I'm not really a massive fan of cooking shows on TV. These days, they seem to be all about celebrities and focus solely on the stress of how, why, and when someone is going to fail. There's also not much actual food, just constant zoom-ins on sweating contestants and worried looking presenters.
I guess I'm just old school. I'm addicted to cooking programmes from a decade or two ago, searching through the various iPlayers and YouTube for long lost shows. Raymond Blanc, Keith Floyd, Rick Stein, the first series of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - basically, anything that focuses on food and cooking, rather than celebs and point scoring. My most recent find was this gem: a young Marco Pierre White cooking for Raymond Blanc. See if you can spot an even younger Gordon Ramsay, lurking in the background.
So, when the opportunity came to get a sneak-peak of Salted - a website described as the Netflix of cooking - I jumped at the chance, not least because the blurb on the site suggested that this could be the real cooking I was hankering for.
And this, it turns out, really is what I was looking for. Salted offers up more videos than I can count, featuring recipes, skills, and multi-video courses, filmed with real chefs, in real kitchens - each with their own personality, style, and method.
There’s nothing 'celebrity' going on here; rather, authentic chefs giving genuine insight into the world of cooking. The kitchens are proper - full of background noise, onions hanging from the ceiling, and people walking past the windows - and the chefs are proper, each offering up their own techniques, views, hints, tips, personalities, and lessons.
It's interesting to see how they differ too. There are guys here with neat aprons, practising cuisine classique, alongside videos from street-stall chefs, grilling away in jeans, sweatshirts, and caps.
That, for me, is the genius of Salted. There's a huge range of recipes and skills on offer, delivered in both an authentic and highly professional way. Want to learn about intricate, high-end cuisine? There's a video for that. Want to learn how to sharpen a knife, buy a frying pan, cut garlic, crush garlic, grind meat, make pasta, mix up a cocktail, cut salt, fry a burger? There's a video for each and every one of those things - all simple, useful stuff that you can easily apply at home.
My favourite so far has been the sausage breakfast sandwich: cheddar, sausage, anchovies, hot sauce, all in a toasted bun. Easy, really really easy; but, I'd never have thought of adding cheese and anchovies to a sausage sandwich until now.
I suppose the one criticism of a service like Salted is that similar videos can be found on YouTube. That's true. I'm a massive fan of YouTube and spend quite a bit of time scouring it for decent content; but, this is where Salted wins. In an age of content overload, it's great to find a service that guarantees quality and accuracy, and curates its content: grouping together related and relevant videos in a structured course.
The videos on Salted are also pitched perfectly for the attention-stunted generation, like me. There's' a good mix of 'quick hit' 2-3 minute videos, that you can watch on a coffee break, alongside the longer (10-15 minutes), more in-depth pieces, that you can watch over lunch.
I have to say, I was worried by the American focus. This is a US service and features American chefs cooking 'American' recipes. But, who knew? Turns out that a lot of American cooking is based on European cuisine anyway and the last video I watched - an Irish-born, Californian based bartender, mixing-up a blood orange margarita - demonstrates that (as you'd expect from America) there's influences here from right across the globe.
Since being introduced to the website, Salted is fast becoming my go-to for some evening food watching action. Genuine chefs, showcasing useful skills, in easy to watch and timely presentations, all wrapped up in a high-quality production. It's interesting, engaging, and has me wanting to sharpen the knives and getting experimenting in the kitchen again - at least, I'll be giving that sausage sandwich ago!
I guess I'm just old school. I'm addicted to cooking programmes from a decade or two ago, searching through the various iPlayers and YouTube for long lost shows. Raymond Blanc, Keith Floyd, Rick Stein, the first series of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - basically, anything that focuses on food and cooking, rather than celebs and point scoring. My most recent find was this gem: a young Marco Pierre White cooking for Raymond Blanc. See if you can spot an even younger Gordon Ramsay, lurking in the background.
There’s nothing 'celebrity' going on here; rather, authentic chefs giving genuine insight into the world of cooking. The kitchens are proper - full of background noise, onions hanging from the ceiling, and people walking past the windows - and the chefs are proper, each offering up their own techniques, views, hints, tips, personalities, and lessons.
It's interesting to see how they differ too. There are guys here with neat aprons, practising cuisine classique, alongside videos from street-stall chefs, grilling away in jeans, sweatshirts, and caps.
That, for me, is the genius of Salted. There's a huge range of recipes and skills on offer, delivered in both an authentic and highly professional way. Want to learn about intricate, high-end cuisine? There's a video for that. Want to learn how to sharpen a knife, buy a frying pan, cut garlic, crush garlic, grind meat, make pasta, mix up a cocktail, cut salt, fry a burger? There's a video for each and every one of those things - all simple, useful stuff that you can easily apply at home.
My favourite so far has been the sausage breakfast sandwich: cheddar, sausage, anchovies, hot sauce, all in a toasted bun. Easy, really really easy; but, I'd never have thought of adding cheese and anchovies to a sausage sandwich until now.
I suppose the one criticism of a service like Salted is that similar videos can be found on YouTube. That's true. I'm a massive fan of YouTube and spend quite a bit of time scouring it for decent content; but, this is where Salted wins. In an age of content overload, it's great to find a service that guarantees quality and accuracy, and curates its content: grouping together related and relevant videos in a structured course.
The videos on Salted are also pitched perfectly for the attention-stunted generation, like me. There's' a good mix of 'quick hit' 2-3 minute videos, that you can watch on a coffee break, alongside the longer (10-15 minutes), more in-depth pieces, that you can watch over lunch.
I have to say, I was worried by the American focus. This is a US service and features American chefs cooking 'American' recipes. But, who knew? Turns out that a lot of American cooking is based on European cuisine anyway and the last video I watched - an Irish-born, Californian based bartender, mixing-up a blood orange margarita - demonstrates that (as you'd expect from America) there's influences here from right across the globe.
Fancying giving it a try? Use the code BUCKETS at the Salted sign-up page to receive 3-months free membership to the service.
Since being introduced to the website, Salted is fast becoming my go-to for some evening food watching action. Genuine chefs, showcasing useful skills, in easy to watch and timely presentations, all wrapped up in a high-quality production. It's interesting, engaging, and has me wanting to sharpen the knives and getting experimenting in the kitchen again - at least, I'll be giving that sausage sandwich ago!
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Sound interesting, although, I also think YouTube is always the alternative. Speaking of food shows, have you seen "The Mind of a Chef"? I particularly love the edpisodes with Eddie Lee and Magnus Nilsson.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if we get that in the UK. Sounds interesting though! I much prefer these types of shows, where the genuine character of the chef is on show. It really makes them far more watchable and I find I learn so much more.
ReplyDeleteThanks for showing an interest Lou!
ReplyDeleteOoh I'm totally trying this out, sounds good. I always check out culinary techniques on YouTube before giving them a go.
ReplyDelete