the meal plan.

We start from a protein and work from there; we hit our butcher once a week and grab a couple whole chickens, some braising pork, and some beef. We have some staple meals built out of those things.

Unless fasting is a diet, nope; we try to cook more green vegetables and less starch, but we're not religious.

My biggest productivity hack is bulk-packaged deli cups.

[Cherian]

“bulk-packaged deli cups” – do you use this for freezing? Or take outs?

[CocaKoala]

I liked to cook with my girlfriend as a fun and easy date activity, and we've continued to do it now that we're married. Also, cooking our own food is cheaper than going out every night, and tastes better than getting takeout.

We try to plan meals for the week and then do a big grocery run on the weekend, and I'll stop by the store after work if we run low on something.

We have a few meals that we run through on a rotation; making pulled pork in a slow cooker is pretty easy. There's a mustard marinated chicken dish that we both like. There are a few pasta dishes I can whip up from memory; we also make simple stuff like fried rice on occasion as well.

Neither of us follow a diet; we're still at the stage of our lives where trying to make generally balanced meals (protein, vegetables, fruit) is enough to keep us pretty healthy.

The only real life hack I have is that it's worth the time to memorize a couple recipes that taste good and are easy to make. Don't worry too much about cooking time; one of the pasta dishes I like to make has to simmer for 3 hours or so, but it's really easy to let that sit on the stove and just check on it a couple times an hour to make sure it isn't burning. Cooking isn't an active process where you have to be paying attention to it and devoting cycles to it every second of the process.

[Cherian]

Slow cookers are something I discovered recently. They pretty much give you’re a killer food on the table without much effort.

Do you have recommended recipes?

[Ryel]

I cook for a living in NYC/Brooklyn and do catering around the holidays.

1. I cook at home because I love it. I grew up having Sunday dinners with family so the time in the kitchen and at the dinner table means a lot to me. I cook professionally because I enjoy getting beat down into the ground on a regular basis and feeling like a complete idiot. I enjoy the challenge because every event is a new one. Nothing ever goes according to the plan.

2. I only plan ahead when I've invited non-family guests. The rest of the time I decide based on what looks the most fresh/vibrant in the grocery store.

3. Whatever I think will taste good. A lot of Italian/Spanish food.

4. Nope. I truly believe that you should eat healthy, season appropriately, and enjoy every dish as an experience rather than sustenance. If you follow that, you will eat considerably less and be much happier.

5. Yes I have more tips, tricks, and unusual skills than you would probably care to know. From cooking you become very good at unusual skills like pouring liquids.

The restaurant culture has many traditions but we have one in particular that I think sums up the true importance of cooking. Every day we get together as a team and plan/cook a meal for all of the staff to eat before our busiest part of the day begins...

We call it "family meal" and thats exactly what it feels like.

[keerthiko]

1. Save cash (not much), healthier, it's a good social activity with housemates. I really miss it since I've turned digital nomad. I pretty much only cook with housemates, or when it's too late to go out.

2. Only barely. Maybe a day in advance tops.

3. I learn recipes from whoever's being sous chef for the night. I have a few of my own. Varies. I try to keep it balanced with some meat, veges and carbs.

4. Nope. None whatsoever. I'll eat almost anything too. My only rule is to never feel uncomfortable after a meal. I try to accommodate the requirements of the other participants in the meal though.

5. Core hack: I always keep the ingredients for my (extremely cheap and convenient yet reasonably healthy and tasty) backup meal in the house -- rice, frozen vegetables, frozen wontons, eggs -- which I can turn into a batch of reliable fried rice in under 10 minutes and while nearly brain-dead. Also nearly everything lasts for weeks in the fridge/storage if I don't need to resort to it.

Also I do all the physical labor under my mom's guidance for as many meals as I can spare the time for whenever I'm home. Hands-on-learning and she appreciates the help. It would be a waste to not learn from her culinary genius to pass on to the next generation. I think this is true re: every mom in the world.

