How to Cook Everything
by Mark Bittman · first published 1998
83% recommend14% neutral3% critical
Why HN recommends it
Teaches technique as well as recipes: how to buy, prep and cook ingredients, with simple base recipes and variations. Suits beginners and home cooks who want one general reference to build from.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From Wikipedia: How To Cook Everything (John Wiley & Sons, 1998, ISBN 0-02-861010-5) is a general cooking reference written by New York Times food writer Mark Bittman and aimed at United States home cooks. It is the flagship volume of a series of books that include several narrow-subject books about matters such as convenience cooking and vegetarian cuisine, as well as a second volume, How To Cook Everything: Vegetarian, published in 2007, and a second edition with a reduced emphasis on professional techniques in October 2008.
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Mark Bittman (NYT Food columnist) has had an iOS app [1] out for a while, "How to Cook Everything". I can't remember why but this app was put on sale some time ago for $0.99 and I snapped it up. It's great--I've never had a bad meal from a Bittman recipe. [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/how-to-cook-everything/id409...
on “The New York Times Makes 17k Recipes Available Online” ↗I own it, and used it until I realized how much time I was wasting on unnecessary complications. Try "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman — it cuts out the cruft and the results are just as good.
on “What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?” ↗…recipes on the Internet is an advanced skill. You need to know how to cook reasonably well in order to evaluate the recipes and adjust each one to your situation. In contrast, something like Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" gives a lot of basic advice, has a set of consistent recipes with clear variations, and is carefully designed to avoid confusion. And for the nerdy, the Bittman book is available in a Kindle version,…
on “The Minimum Viable Kitchen” ↗I have great respect for Mark Bittman and regularly turn to How to Cook Everything for its solid recipes, but sometimes he gets it spectacularly wrong. Case in point was his spatchcocked turkey recipe. Quoting the NYT Cooking App: In 2002, Mark Bittman published this revolutionary…
on “Why do recipe writers lie and lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions?” ↗I really like Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Series for this. It has a ton of recipes, but there is also a decent amount of discussion of the concepts behind recipes and multiple ways to alter most recipes, as well as tables that make this sort…
on “Cooking Patterns” ↗…sale to start. If you notice you don't like it, don't buy that brand again. > finding the right recipes - how do I compare 20 different ones from the web? Buy three cookbooks to start: Mark Bittman's "How To Cook Everything", an America's Test Kitchen cookbook that appeals to you, and a cookbook of a cuisine you enjoy that's popular on Amazon. Alternate between the three. > Which are more healthy? Don't worry about it…
on “Skip the Soylent, Make a Meal Instead” ↗"Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant" is a fantastic cookbook with a vegetarian emphasis. And Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" is the most read book in my house. My wife and I have taken to calling it The Bible. Both books have a good number of quick recipies (Bittman tends to write his more like guides), with general cooking…
on “American toddlers are eating more sugar than the amount recommended for adults” ↗- Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat - Ruhlman's 20 by Michael Ruhlman - How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman
on “Why do recipe writers lie and lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions?” ↗…stir in the onions, let it cool for a minute or two, and dig in. Definitely stay as close to raw ingredients as possible. I've lived out of two cookbooks for the last several years: - Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" - Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" Learn to not be picky. Ramen may be cheap and taste sort of ok, but you need to take care of your body if you want a well functioning mind. Learn to…
on “Ask YC: What do bootstrappers eat for dinner?” ↗…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.
on “Ask HN: Hackers who cook” ↗I basically learned to cook by watching his "minimalist" series of videos on the New York Times website -- Bittman is a great resource on food. How to Cook Everything is essential.
on “The New York Times Makes 17k Recipes Available Online” ↗That's probably derived from his great book "How to Cook Everything", http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Completely-Revised-Annivers.... Often, when I see some complicated recipe in a magazine, I turn to this book for the basic essentials of the recipe (and a great list…
on “The New York Times Makes 17k Recipes Available Online” ↗…you already know how to boil pasta, learning how to make your own tomato sauce or pesto is satisfying and easy. Borrow cookbooks from the library and read them. Since Mark Bittman was mentioned, his "How to Cook Everything" is a good general reference, and he's also a good writer. It also helps to have the ingredients with a longer shelf life on hand, such as spices and other staples, so you have everything you need. There…
on “Why I Quit Ordering from Uber-For-Food Startups” ↗Just a few that haven't been mentioned, because I cross over with several others: How to Cook Everything by Mark Bitman. Not so much my mental model, but it's the only book I could ever say "changed my life". Implementation - (https://www.amazon.com/Implementation-Expectations-Washingto...) This is a great…
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗I'm sure you know this, but for anyone else... Bittman wrote the excellent "How to Cook Everything". It's a great go-to gift for college graduations.
on “To Make Sassages” ↗