Do you get inspiration from watching foodie shows?

medtran49

medtran49

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I do. I've come up with my own versions of several dishes based on watching foodie travel shows when they don't give recipes, like my Recipe - Bayoubaisse, Recipe - Stuffed spaghetti squash, the meatball taco from Chef Aaron Sanchez. Of course, I've used recipes that are given on shows as well.

Today, we are watching some of the foodie travel, "best of..." type shows and a burger in particular caught my eye. The chef made a potato cake with sauteed pancetta and cabbage, then built the burger using a grilled bun and burger, the potato cake, very thinly sliced fresh cabbage, tomato and garlic aioli.

I intend to make my version. I'm going to skip the bun, use the potato cake as the base, make a light slaw with the cabbage and aioli, the burger, a couple of thinly sliced tomato slices and a drizzle of more garlic aioli, ending up with an open faced burger.

So, what has inspired you?
 
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Great question!

I don’t generally get inspired to make my own versions of things (though it does happen sometimes), but I do get a lot of recipes from traditional cooking shows and from YT.
 
Absolutely. When FoodTV started over 25 years ago, we used to glue ourselves to the TV to watch Michael Lamonaco, Susan Feniger, John Ash, Emilio Lagasse, David Rosengarten, Sarah Moulton... fantastic . True inspiration for budding cooks.
Then came the second wave - and I started watching Ramsay, Bobbie Flay, Jamie Oliver, Rachel Ray, Guy Fieri... not so good, except for Ramsay.
I´d seen Hell´s Kitchen, Restaurant Hell, whatever... but then I began to realise that Gordon was not just a big mouth, but an extremely focussed, 100% perfectionist chef. Jamie? He taught me that not all cooking is a complicated process.
So yes, I do get inspired. My versions are not even close, but they´re as tasty and (sometimes) surprising as I might imagine.
 
I watch a lot of cooking programmes on TV. I'm not sure if there is anything specific that I've cooked inspired by a particular dish, but they definitely act as inspiration for techniques and combinations of ingredients. I'm particularly liking the current series of The Great British Menu. This is 'high end' cooking and I love to see that (even when it doesn't work!).
 
I love the cooking shows. Lately, I've been observing and counting the number of bowls, plates, cutting boards, utensils, pots and pans, etc. that they use. Horrors but I would welcome cooking in a fully stocked kitchen with all types of cookware and vessels available to me. I don't get inspiration to make anything they do but I do try and point out to my offspring knife techniques, etc.
 
I got inspiration, or at least motivation, from FoodTV early on. Now that it has become all cooking competitions, not so much.

Like MG, I get more ideas in the way of technique and ingredient pairings than actual recipes, which unlike Tasty, I rarely follow verbatim.

I do the same thing on YouTube, now. I watch every video Chef John makes, although I can't think of a single thing from his channel that I have actually cooked. But, I am sure watching him cook has altered the way I cook things.

CD
 
No, can't say I have. Specific chefs on their culinary journeys and their individual ideals I enjoy. Not so much for any recipes per se but for the logistic and personal commitments that they feel defines them. Specific 'food channels' I find mostly like soap operas beating their drum for ratings and over the years they appear to get more cheesy and difficult to watch lol, there are a few exceptions of course.
 
garlichead said:
No, can't say I have. Specific chefs on their culinary journeys and their individual ideals I enjoy. Not so much for any recipes per se but for the logistic and personal commitments that they feel defines them. Specific 'food channels' I find mostly like soap operas beating their drum for ratings and over the years they appear to get more cheesy and difficult to watch lol, there are a few exceptions of course.
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You would probably enjoy Two Greedy Italians, a BBC television series that first aired in May 2011. The series saw the chefs Gennaro Contaldo and Antonio Carluccio traveling around Italy to see how society and food has evolved over the years. It was very entertaining. You can find it online, even at YouTube, I believe).

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CD
 
garlichead said:
I saw that episode as well, he was working with Jamie Oliver over that time as well as doing his own thing I believe.
Click to expand...

Antonio was a mentor to Gennaro, who was later a mentor to Oliver, although I'm sure Antonio helped Oliver along, too.

CD
 
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