The Art of Cooking: A Conversation with a Beginner Cook

As we sat down to cook together, it was clear that our guest was still in the early stages of their culinary journey. "I love olive oil," they said, "it's a great moisturizer." Their enthusiasm for cooking was evident, but also a bit shaky at times. We began by talking about the bowl and how to make a delicious sauce using scallions, garlic, and a variety of other ingredients.

"I've used some odd things at home," our guest confessed, "if you have a heavy pan, you can put a layer of foil in between and just put a heavy pan on top." This hack had worked well for them in the past, but they were eager to learn more about cooking techniques. As we mixed together our ingredients, I offered some words of wisdom: "Mixtures are all about balance. Don't go ahead and add all of the scallions at once." My guest nodded eagerly, taking mental notes.

As we tasted our sauce, it was clear that it needed a bit more olive oil. "I feel like I want to loosen my nut," they said, "but I'm just gonna give it a little taste for salt." The vinegar in the sauce added a nice tanginess, but also a bit of spice. We discussed how this would pair well with a fatty chicken dish.

It was time to cook our chicken, and our guest was excited to turn their skills from beginner to intermediate. They carefully turned the chicken over onto the flesh side, watching as it cooked through. As we waited for it to finish cooking, they asked about my own cooking experiences. "I've never been very good at cooking," I admitted, "but I've learned a thing or two along the way."

As our chicken finished cooking, we carefully removed it from the pan and placed it on a plate. Our guest was thrilled with how it turned out, but also a bit nervous about presenting it to others. "I'm so ripped I'm just like holding that brick and doing yet other stuff at the same time," they laughed.

We took turns admiring our handiwork, marveling at the beautiful boneless 3-cutlet we had created. Our guest asked if I had any tips for improving their cooking skills, and I offered some words of encouragement: "Don't be afraid to experiment and try new things. And most importantly, never apologize for your mistakes – they're an opportunity to learn and grow."

As we sat down to enjoy our delicious chicken dish, our guest couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. They had come a long way from their early days in the kitchen, and were eager to continue learning and improving their cooking skills.

The conversation turned to our personal cookware preferences, with our guest revealing that they were eyeing a cast-iron skillet for their next purchase. I couldn't help but chuckle at their enthusiasm, remembering my own early days with a trusty skillet by my side. "I'm gonna buy like a cast-iron thing then you are," they joked.

As we wrapped up our cooking session, our guest confessed that they still didn't know what a mortar and pestle was. I smiled good-naturedly, remembering the many times I had used these tools in my own kitchen. "It's okay," I said with a grin. "You'll figure it out – just come back anytime and we'll cook up something amazing together."

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: endid that happen oh yeah okay whoa hey guys it's Karla I'm here in the BA test kitchen this morning with Troye Sivan how are you I'm great how are you good good so we have 20 minutes to make chicken under a brick in a hurry and we're gonna see how well you can follow along with me through verbal instructions only got it let's do it you have a good ear yep are you a great cook no okay cool so we're gonna turn around and then it's just my voice to yours okay oh my go first things first so chicken under a brick yeah literally you need a brick okay yeah it's gonna be like a break of potatoes or something no this is a real actual physical brick this is gonna be touching the chicken so we don't want the brick touching the chicken so just go ahead and just wrap it up you don't have to be crazy but just get that foil all the way around it all right so take the tray with the chicken and actually just I want you to just pick the chicken up by its legs and move the chicken over to your cutting board okay okay so now we're gonna butcher the chicken okay have you ever done this before never okay so the thing with butchery is that you don't actually have to cut through any bones you're gonna cut close to bones okay so if you feel like you're struggling or you're up against a bone your knife is in the wrong spot all right gotcha so first things first we're really just I want you to take off the leg and the thigh so starting with either leg pick up the thin knife that says flexible at the bottom yep and you want to make a cut basically between where the leg connects to the body and make a thin cut just cut through the skin right now and you'll be able to kind of see what's going on oh yes yeah and then rotate the chicken on to one hand and use your other hand to bend the leg back it seems a little gnarly and just pulling