Bruce loves to cook

Cooking pasta in the pan

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The pasta cooks in the pan it’ll be sauced in, in just enough salted water to cover it. That’s the whole trick. A big pot of water dilutes the starch the pasta gives off; a pan with a little water keeps it, and the starch is what tightens the sauce later.

Forming burger patties

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A burger patty is ground meat, portioned and shaped, and almost nothing else. Its texture comes from how little you handle it, and its size decides everything after it: how it cooks, how much of it ends up as crust, and which bun it fits. Most burgers here use thin patties, because a thin patty is mostly crust and a burger is mostly about crust.

Pasta sauces

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The sauce either comes from a base you made ahead, like a meat sauce or a marinara from the freezer, or it’s built fresh, quickly, in the time the pasta takes. Either way it goes into the pan with the pasta, not over it at the end.

Seasoning burgers

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Salt only ever touches the outside of a burger patty made with ground beef or pork. Mixed into raw mince, salt pulls out moisture and binds the proteins, the same way it does in sausage, and the patty comes out dense and springy instead of loose and crumbly. Season the surface, either as the patty hits the pan or as it comes off.

Finishing pasta in the sauce

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

When the pasta is 2–3 minutes from done, add the sauce to the pan and keep it moving. The pasta finishes cooking in the sauce and takes some of it in, and the starchy water binds the two into one glossy sauce that clings. This is the step a restaurant does with its pasta water; here the water is already in the pan.

Cooking the patties

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There are many ways to cook a burger patty. I prefer a patty with a crust, so that’s what I’ll outline.

A burger patty cooks for its crust. The surface has to be hot enough to brown the meat before the thin patty overcooks, so the pan is hotter than for almost anything else, and the patty stays still until it’s ready to flip. Done is medium to medium-well, never tough.

Off the heat

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Take the pan off the heat before the finishing notes go in. Cheese turns grainy and stringy over a flame, butter splits out of the sauce, good oil loses its flavour, and herbs go dark. Off the heat they melt into the sauce instead. Then plate it straight away, since the sauce keeps tightening as it sits.

Assembling burgers

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The patty brings salt, fat, and savoury depth. Everything else on the burger is there to contrast it: something cold and crunchy (lettuce, raw onion, pickle) and something sharp (onion, mustard, pickle, vinegar). Skip the cold crunch and the burger is one note. Skip the sharpness and it turns heavy by the third bite. Get both, on a bun that fits, and even a mediocre patty works.

Sauces and condiments

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A burger sauce adds sweetness, acid, and sharpness, and sometimes fat. There are two ways to get there: keep the condiments separate and let them meet on the burger, or blend them into one spread. Either way, the sauce sits against the bread, where it soaks in, and it shouldn’t drown the onion and pickle.

A simple vegetarian red Thai curry

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I reworked my flexible Thai curry into something I can make in under an hour: [[Simpler Thai red curry]]. I also made it friendly to vegetarians, since it works so well with tofu and mushrooms.

Condensing recipes for freezer prep, or how I make things like beef stew

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I like to tell people that I’m proactively lazy. I like to cook when I have the energy and not cook when I’m lazy, and have great food either way. I also have limited freezer space, which has led me to prepare condensed versions of foods that can be defrosted and turned into full meals in under 20 minutes. Condensing foods is an old technique that works well for home cooks today.

Foil packets

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A foil packet is a small, sealed pan that steams on top and fries on the bottom. The food sitting on the foil browns in fat; everything above it cooks in the steam from its own juices, which baste the whole pouch in one shared flavour. The catch is that potatoes, meat, and soft vegetables cook at very different speeds, and once the packet is sealed you can’t add things in stages. So you stage them with the knife instead: cut the slow things small and the fast things big, and they all finish at once.

How do you fry ground beef without oil?

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I regularly stay at a corporate apartment with a nice little kitchen that has only stainless steel pots and pans. Real pans are normally a good thing, but when I’m travelling I don’t bring oil or butter, and I don’t want to buy more than I need, since I hate throwing out food (or packing it home). And while stainless pans are inert and last forever, they’re picky until they reach the right temperature and are properly lubricated.

