Cooking tips for new players...

[Glenn from Discord]

So I made comment to someone asking about tips for new players and figured this deserved a thread of it's own.

Cooking meals is a great way to reduce your hunger over a set amount of days. As opposed to cooking something every time you're hungry (and let's be honest; your character gets hungry a lot) you should be making meals, and multiples at a time, judge your hunger and save what you don't need. This is exceptionally helpful in multiplayer servers and co-op games.

It should be noted that in order to cook, you need cooking utensils to even start. While you are scavenging be on the look out for: Sauce Pans, Griddle Pans, Baking Trays, and Cooking Pots. If you have a lot of inventory space, and you are well set up within your first couple of days, pick up multiple of these items, as you can cook as many meals as you have utensils at the same time.

There should be no reason to cook one meal at a time. If you're planning on taking a few moments to cook a meal, why not cook multiple meals in order to stretch out your hunger over a few days. It takes a good amount of time to cook large -hunger value meals, but not to long to prep them. So say you have a roast that has -70 hunger. It will take you about a minute or two to cook. Go ahead and prep multiple meals while you wait for one to finish cooking, and cook multiple meals at the same time.

For prepping it is important to note what you can cook with each utensil. Sauce Pans and Cooking Pots require water first to be able to use fresh vegetables and meats to add to your meal. Sauce Pans are what you use to cook rice. Once the rice is added, you can add fresh veggies and meat to increase the -hunger value of the meals.

Sauce Pan > Add water > Add rice > add veggies/meat > Cook.

Cooking Pot > Add water > Make Stew (fresh veggies/meats). You can also use the cooking pot to add canned soup (no water required).

Griddle Pans and Frying Pans will make "Stir Fry". No water is needed. Right click on your utensil and add what you need, then cook it.

Roasting pan will make roasts using Fresh meats/veggies.

Remember that you can also open canned items and use them in your various dishes. My rule of thumb is to weigh my fresh veggies and meats with how much canned items I have and make my decision based on what I have more of. Fresh food will spoil if the power goes out, and you have no generator for your fridge. Where as canned goods won't parish unless they're opened. Again, keep this in mind for when you are prepping meals (it's always better to use fresh food first due to the possibility of losing power, but if your pantry is getting full of canned goods, it's no harm to use some to cook meals.)

Some quality food items to be on the look out for (I personally collect everything food related, these are just prime food items in my opinion): Rice, Eggs, Ham, canned corn beef, and peas. Of course this is in the sense that you will be prepping meals. Eggs come 12 a carton, and each egg will add -7 hunger to a prepped meal. Rice can make quite a few prepped meals before the box runs out. Ham has a lot of -hunger value without needing to cook it, and you can also slice the ham to make ham slices that can be added to meals, or consumed for -10 hunger. Peas have multiple uses before they run out meaning you can add more -hunger value to your prepped meals!

Finally you can't cook frozen food. So it's important to prep ahead and plan for when you want to cook multiple meals. Before you set out to scavenge, place some frozen food into the fridge and by the time you get back the food will be ready to add to your meals.

Always try and cook multiple meals at the same time. Remember that if you don't finish the meal, that the utensil will be used to store what's left. Which is why it's important to find multiple utensils to cook multiple meals. If you have a high -hunger value meal to only eat half or a quarter and save the rest in the fridge.

Hope this helps. Cooking is a great tool, and a great way to save you and your companions in multiplayer, time.

[But I Am A Robot!]

Roasting pans good too. Can make a couple of things with an empty bowl.

[Reebs]

add bleach for a big surprise

[FragLeg]

Originally posted by Noobs with Toobs:

There should be no reason to cook one meal at a time. If you're planning on taking a few moments to cook a meal, why not cook multiple meals in order to stretch out your hunger over a few days.

Because cooked meals spoil, unlike cans.

