suddenly im a chef

My wife was making dinner the other night. As she was getting ready to chop an onion, the 6 year old wandered into the kitchen and commented "That's big garlic!"

She refused to believe it was an onion. Then she skipped right back out of the kitchen. We just laughed.

Garlic, onions, and butter are my holy trinity

I started watching TV cooking shows in the late 90s (e.g. Good Eats, Iron Chef, Naked Chef etc.) and I would just cook what I saw for my friends. They were all "wow ChickenLady you're such an amazing chef" for a few years until they started watching that shit themselves. Then they were all "you should have used white balsamic vinegar and black garlic in that".

I feel like one of the garlics could be replaced with a shallot.

But then there would be less garlic :(

And when you can't cook at all just throw in some butter and/or bacon at the end and BOOM!...tasty and delicious!

Smoked anything, as well. My guilty vegan addition to too many meals is Liquid Smoke it smoked paprika. Makes nothing ingredients like bland beans and tofu actually taste like something.

The jury is out as to whether these delicious ingredients will cause cancer. Probably not any more than me overcooking everything to get a delicious char, this setting off the smoke alarm whenever I'm allowed near a burner.

to get a delicious char
Didnt knew sou could eat a char
- You can, but you can only take one byte

You can also drizzle olive oil and za'attar on top of anything and basic bitches like me will think it's fancy.

Go to an international grocery store and buy a jar of anything you have trouble pronouncing.

Put black garlic in everything.
Like surströmming
- I'd be unsure how to prepare it in a way that my American palate would enjoy it, but fermented fish as Asian 'fish sauce' is mighty tasty when used correctly, so it'd be worth a shot. My google search (I was pretty sure it was similar to lutefisk, but wasn't sure how) had an AI overview question of 'is it illegal to open surströmming indoors?', which I thought was funny.
  So many things taste great after a fermentation that we don't always notice the process: cheese, sourdough, beer/wine/liquor, kimchi, (some kinds of) pickles, etc, including meats such as salami and chorizo. Why not a fish?
  I may be misreading things, but if you're going to pick on a regional specialty... pick on durian :P I'm assuming it's like coriander, in that some find it pleasant and others disgusting based on their genetics. I'm in the latter category for durian. Foods for me are like pokemon: Gotta try 'em all.
  .
  Some only once.

laughs in French
Red onions make you stinky. White onions only ✅
Objectivley wrong but ok

the picture correctly includes double dose of garlic, but i'm missing the paprika and lard/bacon. source: i'm originally from hungary.

Wow, I hate to bring up Spanish smoked paprika then.
- I love me some smoked paprika!

Soffritto 🤌

Also use some wine for even more smells! Even when cooking Western food, I've grown fond of using a little bit of Shaoxing wine, and replacing a bit of salt with a dash of soy + fish sauce for more complex umami

I always use wine when cooking anything with tomatoes in it. Tomatoes (and other vegetables) have a lot of flavor compounds that are alcohol-soluble and the wine brings them out.
- I didn't know that, thanks for the fun fact!
I see you're a man of culture as well.
For European cuisine, I like replacing salt with anchovies as they are basically just salt with benefits.
Have you ever tried cooking your own Jamaican Jerk marinade? Pimento, chili, garlic, onions, thyme and ginger, nutmeg, cloves plus soy sauce. And since that is supposed to cook for hours... your kitchen will smell lovely for days.
- Ooh interesting! Will have to try that.
  Never even made Jamaican food! Do you have a go-to recipe or chef/youtuber you'd recommend for jerk marinade/Jamaican flavours?

Butter is missing from this

How does butter smell good?
- Butter smells good when cooking something, must be a subjective thing but to me it smells really good.
- If you don’t know about brown butter, I am sad for you.
Maybe in America, not in Spain
- And in Dinamarca!

I've long meant to publish a cookbook but since it's probably not going to happen I'll share my concept here. It was going to be called "it starts with an onion" About 90% of the dishes I make start this way. Even if a recipe doesn't call for it, I'll often just start with some diced onion in oil and then began the recipe. If you have some ingredients around and you are trying to think of what to do with them, envision a Dutch oven or frying pan with some softened salted chopped onions in it and start planning what you will add too it. It's a solid start to many a meal. Also, don't underestimate shallots. They are like if garlic and onion had a baby.

It starts with onions,
nice, small and diced,
set the pan temperature not too high
then add some olive oil, you'll see why,
and then let them sauté until! They're! Fine!
- It starts with onions - weep for their demise!
  Their blackened bodies charred centimeters high,
  Seal their souls with garlic thrice,
  I am a chef and I do not play nice.
- Amazing, I was thinking of the beat of the song reading the main text and here you are giving me lyrics to go with it before I could even ask or mention.

I wanted a sautéed onion candle so I can get my roommate's hopes up for a good dinner.