[macNchz]

I love to cook, I think because at my core I love to make things and my biggest motivation comes from creating and sharing, which is why I got into programming, and also why I'm drawn to DIY home improvement/car repair/etc. Cooking is an escape from the screen, a great way to get hands on and create something physical, and very rewarding, especially when shared with friends.

Over time I've found myself making more ambitious recipes, and these days I often don't follow recipes at all, I like knowing the ratios of ingredients and flavors and creating tasty things from scratch. I cook for myself most of the time, which makes this approach work...if I mess up on a new improvised recipe, I just have a less-than-perfect dinner. Then, when I'm cooking for friends, I'll whip out a home grown recipe that I've made enough times to trust.

I've found paper cookbooks preferable to apps, because I can spill stuff on them, burn them, use them with wet hands, set stuff down on them, and they don't turn off. I have a couple of cookbooks with simple, staple recipes that I use for reference, but I've also found The Flavor Bible(1) to be incredibly useful—it basically works as a big index of ingredient affinities, so you can look up flavors that go well together for a huge variety of ingredients.

I keep my kitchen stocked with a lot of basics, but I live right near a grocery store, so I'll drop by after work if I need anything special.

[1]http://www.amazon.com/The-Flavor-Bible-Creativity-Imaginativ...

[bcbrown]

The Flavor Bible, as well as What To Drink With What You Eat, and Science And Lore Of The Kitchen, are all invaluable. It's lots of fun to pick an ingredient, and brainstorm a full meal out of the Flavor Bible's combinations.

[tommichaelis]

1. I cook recreationally - I find it's a great way to destress. I find doing something that's a different sort of creative task helps reset and refocus my mind. I actually don't find I save much money in cooking - often I like to cook exciting creative things, using ingredients you wouldn't use every day, and this tends to make cooking cost about the same as going somewhere mediocre for dinner (~£15 either way).

2. I find planning more than a day ahead pretty tough - you never know when you'll decide that actually going out for a beer with mates is more important than going home and cooking. The one exception to this is large meals on weekends. I enjoy having a few friends around, opening a few bottles of vino, and cooking something exciting - which obviously takes planning. At the extreme end of this, I do a christmas meal for 20+ friends every year, generally involving turkey, beef, ham, two types of potatoes, sprouts, a bunch of veg, home made sauces, christmas puddings, etc. This is great fun, but I need to start planning in October (note to self - remember to start planning that soon).

3. All sorts - often roasts, normally something with a meat centrepiece although occasionally I like cooking risotto or a fish pie or a stew. Depends on the time of year really. This summer, most of my meals have been some meat on the barbeque (butterflied leg of lamb for instance), and a bunch of mezze style items. I also occasionally bake loaves of bread (maybe once or twice a month). This feels really great - nothing is better for de-stressing than baking a loaf of bread.

4. No.

5. For me, the productivity isn't important - I'd much rather take my time and do things the old fashioned, conventional way.

[famousactress]

1. I really like making things, and my wife and I just had our first kid. Cooking is a 'making things' hobby that counts as valuable home-chores. It's a lot harder to find free time to justify building surfboards, and the like.

2. Uggh. I try. Meal-planning is definitely one of the things I struggle with. I'd like to do more of it, but honestly I also really enjoy the challenge of figuring something out based on what we have on hand.

3. Per the above (cook with what's on hand), I have templates for things I make. I really love making ramen and have a lot of basic ideas that constantly get remixed and bashed together based on what's in the fridge. Really good sandwiches, soups (I especially like making cold gazpacho's, etc.).. stir fry. Lots of stuff in the theme of being amenable to plenty of ad-hoc free-styling.

4. We eat mostly vegan. A little dairy, and fish for me (but I rarely cook that cause only I eat it in my house)

5. I work at home so when I'm smart I prep at lunchtime for dinner. Like I said I try to curate a set of favorites platform-dishes that can tolerate massive recipe diversions... makes meal planning less crucial.

[TamDenholm]

1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

I was a chef for 2-3 years before i went into Web Dev, i still love to cook and have much more knowledge in cooking than most people because of working in commercial kitchens. That said, i usually cant be bothered cooking if its just for me, i like cooking for others.