Pork loin sausage

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pork loin was on sale this week, packaged in half loins (roughly 3.5 kg). I picked one up and split it into four roasts. Loin usually ends up as chops, or brined and smoked as back bacon (Canadian bacon). It’s a fairly lean cut, but cut right it has some marbling and a fat cap, and it makes great ground pork if you include the fat cap.

Quick relish

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A quick, sweet-and-sour relish from the pickle shelf, for when a dish wants one.

Ingredients

½ cup sweet pickles, chopped
½ cup pickled peppers (mild–medium), chopped
½ cup frozen corn, diced and fried until the edges are brown and crispy
¼ cup red onion, diced
½ cup mustard
2 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp freeze-dried dill (or fresh, in season)
salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Combine everything, taste and adjust, and rest in the refrigerator for a few hours.

Stir fry two ways

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Two pork stir fries from one method: lemongrass pork, and sweet ginger and garlic pork. Use a lean, tender cut like pork sirloin tip, which wants a fast cook. There’s no deep frying, so both are much lighter than takeout.

Stock

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Stock is a savoury tea: flavour and gelatin pulled from bones and vegetables into water, then concentrated.

Every stock on this site follows the same five steps: roast, extract, lift out the solids, reduce, strain. The roast sets the colour, the reduction sets the strength, and only the extraction time changes. Bigger, denser bones take longer to give up their gelatin. No bones, no wait.

Thai-inspired noodle soup

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A coconut curry noodle soup built on quick-marinated pork (a shortcut to [[Velveting (pork)|velveting]]), lemongrass, and whatever vegetables are on hand. Brown the pork fast and leave it underdone, so it finishes in the soup and stays tender.

Cherry tomato and garlic spaghetti

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Spaghetti, cherry tomatoes, and garlic cooked together in a little oily water, so the sauce makes itself as the water boils off. It’s the [[Cherry tomato and garlic pasta]] build of one-pan pasta.

The Bruce burger

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The burger I make at home. It starts from [[The Whopper]]: one wide patty with everything cold stacked on top. The technique comes from the [[White Spot burger]]: a thin griddled patty, seasoned after it cooks, built deluxe. Every part is there because I tested the alternatives and they lost.

Cherry tomato and garlic pasta

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The fresh version: nothing made ahead, just cherry tomatoes, garlic, and oil cooked in the pan with the pasta. It’s also the best way I know to use up the last of the cherry tomatoes.

Mozza burger

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A&W Canada’s bacon cheeseburger, built around mozzarella instead of cheddar. Mozzarella is mild and milky, so the sauce does the work: Mozza sauce, a creamy, tangy spread of mayo, relish, and chili sauce, goes on both buns. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato fill in the rest.

Mozza burger sauce

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The classic Canadian A&W Mozza burger has a sweet sauce.

Mechanic

A mayo base with roughly half as much red relish, and a spoonful of Thousand Island to round it out. The relish brings the sweetness, sourness, and texture; the chili sauce in it gives the tomato tang that sets it apart from a plain relish mayo.

Teen burger

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The classic diner burger, as A&W Canada still makes it. One seasoned patty, real cheddar, and bacon, under every topping a diner offers: lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, ketchup, mustard, and Teen sauce, a tangy, slightly sweet, savoury mayonnaise spread with mustard, sugar, and spices. The seasoning is what makes it taste like a Teen: Lawry’s Seasoned Salt, not plain salt.

The Whopper

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The big fast-food burger. One wide, flame-grilled patty, and above it everything cold: pickles, raw onion, ketchup, tomato, and lettuce, with mayo on both halves of a toasted sesame bun. The char from the grill is what sets it apart from the griddled burgers. I made these for about five years as a teen, and they’re the base of the burger I make at home today: [[The Bruce burger]].

Big Boy burger

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve never liked the Big Mac, but I once tried a Big Boy burger. It feels like an old-school, club-sandwich take on the Big Mac, but it’s closer to a diner burger, so it has real texture and sharpness. I admit I still don’t get the middle bun, but when in Rome.

