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You know what sorts of foods you like? You know you like beef, or you know you are a vegetarian? You know whether or not you like onions? Do you like Chinese food? Do you like curry?
Don't make recipes that contain things you don't like. That will narrow the choices down.
Stick with the easier techniques while you are learning. A roast duck is a heck of a lot easier to make than Peking Duck.
It's not necessarily true that fewer ingredients are easier. I just made barbecue sauce that is fabulous and it takes a huge number of ingredients, but all it involves is standing there with measuring spoons and measuring spices. Really it falls off the scale on the easy end of the scale, even with a huge number of ingredients. Read the recipe and decide whether you can do it or maybe it looks too complicated, don't dismiss a recipe with lots of ingredients.
One more thing: if you are using a recipe online, print it off and make notes on it. Maybe it is good but too salty. Note, "good, but reduce salt slightly"
If you don't like it, throw the recipe away. if you do like it, you've got a copy, because sometimes you can't find a recipe online a second time if you want to make it again.
Get a classic cook book from the library, something like "Joy of Cooking" Start with a few basics, & go from there. If you find an online website or blog that you have had good results from, stick to that site.
I also like to focus on one thing at a time, such as make small batches of tomato sauce and decide which one you like. Have you tried buying a jar of sauce and then adding other ingredients like mushrooms or sausage just to see what happens? Do you like scrambled eggs mixed with a little milk or water, salt & pepper before or after scrambling?
Adding a few squeezes of lemon juice will brighten a lot of dishes, salt will cut the acidity of some foods as will a slight pinch of baking soda. A pinch of coffee with chocolate enhances the chocolate flavor.
I taught myself to cook years ago with the Betty Crocker cookbook and today I think I am a pretty good cook.
I agree with everyone else here that says start fairly simple with fewer and readily available ingredients.
Try making the things that sound delicious to you and they probably will be.
One thing to be aware of, the newer the recipe the more it will use too much salt or too much sugar. The old cook books are often the most reliable recipes.
This is very true. People's palates have changed over the years, and I find new recipes to be too sweet and too salty. That is a personal opinion of course.
As a rule of thumb, if a recipe says to throw in a tablespoon of sugar, I avoid that recipe entirely and look for a different version of the dish without sugar. I never add salt to anything I cook.
In the past year, one criteria that i have is "do I have all of the ingrediwnts." All my groceries are pretty much delivered by one of my friends. There are a couple of dozen Thai and Filipino recipes that I would like to try but I am lacking a lot of the ingredients.
To get back to the OP, I download a bunch of recipes from a variety of sources - Southern Living and Allrecipes are two favorites. However, they are very different. Southern Living TESTS all of their recipes with a test kitchen. Allrecipes has some very good recipes. However, I have had a couple of recipes that were really off on the proper quantity of spices.
Personally, I will try a recipe once. If I like it and my friends also like it, the recipe makes the rotation. I find that it takes two to three repetitions to get it right. After the second or third try, I make any notes and changes to the recipe.
I probably have 30 recipes that are in the rotation. In addition, I have 10-15 different items that are so simple that I do not need to have a recipes (i.e., roast chicken, Bratwurst, fish filets, hamburgers, etc.
I'm a geezer cooking for himself. I have eaten good chow (and BAD chow) all over the world. I am not persnickety! Like they say "I could eat the mud-hole out of a dead skunk." My "go-to" website is--- https://www.allrecipes.com/
Usually I spend more time on the "negative" reviews and look for "patterns" e.g., everybody complains the recipe is too salty or something, but, I usually follow the recipe the first time at least!!
YMMV
I second this recommendation. Very accessible, and the ratings are pretty reliable. I was going to tell you to find a site (not a blog) that a lot of people use and make the recipes and comment on them and leave reviews.
I'm a beginner cook, so all I know how to do right now is to blindly follow recipes.
But when I search on the internet for some dish, tons of recipes come up, mostly with 4-5 star ratings. They're not all the same though, as some of the ingredients or amounts will be different.
This might be the most difficult thing for me right now. How do I decide which recipe to use, when there are so many out there?
It'd be a shame if I tried one recipe that tasted bad and decided never to cook that dish again, not knowing that a different recipe would have tasted great!
Am I supposed to just keep trial and erroring different recipes until I find one I like?
The good news is that other than baking, most recipes are a little flexible. This recipe might be a little different than that one and the other one, but all three can be tasty. Even something as simple and basic as scrambled eggs can be cooked umpteen different ways, most of them will be delicious.
So there's really no one 'best' recipe, it's just a matter of knowing your tastes, and that knowledge will keep developing over time. You'll learn to recognize right off that this recipe looks too sweet for you, or too salty, or has too much heat or whatever. As a beginner I recommend keeping it simple to start. It will make it easier for you to recognize what makes a recipe a hit or miss for you.
I'm a beginner cook, so all I know how to do right now is to blindly follow recipes.
Keep doing that, at least on the first attempt at a recipe. I often see comments, such as "I don't like X, so I substituted it with Y and I don't like the recipe."
Quote:
Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke
One thing to be aware of, the newer the recipe the more it will use too much salt or too much sugar. The old cook books are often the most reliable recipes.
Some of the ones I have seen often don't specify exact amounts, such as "add salt and pepper". They also tended to use a lot of fat - eg lard, etc. (which is now back in style).
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