Learning to cook: Where to start?

I have recently bought a new house and have been living with the in laws for a few months since we sold our old house.
So I am looking forward to getting into our new kitchen to cook some food and play with some new, sharp, shiney things I have aquired.
I want to learn how to cook. Where should I start? What books are worth getting for a beginner?
I mean, I can cook an omelette, and stir fry type things, but I just throw everything in and give it a go. Even if it doesn't turn out great, I'll eat it anyway because I'm really not a fussy eater. I think this makes me sound like a much worse cook than I am. My best dish is chicken wrapped in bacon with a tarragon cream sauce (with or without white wine). I just don't know how to use herbs and spices. What goes with what? I know tarragon goes with chicken, and corriander goes with carrot, but thats about it.
I quite like spicy food and think I might like to start learning Chinese cuisine. Is this a good place to start?
I come from an Irish family and my staple foods growing up would have been, beef stew, roast beef, gammon steaks, fired pork chops and some smoked haddock on a Friday, all served with spuds obviously and usually peas and/or carrots.
Looking forward to cooking up some delicious meals for the family on our new one of these http://www.rangemaster.co.uk/range-cooking/professionalplus/

Congrats on your new house and your exciting journey in cooking. Taking a few night classes from a professional cooking school is a good way to get a handle on the basics.

Of course there is no shortage of YouTube videos out there. Perhaps someone who knows the good ones will chime in here.

Great books for beginners include Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (which I consider to be this generation's Joy of Cooking) and The Flavor Bible by Page and Dornenburg will give you some idea of how to use herbs and spices in your cooking (it's not really a beginner book, but since you mentioned concerns in this area I'm recommending it anyways).

If you are interested in Chinese cooking in particular, you can't do much better than Grace Young's The Breath of a Wok. It has a ton of information on woks and technique, but the ingredients and recipes sections are just as good. If you want to learn spicy Sichuan cooking, there is Fuchsia Dunlop's Land of Plenty.

What other spicy cuisines are you interested in? Let me know and I can recommend other cookbooks.

I just wanted to add that Madhur Jaffrey's From Curries to Kebabs is an excellent book on Indian cooking and it's influence around the world. Being that you're from Manchester, I'm making an educated guess that you just might be interested in curry.

+1 On the Flavor Bible. Great book. I'd also highly recommend The French Laundry. The recipes are daunting to the un-initiated, but the technique and procedures are explained in depth, and apply to all things culinary.

I can second "How to cook everything". I would also suggest "The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" by Marcella Hazan. It is very self explanatory and technique driven. But the most important thing you can do is eat. Eat things that you like, and ask yourself why you like it. You like tarragon with chicken and white wine. Think about tarragon. Now put it in mayonaise with capers and serve it with a pork pâté. You just made the leap from one classic to another. Your other example, coriander, has a much greater global range than tarragon, it shows up everywhere from South Asia to Latin America paired differently in each place. Ask yourself why each combination is delicious to you. Then look up a recipe or two on the Internet and cook something you like. Taste it. Learn the technique to make it have a nice flavor and texture, then taste it and think about your observations of things like it that you have eaten. What does it need to make it taste better to you? That is to me the essence of cooking for yourself. Repeat this and you will build a repertoire of flavored and techniques that will make this effortless. Until you decide to learn something new, then back to work. That is the best part, you never stop learning how to cook.

television? heck even youtube has some kickarse recipes.

i think a good cookbook is a nice tool, but seeing it done on video is immensely better. even the lowly omelette. watch a pro do one and you realize what you just made was just scrambled eggs with stuff scattered throughout. (<---okay, i was talking about myself). now my omelette rock!! my wife loves a nice tomato omelette served next to a fresh green salad. easy!

i think the Americas Test Kitchen cookbooks are great for beginners. they always have sections on the side that explain the "Science" of the process, or a sidebar showing how to do a technique..like bone a chicken. you get that thomas keller book and it will assume you already know the basics.

I disagree regarding the Keller book. Every step is delineated in great detail, and the relevance of each component of the dish/technique is made very clear. It's a very educational book. Not trying to start an argument, just trying to stay true to the OP requests.

When buying cook books, please remember that books written by professional restaurant chefs are normal aimed at that market and the recipes are often not fool proof or written in a hurry. Also many of the ingredients used by professionals such as Keller you would never be able to purchase unless you went to his suppliers in the US; ingredients do matter.

As you are based in the UK ‘Roast Chicken And Other Stories’ by Simon Hopkinson has been repeatedly voted the most useful cookbook in multiple surveys by people who would just like to learn to cook at home. I personally started with Delia Smiths complete cookery course when I was 10 years old, when a family friend gave me an old battered copy, and it has travelled the world with me. It is great for those fool proof recipes. These books are written by people who have the time to test every recipe multiple times with ingredients from UK supermarkets which you can purchase.

Alternatively apply to Trafford College in Manchester who have a great reputation.

Happy cooking

JJ

Good point about the OP being from the UK.

Having seen the highly entertaining biographical film Toast about food writer Nigel Slater and having him on the brain, I would highly recommend his The Kitchen Diaries series of cookbooks. They are definitely by and for home cooks.

I usually just point people who aren't that big into cooking and food toward the food network to tell you the truth, Ina Garten is good. I started there years ago, when it had mostly cooking shows. That said just alot of practice and messing up enough food and you'll have it! I like serious eats and Michael Ruhlman's blog for online souces.

The books mentioned above are good, but I wouldn't try the french laundry cookbook unless you had at least one helper lol. I also like Ratio or Ruhlman's 21. Those would also get you by.

I don't think you guys understood the point I was trying to get across. To me a good cook book is all about learning new techniques and flavor combinations. Not buying an encyclopedia of recipes that you copy word for word. A recipe should be inspiration, a rough outline. Not a mandate. Just my two cents.

the professional chef is worth looking into. whatever current edition theyre own.

Someone earlier recommended the America's Test Kitchen cookbooks, and I agree.
I would also add any of the Cooks Illustrated "Best" cookbooks. Cooks Illustrated and America's Test Kitchen are run by the same people I think. I have "Best Light Recipes" and "Best International Recipes". They not only give you great recipes, they explain the "Why" of all the steps and ingredients in each one. It's almost like a textbook, but very easy to follow.

What I like about their recipes is that they take a very methodical approach to each dish. They test every possible variation of the recipe and refine it to the best possible recipe, which is what goes into their cookbooks. They've already done all the trial and error for you, but they explain their process of arriving at the final recipe, so you can learn from their experimenting, and they also tell what didn't work.

the unplugged kitchen. simple easy and tasty

Learning to cook? How about 'First you take a leek'. Sorry, couldn't resist! But it is an easy to follow book nonetheless.

I agree with Brainy that technique and flavour combination is much more important than slavishly following a recipe. As has been mentioned by Rahim, I've also learned much from Ruhlman's 'Twenty' and 'Ratio'.

For ideas and inspiration I'm enjoying 'Jerusalem' by Ottolenghi and Tamimi at the moment. A great approach to 'real' food with great photographs.

I think the biggest difference is knowing the basics behind each part of the process... once you know that most things will fall in place.

when example: it helps to know the reasons why you roast certain meats low and slow or why you fry other meats on high and finish in oven. Most of the time, those basics are just that; basic concepts that many people simply dont know/never consider, but make major difference in the final product.

+1 on jerusalem. i heard an interview with the authors on NPR and i promptly checked it out. honest cooking. great writing too.

i have jerusalem, ottolenghi, and plenty, great books. As for something that kind of teaches, I would suggest On Food and Cooking, I haven't seen it suggested yet, and not a cookbook, but explains a lot the why's of cooking and food. As for asian food with flavour, anything by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford is pretty good. For the how to's of cooking, you need to get yourself Jacques Pepin La Technique, pictures that show the process of doing most kitchen tasks like the master, that's all I got, but I think the Technique book is great, was always a good resource.

That was my point as well. It's not the book or the recipe, it is learning how to taste, and to think about what you are tasting. Choosing the book or recipe is more important in it being something that you want to eat. If it excites you, you will cook it. If you cook it often, you will get better at it as long as you maintain an attention to what you are doing with your hands, and how you experience it with your senses. Then you apply what you have learned to something else that sounds delicious.

many good suggestions here. write them all down and head to borders/barnes and nobles and just flip through the pages of each. then you decide.

The Flavor Bible is truly amazing and I highly recommend it too. Probably the most inspirational "cookbook" I own.

For Italian cooking - take a look at The Silver Spoon.

The Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food is excellent too. Not so much a cookook but a nice shopping guide.

If you have a good public library, you can take a list of recommended books, get a better look at them, and decide which works for you. Or you can learn a few bits of wisdom and apply them to your cooking style, and check out the next book.

I really like Julia Child's "The Way to Cook". It covers a lot of fundamental techniques.

I really like the River Cottage Meat Book. He does a good job of explaining how to judge if the food is cooking properly based on sensory input rather than strict times and temps.

I also like Breakfast, Lunch, Tea. It is by Phaidon about Rose Bakery, a Brit that is crushing it in Paris.

Oh, and the Zuni Cafe cookbook is a stellar place to start.

Congrats on the house.

Delia's complete cookery is a good book of all the basics, simple and un fussy. Similarly the good housekeeping's big book is also great for straight forward home food.

River cafe books are great for Italian
Madhur Jaffrey Indian cookery is a good intro, and is the book I use for basic curries.

Simon Hopkinson is a good read, don't think I've made anything from it but is interesting nonetheless (similarly Heston's in search of perfection books). Gordon Ramsay's earlier books are also very good for simple focus on flavour but need quality ingredients to shine.

I would definitely go the Library, saved me buying scores of books.

Read recipes through several times and try to visualize the process.

Use ALL of your senses when cooking.

And don't forget to check for the used copies on Amazon.

+1 on the library. My wife brings me home magazines, Ad Hoc, etc... great way to see if you want to purchase on a kindle or paper version.

Whoooaaaa! I know you guys know your stuff, but I never expected as much input as this after 24hrs! Thanks everyone.
Some great suggestions, and I will check them all out.
All of the posts are very helpful and I think a few you have got the point I was trying to make in the OP, however ineloquently. I mean, I am no stranger to the kitchen, and if left to my own devices I would neither starve nor resort to frozen, convenience food, but I want to know why some things work. I want to learn the basics of food combinations. What are the classic dishes, and why? What are the best ways to cook different cuts of meat, and why? So I think the Laundry Cookbook may be on my list although it looks much to involved to follow every day. The Bittman and Delia Smith books look like they also fit into this category, and the Fuscia Dunlop book looks promising for a touch of spice along with Madhur Jaffrey Indian cookery.
Thanks for all the helpful info.
I've just had an epiphany. What I am looking for is cookery books/sites/videos more so than recipe books. Does that make sense?

Move fast and you can snag TFL for £15 shipped from amazon right now

rdm_magic said:

And don't forget to check for the used copies on Amazon.

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1+ to this. ive bought many cookbooks with $40-50 sticker prices for $10-15 second hand from amazon. usually the very good condition grade is the best bargain. often enough many books appear to be hardly used at all.