"cooking videos" news and stories

With the release of The Most Popular YouTube Cooking Videos of 2010, your constant dinnertime dilemma -- Hamburger Helper or a scary new recipe that drives the family to McDonald's? -- may be over. Filled with easy-to-follow instructions and loads of helpful hints, each of the 20 foolproof recipes can be whipped up in no time. These videos guide your hand at easy classics like pizza Margharita, a jalapeño burger (just for Dad), buttermilk biscuits, and mac and cheese. Get fancy with salmon cooked in rendered duck fat, with broccoli and tomatoes. Or go exotic with Korean kimchi and Thai samosas. We wish spring were just around the corner, but in the meantime we can still think pink (and purple) with kid-friendly bunny cakes. Nobody said you had to make them all, but, honestly, you'd be crazy not to. Start with the sculptural potato ball in a potato box, above.

Visit the Huffington Post to watch them all.

And while you're at YouTube, check out the best videos from Slashfood (including a sneak peek at country music star Zac Brown's kitchen on the road), and the best from KitchenDaily (such as The Pantry Project series of how-to videos from Gail Simmons).

Sometimes some of the best and most worthwhile meals or treats are the ones that take no time at all. While there's nothing quite like a carefully prepared dish, it's also great to wow the tastebuds with simplicity. The above video, Green's Cuisine, has rejigged the Chinese treat toffee apples with deep-fried bananas into a super-quick and sugary treat. Sesame bananas are basically chopped bananas sprinkled with sesame seeds and then doused with a good drizzle of freshly made toffee syrup -- just a melted mixture of water and sugar.

This looks like the perfect dish for entertaining -- whether you're gathering together for a chat and want some munchies, or curling up with a good movie. Personally, I'd treat it like fondue -- prepare a nice, large pile and then give everyone skewers to pick up banana chunks as they wish. In fact, I'm thinking that the bananas on my counter won't be going into a smoothie after all...

I'm not talking about the best restaurants in Las Vegas, I mean the cooking of Sin City director Robert Rodriguez.

Rodriguez has created ten short films that tell you how to cook using footage from his movies. Yeah, I know, that sounds a little confusing (if not scary), but it all makes sense after you watch the videos. Rodriguez and his crew are often up late at night (or early in the morning), so they make things like Breakfast Tacos. He even teaches you how to make your own flour tortillas.

For more recipes, check the other videos on the right on that YouTube page.

We may have covered most of the "best of 2005" lists, with topics from MMMM to NNNNN, but funny food videos is one we missed. Fortunately, Saute Wednesday didn't miss this important topic in their slightly belated Best of 2005 List. They picked out a Flambe Disaster! clip, which really shows the value of having a fire extinguisher in your kitchen, in addition to being funny. Incidentally, the apartment kitchen in which it takes place looks shockingly like my college apartment. I kept my extinguisher under the sink, guys!

The best clip of the year was definitely from an episode of Saturday Night Live, where they paid tribute to Magnolia Bakery's cupcakes in the most highly esteemed of media: a rap song.

But first, my hunger pangs are sticking like duct tape
Let's hit up magnolia and mack on some cupcakes
No doubt, that bakery's got all the bomb frosting.
I love those cupcakes like McAdams loves Gosling
2 no 6 no 12, bakers dozen!
I told you that I'm crazy for these cupcakes, cousin!

Update: The YouTube video (above) was removed, but you can hear the song here.

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