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

Nah, i like to just see whats in the kitchen and work with it. There are general dishes that i cook often because i like them and will specifically buy ingredients for them, but the benefit of being able to cook, is that it allows you to use what you have.

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

I like to make the ingredients for things that allow me to pull a meal together quickly. EG, i'll make croutons, salad dressing and chicken so i can make a salad or a wrap in 5 mins if i want to. I make pesto, makes pasta really easy. Every time i have a poker night i'll make a massive pot of my BBQ chilli, it has many fans and is versatile, you can have it with tortilla chips, soft tortillas, pasta, rice, chimmichanga's, etc. Mushroom/beef stroganoff is tasty, roast chicken is easy. I could go on for days.

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

Hell no, i liberally use salt, butter, cream etc, but i'll make sure not to live of heavy foods like that, i'll make sure i eat a good lot of salads, wraps, stir fry's, etc to balance it out.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

A good sharp knife, a large heavy chopping board with wet paper kitchen towel underneath it, stops it moving. Also, watch youtube videos for inspiration, food wishes, any celebrity chef, etc.

[Cherian]

Your transition would be very very interesting to document. A Chef + Web dev is killer. Would it be possible to connect via email? Mine: [email protected]

[_throwaway323]

Why did you choose to go into web dev? I'm looking to make the opposite transition - web development to cooking full time.

[shade]

Great thread, lots of good responses. Here are my own answers:

1. Recreation and saving money. I really like good food, but don't always want to pay restaurant prices for it. There's a certain satisfaction in creating something delicious. It's sometimes a struggle between making time to cook at home and wanting to be lazy and just go out, though.

2. Not as much as we should. My wife prefers to plan ahead, but I'm not so good at always sticking to it.

3. We're pretty eclectic in what we cook. I enjoy Asian inspired flavors and have been intending to make more curries.

4. Not really. I have a certain affinity toward paleo, but I don't follow it too consistently. Mostly when I'm cooking I just try to eat "clean" without a lot of processed junk in it. I'd like to start baking my own bread again so I know what goes into it.

5. Several. Learn to use a knife, and keep it sharp. Get the biggest cutting board you can find. Season everything. Taste frequently, when practical (good with soups and sauces, not good with raw chicken ;)). Use a rice cooker, it's set and forget and keeps a burner (and pan) open for other things. If you have stainless steel pans, learn to use them correctly. To make it easier to slice meat thinly, put it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes first. Clean as you go. Don't be afraid to fail.

If you need something relatively fast and hands off, oven-roasted veggies and protein (particularly chicken, pork, and fish) work really well, and are much healthier than eating out.

Seriously, I can't overemphasize "keep it sharp" when it comes to knives. It's not just easier, it's also much safer. Dull knives are prone to turning and cutting things you didn't want cut, such as your fingers.

[rachelandrew]

1. I've always cooked. My parents cooked at home and so I just assumed that's what you do.

2. Kind of - we get an organic box with a load of stuff in so I work around that.

3. Lots of Indian food (dal, veg curries, sometimes chicken curry), if I'm in a hurry a bunch of veg thrown into an electric steamer plus some protein (chicken/fish/steak). I make soup a couple of times a week, omelettes are a favourite quick lunch as we work from home, or a bunch of salad stuff.

4. I'm a distance runner so it depends what I'm doing with my training. I'm relatively low carb (no white anything), avoid processed stuff, avoid sugar.

5. Get decent knives and learn how to chop stuff up; an electric steamer, and a couple of decent pans. It takes 30 minutes to throw veg into a steamer and cook up a bit of chicken or fish. You can make soup out of almost anything. In the winter a slow cooker (crockpot) is brilliant. Make a batch of chilli in one then chuck some sweet potato wedges in the oven when you get in. Lovely.

[bcbrown]

I cook for fun, and because homemade food is delicious, and more customized to my tastes. When I've lived in houses with poor kitchens, I didn't cook at all. I don't plan ahead, and decide each day what I'm going to cook that night, or if I'm going to eat out. Right now I'm cooking at home about 3-4 times a week. Right now I'm able to do all my shopping at farmers markets, because I work a few blocks from a year-round market.