McDouble burger

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The [[Fast-food double burger]] as one chain fixed it, and the cheapest way to eat two patties. Two thin patties, one slice of cheese between them, and the fast-food condiments: ketchup, mustard, sour pickles, and onion. Nothing cold or crunchy and nothing optional. Every part is there because it’s cheap, fast, and the same every time.

Oklahoma fried onion burger

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The fried onion burger is a classic diner burger; sweet, savoury, and simple.

Mechanic

The onion is smashed into the patty, not cooked beside it. A ball of beef goes on a hot griddle under a pile of paper-thin onion, and a heavy press drives the onion into the meat. The beef browns underneath while the onion steams in its juices on top; after the flip, the onion fries in the beef fat until it’s sweet and browned at the edges. Use about 2 parts beef to 1 part onion by weight: less onion and it’s a smash burger with a garnish, more and the patty won’t hold together. The onion has to be sliced paper thin, or it won’t cook through before the beef is done.

Pub burger

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This build is the opposite of the smash. Where the griddled burgers press a little beef thin for crust, the pub burger keeps a lot of beef thick for juice: one hand-formed patty, cooked so the centre stays moist, on a toasted soft bun that can hold it. The toppings stay simple and savoury so the beef leads. It’s built to be a hearty meal on its own plate, with a knife beside it and chips on the side.

Smash burger

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This build is all crust. Each patty is a cold ball of beef smashed thin on a very hot griddle, so the whole underside browns at once and the edges go lacy and crisp. Thin patties have little bulk, so they’re stacked two (or three) high with cheese melted between them. Onion goes under the patties, pickles and sauce on top.

Drive-in deluxe burger

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a variation of the [[White Spot burger]], the drive-in and diner burger I grew up with. I love onions, so it has two kinds.

The build works because everything above the patty is cold, crunchy, sharp, or sour, and the patty below brings the salt, fat, and savoury depth. It’s [[The Bruce burger]] with the drive-in’s two sauces in place of mayo and mustard.

Fast-food double burger

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is the rich build. Where the drive-in deluxe is all contrast, this one leans into salt and fat: two thin, soft patties with a slice of processed cheese melted between them. Pickles, ketchup, mustard, and onion keep it from going heavy. It’s the one case where American cheese earns its place on a burger.

Grilled onion burger

Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This build is about one ingredient: onion, cooked down in the beef fat until it’s sweet. Where the drive-in deluxe gets its contrast from cold crunch, this one is sweet and savoury with one soft, even texture. I make these occasionally, especially if I happen to be prepping [[French onion soup]].

Chicken sandwich, crispy, mall style

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In high school I worked in a string of fast food and fast casual restaurants, often on split shifts. A split shift leaves you with a few hours in the middle of the day, not enough time to go home, and not much money to spend. I spent most of those hours at the mall, in a food court that sat next to a big arcade.

Test kitchen

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Restaurants don’t put a dish on the menu the first time they cook it. It goes through the test kitchen first: cooked, tasted, adjusted, and cooked again, until it holds up night after night. Only then does it make the menu.

October 2026

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Early October is mostly trip notes: a tabbouleh worth learning, a subtly sweet red cabbage, an onion jam on a double smash burger, and a German dinner of roulade and pork tenderloin with apple. Plus all of the Hawaii treats we have grown to love.

Chicken Milanese

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a lighter version of Milanese, with no egg or breadcrumbs. Crispy chicken and a pan sauce pairs nicely with fresh sides.

Mechanic

A quick flour dredge and fry leaves the pan full of fond, ready to become a pan sauce while the chicken rests.

The food log

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Before I kept a log, my stock was flat. I’d made it a dozen times, tweaked it a little each round, and it never got much better: more roasted vegetables one week, a splash more vinegar the next, none of it adding up to anything. The problem wasn’t the stock. It was that I couldn’t remember what I’d already tried, so every batch was really just the first batch again, wearing a different hat.

The impossible quest for the perfect chicken burger

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

According to r/burgers, most chicken burgers are not burgers:

A chicken sandwich contains an entire piece of chicken or filet, rather [sic] a ground and blended patty. A pulled chicken sandwich is also not a burger.