As an aside, why do I feel like this is an alt account with a not-so-similar, yet-still-similar, name?
- This is what I was missing from Reddit. Recognizing a prominent user across tons of different communities makes the fediverse feel warm.
- That's SatansMaggotyCumfart (or something like that)
- Just commented on it in the previous post. It's alarmingly not-so-similar, yet-still-similar ...
Don't let your dreams be dreams! Infusing scents should be as easy as soaking the aromatic you want in a carrier oil for a while and then mixing it with a wax!
Just... Don't yell at me if you don't get your apartment's deposit back.
- We've seen SMCF's dreams.
  They need to stay dreams.
- Should I blend the oil and onion together so there aren't big chunks in it?
...username checks out 😄
Edit: nevermind! I misread Santa as Satan lol
- Is this SatansMaggotyCumFart's alt, or their nemesis?
You could do what my old roommate did and microwave an onion on high for 8 minutes. Everything in the apartment smelled like onions for a while.
- Throw a fish in there too.

Should be clarified butter or a a more neutral oil.

Using olive oil for sauteeing isnt the worst but it’s kind of mid. Heat will bring out bitterness and the smoke point is low. Save your olive oil for finishing dishes or using in cool/cooled preparations, where its aroma and fruitiness can actually shine instead of getting dulled by heat.

If you let olive oil get hot enough to hit the smoke point for a sofritto you're doing it wrong...
- You’re still going to get off flavors and waste money in the process.

Herbs and ginger also smell really nice.

I remember reading a comment on here one time that said anytime you’ve got people coming over for dinner, cook some onions and garlic in oil, even if you don’t need them for the meal. The smell alone will both make your guests hungry and also get excited for a good meal (assuming they’re into food).

Why'd I want my guests to be excited about a good meal? We are having microwaved peas as usual.
- Luxury! We'd get a handful of hot gravel before being forced to play two rounds of strict Catan, and we'd like it!
Seems weird. I would hope they get excited over the actual meal without me having to trick them lol.
I like the idea.
Also, who's not into food, people who don't eat?
- Lots of people don’t care about food, it’s just something to make them go from hungry to not hungry. “It fills a hole” is something I’ve heard many times, referring to food. Plenty of people just don’t care. I honestly was like that until I moved out and had to do the cooking myself. Now I can appreciate a home cooked meal or fancy restaurant meal more, but I’m still not a foodie. As long as it isn’t disgusting and it fills me up, I don’t really care. I’ll enjoy a nice meal more than a bland one, but I don’t have a strong feeling about it either way.
  Cooking for my dad can be a little annoying sometimes because he’s definitely not a foodie. Many times my mom will make him a nice meal, ask him how it is, and his response is always “yeah it’s good” no matter what. Nowadays she cooks for herself and makes enough for him, because she knows he just doesn’t care, as long as it’s enough to fill him up. And I know a lot of people that are like that too.
- Compared to most of my friends I'm not into food tbh. But not in the way that I don't care about it. I'll generally eat whatever and like it. I can enjoy a microwave meal or a frozen pizza. And I get very impatient with people who insist that the rice needs to dry to the air for god knows how long because it makes the taste better. Cooking is something I used to hate, so I'd always go the easy route. Either a microwave meal or something like pasta with pre-cut vegetables and premade sauce from the supermarket.
  Nowadays I have changed to a diet with more vegetables and less overprocessed stuff, so I tend to just grab some veggies and throw them in a pan with some meat (or replacement), some random herbs and spices and a little bit of pasta or rice. Sometimes it's nice, sometimes it sucks, but I don't really care because I'll eat almost anything and I hate throwing away food. Most important to me is that it's healthy most of the time. But I don't really care for recipes or spending time to prepare something nice, I have better ways to spend my time. I also really like my rice to be sticky, so I don't really waste time on washing the rice either.
What meal/cuisine wouldn't benefit from onion and garlic though? Genuinely asking.
I add at least the powders to probably everything I cook, sometimes even white rice. But I've always wondered if I'm adding "wrong" seasoning to a dish when I use them!
(Eta: I also regularly cook with them but usually that's when the recipe calls for it. I add the powders to browning meat or enhancing sauce etc regardless of recipe I just add them. )
- Sweet meals maybe
  like milk noodles/rice
  Also maybe garlic with sushi, but onions work
- Powders, yes, basically every meal. But I don’t always sautée them. Powered doesn’t have the same smell, and you can’t always use sautéed onion and garlic in every meal.

Missing salt, rookie mistake.

Salt doesn't change the smell, or at least not that I have ever noticed.
- Makes alluims smell better faster?

Lately I feel like I should just make a Mexican spice mix and put it in everything. Less cumin, more types of chili powder, a couple small vidalia onions, a few peppers and I really couldn't care what you put in it and I'll be happy. Chicken, pork, beef, goat, I'm sure tofu would by fine by me. In rice, a burrito, taco, enchiladas, anywhere really, fuck out it on a pizza or in a calzone, or a puff pastry, it'll work out.

You're missing carrots and celery to round out the Holy Trinity. Otherwise, it looks good.

The Holy Trinity normally refers to onion, celery, and green bell pepper, at least in Cajun cuisine.
Carrots, sure, but celery is an abomination unto Nuggan!
- Hate to break it to you but Borogravia is not known for its cuisine.
- What is wrong with you?

4 garlic bulbs, 3 onions and 2 bottles of olive oil, that will entice your neighbor 2 blocks down