I don't follow any diet, but my preferences are meat-heavy, carb-light, with a light-to-moderate amount of vegetables, so vaguely similar to Atkins/Paleo diets.

A couple of my favorite meals: Roast salmon with a raita-like sauce, sometimes with pesto pasta; whole roast chicken with potatoes in the same pan; pork chops with sauteed onions and Golden Delicious apples; steak with mushrooms and onions; risotto.

No real cooking hacks, other than to have good equipment and buy quality ingredients, and paying attention to the little details.

[jackson1372]

1. To save money and to eat more healthily. Also, my girlfriend realy appreciates home/cooked meals.

2. We plan out 4 dinners per week. I'm responsible for two of them. I get her two preferences, make a shopping list, and go grocery shopping every Sunday or Monday. We now have a fairly well established list of recipes, and I use Anylist to construct my shopping list easily.

3. I prefer to cook meals where I can easily make big portions for leftovers. My favorites are: pad thai, tempeh + veggie stir fry over rice, black beans + veggies + guac over rice, african vegetable curry.

4. Vegetarian.

5. Buy pre-peeled garliC. You only beed one actually good chef's knife: buy a Dexter. Buy a rice cooker. Wok's are awesome - you can cook more food than in a standard pan, and you can cook it better. An actual cooking tip: when cooking with veggies, sear them to make them crunchy and not soggy. Too often people stir fry them in oil, and they get gross.

[drtse4]

> Buy pre-peeled garliC.

why? If peeling it's the problem, i do it this way: http://youtu.be/Az_7uMKGtuE?t=47s

[Cherian]

Do you use something to do meal planning? An app/tool?

[nylonpsycho]

1. Recreation, it's fun! Also because it's often a better combination of healthy/tasty/unique than what I could buy pre-made.

2. No, but sometimes I wish I did.

3. There's too much variety here, but maybe I come back to minestrone, tomato/canellini casserole, and pan fried proteins (fish/pork/beef) a lot. I bake a lot of bread.

4. No.

5. Learn to tell whether or not something is cooking the way you want based on the sound it makes as it sizzles in the pan. That simple tip has changed the quality of my cooking forever. Develop recipes around a common set of staples with minor swap outs. Kind of "modular". You get variety without a ton of anxiety. I learned to think this way from Bittman's how to cook everything, though I don't use that book very often anymore, it was a brilliant set of training wheels to break free of recipes.

[Leon]

1) It is fun and feels nice / is appreciated to make food for friends and family.

2) I ballpark what I might want when grocery shopping but generally make serious plans for a meal for several people.

3) Sous vide chicken is currently popular. Grilling and smoking meats is the second most popular food prep I do, with baking or pan-frying fish a third.

4) No but I stay away from red meats, pork, and carbs because I feel better not eating them (so chicken fish and vegetables are most of the menu with some grains).

5) I'll agree with others - cooking is a fun event for friends to participate in.

[jerhinesmith]

What do you use to cook sous vide at home? Do you have an actual appliance? Or do you use one of the "improvised hacks" I've seen on blogs, etc. ("improvised hacks" is not meant to be derogatory, by the way -- just couldn't think of how else to describe them)

[markhahn]

1. it's healthier, cheaper, fun and usually tastier.

2. no plan, unless "to use up the X" counts.

3. food. real food begins with, and consists mostly of vegetables. meat, cheese, eggs, grains, seeds, etc are great, but are only seasonings.

4. no diet, just real food. the goal of eating is to get enough veg and without much processing - anything else that happens is for fun.

5. recipes are for inspiration; there are no rules (yes, even baking). you should know how to approximate anything. get a couple good knives. also, one-piece silicone spatulas .

[Rooster61]

3. food. real food begins with, and consists mostly of vegetables. meat, cheese, eggs, grains, seeds, etc are great, but are only seasonings.

How do you figure? What aspects of what you list make them any less real than that of dishes primarily consisting of vegetables?

If I had to name what I considered the prototypical real food, I would have to go with rice. It is eaten all over the world, and has served as the cornerstone for several very disparate civilizations for a very, very long time