it back like you were opening up of a book and pull it back until there's a sock it's gonna pop right out of the hip joint oh my god did that happen oh yeah whoa I did not expect that okay I'm good yeah I've just never done that before all right so now take the knife and I want you to cut up sort of at the top of the thigh you just work your way kind of around to one side of it and that whole leg and thigh piece should come off in one piece is it still connected to the body um not anymore I don't know if I did it right but it's it's definitely separate okay cool so then just set that leg and thigh piece off onto one of the rim sheet trays that has the parchment yep how do you feel about going and try on the other leg I think I can do it now all right awesome okay so you've got that right where the drumstick connects to the body yep cutting through the skin to separate it oh yeah yeah and then roll your chicken so you can kind of pop that thigh bone out so yeah just bend it back like you're you know there it is there it is found the spot right so then you're yeah I went really fast sorry so then you're just like slicing along sort of where the thigh connects to the backbone yep through that joint and that whole piece should come off all right so Troy now you've got two leg quarters basically pick up one of them and set it onto your cutting board skin side down skin side down yeah yep so the next thing we're gonna do is we're actually gonna remove both the drumstick and the thigh bone so there's two bones here and they're connected through a joint at the top of the drumstick yep so what I'm gonna have you do first of all you do you see like where the socket I know this was the part that was the grossest but the part with the top of that bone that's sticking out if you run your finger along the chicken you'll be able to feel under there where that fie bone is and you're gonna cut straight down into the flesh right on top of the bone because what we want to do is just cut the flesh away from the bone you're cutting along the bone yeah exactly you want to be as close to the bone as possible and then using kind of short strokes yeah cut the flesh away but just be careful don't go all the way through the flesh and we don't want to puncture the skin we just want to kind of loosen okay you got you know see what I'm saying yeah yeah loosened the bone away from the flesh that surrounds it by making these like short little incision but just cut on the left and right side of the drumstick bow until you get as close to kind of the ankle as possible using a little back and forth motion just going towards the bottom of the foot okay and cutting away underneath it okay does that make sense yeah I feel like mine's really mutilated that's okay we're the side that we're gonna show in the end is gonna be the skin yeah that's still pretty beautiful yeah not to mess with the skin so now you should have this like v-shaped you should have a bone that's like the only place that it's really still attached now is at the top of the joint yeah and then kind of like turning it over and just using those small cuts again to cut around the joint until that leg is gonna be free it's really gross are you cutting up now at the top where it connects yeah I'm kind of like cutting around where that where that joint was at the top cutting trimming around it getting a little bit under it and then it'll sorry I popped something in there that bled oh okay blood came out of it whoa oh you're really good at going through it now through the motions alright so do you feel like you have one I have one bone is gone bones get rid of the bone fantastic we're gonna just flip this over let's just look at the skin side it should be pretty intact and look like a giant yes let's do a little hand wash real quick okay thank God now that we have clean hands we can take one of these kitchen towels and you should have a bowl of salt and a pepper mill so just good amount of salt and pepper on both sides make it rain and then you can use your tongs if you don't want to touch the chicken again which are in this little equipment bin and use that to turn the chicken over to the flesh side and wait sorry flip it over with flip it over with the tongs that are in that bin yes I'm so starstruck by all of these tools every day so now turn your attention to this lovely cast-iron pan let's try Simar find the little tablespoon measure that should be at the top of your station fill that up with the school from the squeeze bottle and and that's gonna go right into the pan okay it's in okay and then chickens gonna go in skin side down and you're not right now right now oh yeah we're not wait we wait for no one okay so then the next thing remember the brick yes all right all right on to the foil directly onto this chicken thigh seriously seriously chicken under a brick and so this means this weight is going to be pressing down on the chicken the entire time that we're cooking yeah and it's gonna help the skin stay in contact with the pan which is gonna make it get really crispy and it's