Glossary

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Short definitions for terms that come up more than once but don’t need a page of their own. A term with its own page (a technique essay, a principle like [[Win the fridge]]) links straight there instead of to an entry below — this page is only for the ones that don’t.

How to find great recipes

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

You have probably noticed that most recipes are hot garbage. I’m not just talking about those recipes that contain more story than method, or recipes that underestimate cooking times, temperatures, and ingredients, or recipes that are so poorly formatted that they’re difficult to read. I’m talking more about recipes that have no clear idea about what they are or why. And failing any semblance of self-awareness, most recipes fail to teach you much about the how either.

Lazy tomato soup

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A warm bowl of soup on a fall day is a wondrous thing. This is a classic fridge magnet recipe that I use to clean up old veg.

Mechanic

This is a one-pot pasta: the pasta cooks directly in the soup, with starch as the only thickener. Reduce the cooking liquid down to just what the soup needs. The released starch turns it smooth and velvety without any flour or cream.

The quest for the perfect burger

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My first restaurant job was flipping burgers, and I loved it. Not just the job, the food. Standing at a griddle all shift taught me what I actually wanted from a burger: crunchy, fresh veg, a thin patty, and flavours that didn’t hide.

Why ingredients matter in stock

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

My first dozen batches of stock were bad — unbalanced, weak, bitter, whatever else could go wrong. The worst one wasn’t even a flavour problem. In the chaos of a working kitchen, I grabbed a colander instead of a fine strainer and poured an afternoon’s worth of stock straight down the drain. I stood there for a second before it registered what I’d just done. It wasn’t really a story about being careless; it was a reminder that I needed a method I could repeat, not instincts I could only trust on a good day.

Win the fridge

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Win the fridge is the practice of using every scrap of food before it goes to waste: working through the fridge, freezer, and pantry regularly instead of letting things quietly expire in the back. It’s a frugal habit and an ethical one at the same time: food waste is avoidable, and being well-fed enough to have a fridge full of choices worth wasting is a privilege, not a given.

Food safety: time and temperature

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Food safety is a combination of temperature and time. The familiar “safe” numbers (74°C for poultry, 71°C for ground meat) are the temperatures where bacteria die almost instantly. Below them, the same kill happens if the meat holds that temperature long enough. This is how sous vide chicken at 63°C is safe, and it’s how you keep lean cuts juicy without gambling.

Reverse cooking: reverse sear and water frying

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most recipes brown first and cook through second. Reverse methods swap the order: cook gently first, then brown at the end. The gentle phase controls doneness; the hot phase is only for crust. Doing them in this order gives more even results and fewer burnt bits.

Mayo marinade

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a quick and effective way to marinate chicken and pork. The mayo ensures spices don’t burn, and it adheres to the cut surprisingly well.

Mechanic

Mayonnaise coats the meat evenly and holds the seasonings in contact throughout marinating, producing more consistent browning and a tender surface. The big win is surface adhesion: the fat carries the spices and shields them, so they’re less prone to burning.

About

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I am not a chef. I spent time in restaurants in the late 1980s and early 1990s, learning how fast-casual and family-owned restaurants worked. I prepped. I cleaned. I worked the line. I managed for a bit. I toyed with the idea of a career in the industry, but was pulled away to an internship in tech.

Butternut squash curry

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A simplified weeknight coconut curry built around pan-browned butternut squash and yellow Thai curry paste. Soy sauce keeps it vegetarian; fish sauce adds more depth if you eat it.

Ingredients

250 g long-grain white rice, uncooked
3 tablespoons coconut or canola oil, divided
½ small butternut squash (about 450 g), peeled and cut into 1 cm pieces
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger, peeled
3 tablespoons yellow Thai curry paste
1 can (400 ml) light coconut milk
1 jalapeño or Thai chili, halved
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 red pepper, seeded and cut into 1 cm pieces
2-4 tablespoons lime juice, plus lime wedges to serve
1 tablespoon soy sauce, or fish sauce if not vegetarian
140 g (5 oz) baby spinach, chopped
Chopped cashews and cilantro, to serve

Method

Cook the rice according to package directions. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet or medium Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the squash and cook, tossing occasionally, until golden brown and beginning to soften, 4 to 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate.