Cooking for Geeks, 2nd Edition

1Hello, Kitchen!

Chapter Contents

How to Think Like a Geek

Know Your Cooking Style

How to Read a Recipe

Fear in the Kitchen

A Brief History of the Recipe

Don’t Always Follow the Recipe

A Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place

A Dinner Party for One

The Power of a Dinner Party

Presentation and Plating

The Basics of Kitchen Equipment

Knives

Cutting Boards

Pots and Pans

Kitchen Equipment Essentials

Interviews

Adam Savage on Scientific Testing

Jacques Pépin on Cooking

Deborah Madison on Eating Alone

Buck Raper on Knives

Adam Ried on Kitchen Equipment

Recipes

Internet Average Pancakes

Oat and Egg White Frittata with Fruit

Congee

Smoked Paprika, Chickpea, and Cilantro Chicken

One-Hour French Onion Soup

Lemony Quinoa and Asparagus with Shrimp Scampi

Labs

The Sweet Way to Calibrate Your Oven

WE GEEKS ARE FASCINATED BY HOW THINGS WORK, AND MOST OF US EAT, TOO.

Learning to cook can be one of the most rewarding endeavors of your life. Cooking—and eating—is a fascinating puzzle with many layers that, like those in an onion, peel away only to reveal another layer. No one is ever done learning to cook.

To the beginner, cooking has many hidden rules. Learning them is not so much about rote memorization as it is about curiosity, and that’s something geeks have plenty of. With time, the hidden rules of the kitchen reveal themselves to be a combination of art and science, giving ...