also pressing down which is gonna make it cook really quickly yep so now grab your timer there should be a little timer in front of you and just hit the start button all right we got ten minutes on the clock so the next thing we're gonna do is make a little thing that I'm deciding to call pesto Verde pesto pesto Verde thank you and the Verde had a baby gotcha all right so grab that mortar and pestle the big gigantic stone thing yeah and then take that clove of garlic and just smack that garlic clove a few times until the skin split and then pop the skin off I think it's a teaspoon of salt yep dump that on top and trying how do you feel about anchovies I like them when they're Indian stuff that I can't taste them okay then this is the perfect use of an anchovy so there's a little bowl with one anchovy and you can dump that into the mortar as well the abrasiveness of the salt against the garlic with the pounding is just gonna turn this whole thing into a paste okay okay so just like let it rip you want it kind of a combination of pounding straight up and down and then once in a while I like to take the pestle and kind of use it in a circular motion to grind everything against the side I think mine's about is like swoosh does it I'm pretty smush - okay so the next thing that's gonna go in is this whole bowl of parsley then we're going to do the same thing but um it's never gonna get completely smooth but it is gonna break down quite a bit this thing is so cool this big smash castle I love them so do you feel like you're Parsley's pretty broken down yep let's just put this to one side for a second I want to splice this scallion with the Greens all the way at your knife end yep and just make one cut at the beginning just to even up all of the ends and then if you can keep your knife on a little bit of an angle doesn't really matter but just thinly slice all the way through and then just keep going down till you're in the pale green territory so set those aside for a sec okay bring your mortar back onto your cutting board off of this tray drop in those red chilli flakes into the thing into the bowl yep and then this mustard which we might need the spatula to scrape the mustard in as well and then that brown liquid is sherry vinegar we're gonna add little adorable measuring cup of olive oil and just pour that right into the bowl as well oh good you love olive oil olive oil is good for everything it's a great moisturizer yes okay we're in and get everybody to know each other love that have you ever like wanted to make this and then had to make a trip to Home Depot for a break um I've used some odd things at home you if you have a heavy pan you can you can put a layer of foil in between and just put a heavy pan on top ah alright so when you feel like that mixtures mixed don't go ahead and add all of the scallions okay I'm gonna stir it so spatula I want to keep them in their original shape in hindsight I feel like my scallions uh much too thick you know what I feel like I don't have enough olive oil so let's just give this a taste and then we can adjust there should be a tasting spoon in that metal container yep I personally feel like I want to loosen my nut but I'm just gonna give it a little taste for salt Wow hmm look at young it's very punchy and vinegary right um yeah actually and a little bit spicy but that vinegar is gonna be really good with a fatty chicken it's chicken checking time ready grab that brick if I look at it from the side it's mostly cooked all the way through yeah it's the same maybe mine's a little bit still underdone but a little underdone alright so what we're gonna do now I want to turn the chicken over now on to the flesh side what are you doing with your break like I know if I'm holding it awkwardly in one hand same thing how are you doing anything else I mean we don't need you to you're right I'm gonna put it down put it down on the table yeah it's good I'm so ripped I'm just like holding that brick and doing yet other stuff at the same time um so now carefully turn the chicken onto the flesh side okay it's a look at that color oh my God he's gorgeous and we're just gonna let it hang out while we clean up our station yep and by then I think it looks so good right alright so using that slotted metal spatula yep just lift the chicken out and then you want to go right on to your plate okay this is like the most beautiful boneless 3 cutlet I've ever seen okay and now we're gonna put a little sauce on the plate but be mindful you just created this unbelievably beautiful golden brown skin surface so we don't want to cover the whole thing up so I'm just gonna put like a few spoonfuls of the sauce like around the chicken to start okay you know yes some of the chicken juices are going to as the chicken wraps like some of the juices are gonna come out and they're gonna mixed in with the sauce so are you putting any of the sauce on the chicken or not really um so so yes but I'm gonna do it kind of like off to one side so if there's anything that you'd actually were like ooh that didn't come out as