Cooking as a Hobby for Men: How to Become an Expert Cook

Table of Contents

Introduction
Basic Equipment And Essential Pantry Items
What Should Be In Your Cupboards
Important Items for your Storage Room
Different Traditional Sauces
Hot Curry Paste
Traditional Garam Masala
Tandoori Mix
Traditional Meat Curry Paste
Understanding A Recipe
Skillet Chicken My Way
Simmering Chicken and Stock Preparation
Poaching Chicken
Rice
Learning How to Recognize Rice
Measurements - Liquid and Solid
Teaspoons vs. Tablespoons in recipes
Simple Pasta recipe
Tips for Deep Frying
Eggs, eggs, and more eggs
Boiling Eggs
Poached Eggs
Fried Eggs
Traditional scrambled Eggs
Omelettes
Conclusion
Author Bio
Publisher

Introduction

You do not have to be an expert professional Chef to become a good cook. In fact, cooking is one of the most satisfying of hobbies, once you get started by letting your creativity loose.

Once upon a time, there was an old-fashioned attitude prevailing all over the world, that cooking came under the heading of a women's duty, prerogative, and work. Luckily, with the passing of time, more and more men are getting past this prejudice, especially in our modern world, when professions are not gender-based. In fact, most of the more popular and expert cooks in the world today are men.

If you look at ancient times, you are going to read about Royal kitchens, where the helpers in the kitchen were always men and women, slaves in ancient civilizations, but the head cook was always a man. In Egypt, Greece, Rome, and even Asian civilizations and countries like China, Japan, Korea, and India, the master cook was almost always a man. The idea that cooking was the job of a woman, came from the fact, that a man could not be tied to the cooking pots, when he had to do the hunting of the food, or farming it on the land outside.

Soon, as time went by, women began setting out their own boundaries in the household, and this included cooking. This arrangement worked well, up to the middle of the 20th century in developed countries, when there began to be a slow and steady change in mental outlook, especially in the roles of men and women in the house and the duties they had to do.

But in older civilizations, especially where traditions still linger on, men are allowed into the kitchen, they want to cook, but they are not encouraged! I remember, in the 70s, when my maternal grandmother never allowed me to come into the kitchen, because that was her area. She had not encouraged her sons or daughters to learn how to cook either, and that did not serve them well, in a traditional society, especially after they got married! However, my paternal grandmother came from a family, where the menfolk enjoyed their food and they were quite capable of kicking up a fuss, if the food was not served according to their own tastes, specifications, and made exactly as they wanted it made.

And that is why, they came into the kitchen, to give the food, their own personal touch, with spices and the last seasoning, before it was to be served up, piping hot. And so, thankfully, because father had seen his father and his grandfather entering the family kitchen – of course, after leaving their shoes outside, their wives insisted on that – he also became a bit of a foodie. And that is why, even though he is 85, he leaves the basic cooking to me, which is the womenfolk do the cooking, grinding, chopping, and all the heavyweight jobs and the men do the tasting, experimenting, stirring, etc.! Unless of course he wants to make something special on his own.