[Korhal]

Id like to add some flavor to it:

If you fish, do not scale it immediatly and making filet out of it. Unscaled fish keeps itself fresh rather long in comparission to its filet. :)

[Quineloe]

Originally posted by But I am a robot!:

Roasting pans good too. Can make a couple of things with an empty bowl.

Yeah, Roasting pans are imo better than pots once water is off.

[tommy]

Nice

[Silverbird]

Personally, I only bother using frying pan, and cooking pot/saucepan for rice/pasta.
Anything that can be "added to bowl to create salad" you can just cheese and not even have to spend time cooking to get benefits of.

[[²³²Th] Genesis]

If you cook raw meat and fish ingredients their hunger value will increase, if you add cooked meat / fish to a stir fry then you can cook the stir fry again to further increase the value.

For fish you need to filet it before adding them to the stir-fry (can be done before or after cooking the fish).

Most of the time there will be leftover fish fillets with very low hunger values after adding it to the stir fry, you can put them into the compost to make fertilizer for your plants.

If you accidentally added 4 or 5 times the same ingredient to the stir fry (happens sometimes with mushroom fries where every different mushroom is another ingredient), don't throw it away!
You can make another one with 1 cabbage + 1 fish/meat (+ 1 mushroom if you can identify the edible ones) to recover the boredom and unhappiness.

[eriberri]

Also fyi if anyone didn't know, you can also defrost frozen items quickly (so you can then cook them) by using the microwave on the defrost setting. Right click on microwave > settings > second from left on microwave setting dial). If you keep on heating the item beyond the defrost stage, or set the setting to the first on the left (I think?) you can cook the item. I think the microwave technically does the same as the oven does.

[ZeroReady]

Originally posted by eriberri:

Also fyi if anyone didn't know, you can also defrost frozen items quickly (so you can then cook them) by using the microwave on the defrost setting. Right click on microwave > settings > second from left on microwave setting dial). If you keep on heating the item beyond the defrost stage, or set the setting to the first on the left (I think?) you can cook the item. I think the microwave technically does the same as the oven does.

lol almost 400 hours and i never knew you could right click on microwaves.

[Ghost]

"Cooking multiple meals" only make sense if you have power / fridge available. I think it's a good idea to get used to not having any power at all. Use your farm as a "fridge", only harvest what you need, desynchronize sowing, etc.

This is probably meant for a long run though. I think most multiplayer runs never reach winter time anyway.

I understand that OP's tips are for new players though. But I'd also advise good habits that lead to stability later on.

[[²³²Th] Genesis]

Originally posted by Ghost:

This is probably meant for a long run though. I think most multiplayer runs never reach winter time anyway.

Some servers are almost 3 years in, most servers only reset because of mod issues.

[BDZ1972]

1: Brilliant post, I value cooking and the buffs it gives very highly in this game, I think you covered all essentials here and did it well.

2: I genuinely carry a bowl at all times. super useful, especially in the early game with all the fresh produce knocking around. I find them really useful for salads when I'm looking to stop gaining weight if I've selected the "underweight" trait and have overdone it on the ice cream.

[Glenn from Discord]

Originally posted by Ghost:

"Cooking multiple meals" only make sense if you have power / fridge available. I think it's a good idea to get used to not having any power at all. Use your farm as a "fridge", only harvest what you need, desynchronize sowing, etc.

This is probably meant for a long run though. I think most multiplayer runs never reach winter time anyway.

I understand that OP's tips are for new players though. But I'd also advise good habits that lead to stability later on.

Do you not know the power of generators and gas? I highly recommend you find "how to connect generators" or have a level 3 electrician in your group. You can place generators around your safehouse outside and as long as they have gas they will power your fridge. It's easy to play with the power off but still have your fridge on.

[Glenn from Discord]

Originally posted by FragLeg:

Originally posted by Noobs with Toobs:

There should be no reason to cook one meal at a time. If you're planning on taking a few moments to cook a meal, why not cook multiple meals in order to stretch out your hunger over a few days.

Because cooked meals spoil, unlike cans.

You can put unfinished cooked meals in the fridge to make them last longer.