perfectly and you might want to cover up like I have a paler golden brown area that I don't mind covering so just like kind of going off one edge okay great so do you have your sauce and your chicken are you happy with how it looks yeah me too you okay we're gonna turn around and and I get to check out your chicken okay all right ready three two oh I get that a lot yours looks amazing thank you the color is so beautiful I'm like a little bit upset at the organic kind of a continent shape yeah and I went for more of just like a blanket but you should you should never apologize because if you cook chicken perfectly thrilled with crispy skin it doesn't matter what shape it is yeah fair enough and you didn't tell me was like a nice little I know I heard you doing that and see what I said about the juices like mingling with the sauce yeah but also talking about krispity krunch it is this like outer guy that's the guy well I'm gonna eat it so but that's the one you want just make sure it's cooked before you throw a clock hundred percent for someone who'd never cooked your chicken and then you butcher the chicken and cooked it perfectly yeah I'm impressed okay so at the beginning I think you were at like solid beginner yeah how do you feel now intermedia Oh like like slightly better beginner oh I think you're yeah you've been through some stuff now yeah you know what I mean yeah for sure I'm gonna buy like a cast-iron thing then you are have to run skillet mortar and pestle make this any time I still don't know what that is okay I'm sneaky beating this chicken cool come back anytime thank you so much for visitingdid that happen oh yeah okay whoa hey guys it's Karla I'm here in the BA test kitchen this morning with Troye Sivan how are you I'm great how are you good good so we have 20 minutes to make chicken under a brick in a hurry and we're gonna see how well you can follow along with me through verbal instructions only got it let's do it you have a good ear yep are you a great cook no okay cool so we're gonna turn around and then it's just my voice to yours okay oh my go first things first so chicken under a brick yeah literally you need a brick okay yeah it's gonna be like a break of potatoes or something no this is a real actual physical brick this is gonna be touching the chicken so we don't want the brick touching the chicken so just go ahead and just wrap it up you don't have to be crazy but just get that foil all the way around it all right so take the tray with the chicken and actually just I want you to just pick the chicken up by its legs and move the chicken over to your cutting board okay okay so now we're gonna butcher the chicken okay have you ever done this before never okay so the thing with butchery is that you don't actually have to cut through any bones you're gonna cut close to bones okay so if you feel like you're struggling or you're up against a bone your knife is in the wrong spot all right gotcha so first things first we're really just I want you to take off the leg and the thigh so starting with either leg pick up the thin knife that says flexible at the bottom yep and you want to make a cut basically between where the leg connects to the body and make a thin cut just cut through the skin right now and you'll be able to kind of see what's going on oh yes yeah and then rotate the chicken on to one hand and use your other hand to bend the leg back it seems a little gnarly and just pulling it back like you were opening up of a book and pull it back until there's a sock it's gonna pop right out of the hip joint oh my god did that happen oh yeah whoa I did not expect that okay I'm good yeah I've just never done that before all right so now take the knife and I want you to cut up sort of at the top of the thigh you just work your way kind of around to one side of it and that whole leg and thigh piece should come off in one piece is it still connected to the body um not anymore I don't know if I did it right but it's it's definitely separate okay cool so then just set that leg and thigh piece off onto one of the rim sheet trays that has the parchment yep how do you feel about going and try on the other leg I think I can do it now all right awesome okay so you've got that right where the drumstick connects to the body yep cutting through the skin to separate it oh yeah yeah and then roll your chicken so you can kind of pop that thigh bone out so yeah just bend it back like you're you know there it is there it is found the spot right so then you're yeah I went really fast sorry so then you're just like slicing along sort of where the thigh connects to the backbone yep through that joint and that whole piece should come off all right so Troy now you've got two leg quarters basically pick up one of them and set it onto your cutting board skin side down skin side down yeah yep so the next thing we're gonna do is we're actually gonna remove both the drumstick and the thigh bone so there's two bones here and they're connected through a joint at the top of the drumstick yep so what I'm gonna have you do first of all you do you see like where the socket I know this was the part that was the grossest but the part with the top of that bone that's sticking out if you run your finger along the chicken you'll be able to feel under there where that fie bone is and you're gonna cut straight down into the flesh right on top of the bone because what we want to do is just cut the flesh away from the bone you're cutting along the bone yeah exactly you want to be as close to the bone as possible and then using kind of short strokes yeah cut the flesh away but just be careful don't go all the way through the flesh and we don't want to puncture the skin we just want to kind of loosen okay you got you know see what I'm saying yeah yeah loosened the bone away from the flesh that surrounds it by making these like short little incision but just cut on the left and right side of the drumstick bow until you get as close to kind of the ankle as possible using a little back and forth motion just going towards the bottom of the foot okay and cutting away underneath it okay does that make sense yeah I feel like mine's really mutilated that's okay we're the side that we're gonna show in the end is gonna be the skin yeah that's still pretty beautiful yeah not to mess with the skin so now you should have this like v-shaped you should have a bone that's like the only place that it's really still attached now is at the top of the joint yeah and then kind of like turning it over and just using those small cuts again to cut around the joint until that leg is gonna be free it's really gross are you cutting up now at the top where it connects yeah I'm kind of like cutting around where that where that joint was at the top cutting trimming around it getting a little bit under it and then it'll sorry I popped something in there that bled oh okay blood came out of it whoa oh you're really good at going through it now through the motions alright so do you feel like you have one I have one bone is gone bones get rid of the bone fantastic we're gonna just flip this over let's just look at the skin side it should be pretty intact and look like a giant yes let's do a little hand wash real quick okay thank God now that we have clean hands we can take one of these kitchen towels and you should have a bowl of salt and a pepper mill so just good amount of salt and pepper on both sides make it rain and then you can use your tongs if you don't want to touch the chicken again which are in this little equipment bin and use that to turn the chicken over to the flesh side and wait sorry flip it over with flip it over with the tongs that are in that bin yes I'm so starstruck by all of these tools every day so now turn your attention to this lovely cast-iron pan let's try Simar find the little tablespoon measure that should be at the top of your station fill that up with the school from the squeeze bottle and and that's gonna go right into the pan okay it's in okay and then chickens gonna go in skin side down and you're not right now right now oh yeah we're not wait we wait for no one okay so then the next thing remember the brick yes all right all right on to the foil directly onto this chicken thigh seriously seriously chicken under a brick and so this means this weight is going to be pressing down on the chicken the entire time that we're cooking yeah and it's gonna help the skin stay in contact with the pan which is gonna make it get really crispy and it's also pressing down which is gonna make it cook really quickly yep so now grab your timer there should be a little timer in front of you and just hit the start button all right we got ten minutes on the clock so the next thing we're gonna do is make a little thing that I'm deciding to call pesto Verde pesto pesto Verde thank you and the Verde had a baby gotcha all right so grab that mortar and pestle the big gigantic stone thing yeah and then take that clove of garlic and just smack that garlic clove a few times until the skin split and then pop the skin off I think it's a teaspoon of salt yep dump that on top and trying how do you feel about anchovies I like them when they're Indian stuff that I can't taste them okay then this is the perfect use of an anchovy so there's a little bowl with one anchovy and you can dump that into the mortar as well the abrasiveness of the salt against the garlic with the pounding is just gonna turn this whole thing into a paste okay okay so just like let it rip you want it kind of a combination of pounding straight up and down and then once in a while I like to take the pestle and kind of use it in a circular motion to grind everything against the side I think mine's about is like swoosh does it I'm pretty smush - okay so the next thing that's gonna go in is this whole bowl of parsley then we're going to do the same thing but um it's never gonna get completely smooth but it is gonna break down quite a bit this thing is so cool this big smash castle I love them so do you feel like you're Parsley's pretty broken down yep let's just put this to one side for a second I want to splice this scallion with the Greens all the way at your knife end yep and just make one cut at the beginning just to even up all of the ends and then if you can keep your knife on a little bit of an angle doesn't really matter but just thinly slice all the way through and then just keep going down till you're in the pale green territory so set those aside for a sec okay bring your mortar back onto your cutting board off of this tray drop in those red chilli flakes into the thing into the bowl yep and then this mustard which we might need the spatula to scrape the mustard in as well and then that brown liquid is sherry vinegar we're gonna add little adorable measuring cup of olive oil and just pour that right into the bowl as well oh good you love olive oil olive oil is good for everything it's a great moisturizer yes okay we're in and get everybody to know each other love that have you ever like wanted to make this and then had to make a trip to Home Depot for a break um I've used some odd things at home you if you have a heavy pan you can you can put a layer of foil in between and just put a heavy pan on top ah alright so when you feel like that mixtures mixed don't go ahead and add all of the scallions okay I'm gonna stir it so spatula I want to keep them in their original shape in hindsight I feel like my scallions uh much too thick you know what I feel like I don't have enough olive oil so let's just give this a taste and then we can adjust there should be a tasting spoon in that metal container yep I personally feel like I want to loosen my nut but I'm just gonna give it a little taste for salt Wow hmm look at young it's very punchy and vinegary right um yeah actually and a little bit spicy but that vinegar is gonna be really good with a fatty chicken it's chicken checking time ready grab that brick if I look at it from the side it's mostly cooked all the way through yeah it's the same maybe mine's a little bit still underdone but a little underdone alright so what we're gonna do now I want to turn the chicken over now on to the flesh side what are you doing with your break like I know if I'm holding it awkwardly in one hand same thing how are you doing anything else I mean we don't need you to you're right I'm gonna put it down put it down on the table yeah it's good I'm so ripped I'm just like holding that brick and doing yet other stuff at the same time um so now carefully turn the chicken onto the flesh side okay it's a look at that color oh my God he's gorgeous and we're just gonna let it hang out while we clean up our station yep and by then I think it looks so good right alright so using that slotted metal spatula yep just lift the chicken out and then you want to go right on to your plate okay this is like the most beautiful boneless 3 cutlet I've ever seen okay and now we're gonna put a little sauce on the plate but be mindful you just created this unbelievably beautiful golden brown skin surface so we don't want to cover the whole thing up so I'm just gonna put like a few spoonfuls of the sauce like around the chicken to start okay you know yes some of the chicken juices are going to as the chicken wraps like some of the juices are gonna come out and they're gonna mixed in with the sauce so are you putting any of the sauce on the chicken or not really um so so yes but I'm gonna do it kind of like off to one side so if there's anything that you'd actually were like ooh that didn't come out as perfectly and you might want to cover up like I have a paler golden brown area that I don't mind covering so just like kind of going off one edge okay great so do you have your sauce and your chicken are you happy with how it looks yeah me too you okay we're gonna turn around and and I get to check out your chicken okay all right ready three two oh I get that a lot yours looks amazing thank you the color is so beautiful I'm like a little bit upset at the organic kind of a continent shape yeah and I went for more of just like a blanket but you should you should never apologize because if you cook chicken perfectly thrilled with crispy skin it doesn't matter what shape it is yeah fair enough and you didn't tell me was like a nice little I know I heard you doing that and see what I said about the juices like mingling with the sauce yeah but also talking about krispity krunch it is this like outer guy that's the guy well I'm gonna eat it so but that's the one you want just make sure it's cooked before you throw a clock hundred percent for someone who'd never cooked your chicken and then you butcher the chicken and cooked it perfectly yeah I'm impressed okay so at the beginning I think you were at like solid beginner yeah how do you feel now intermedia Oh like like slightly better beginner oh I think you're yeah you've been through some stuff now yeah you know what I mean yeah for sure I'm gonna buy like a cast-iron thing then you are have to run skillet mortar and pestle make this any time I still don't know what that is okay I'm sneaky beating this chicken cool come back anytime thank you so much for visiting\n"