Cooks, do you use recipes?

dbzeag

Wants to kiss you where it stinks
Jun 9, 2006
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I do much more cooking than baking and I find that I cannot use recipes. When I do, I can do bad things. I have fucked up instant mac+cheese before by following the instructions (recipe).

When I bake, however, I try and follow them. A bit easier for some reason, and things come out ok, but still not very good.

Anyone else have this problem in the kitchen?
 
The recipe is there to teach you how to make the dish. If you've never made it before, how can you make it without a recipe? Once you've mastered the basics of any dish you can then tweak it to taste. It's almost as though the experience you gained from previous efforts is used to perfect future attempts.
 
Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. We modify things quite a bit and sometimes it comes out fantastic and other times we go hungry!
 
The recipe is there to teach you how to make the dish. If you've never made it before, how can you make it without a recipe? Once you've mastered the basics of any dish you can then tweak it to taste. It's almost as though the experience you gained from previous efforts is used to perfect future attempts.

I think the techniques of a dish and blending flavors is more important. the recipes are for people that are too lazy to learn the "rules". For instance, it is best to make a rue to thicken up a stew. If you knew that, you can make a stew without the 1/4 cup corn starch the recipe calls for.

Same with a chocolate souffle I made from scratch. I am allergic to chocolate so I couldn't have it, nor have I made it before, but I know the concepts of splitting and beating egg whites, the technique of folding, and proper consistency and temperature control. I knew the technique of a double boiler to melt chocolate instead of scorching it. From those that tried it, it was wonderful tasting. I didn't even glance at a recipe book to get an idea for the ingredients in it.

I think if you know the fundimentals of what tastes compliment each other well and you know and practice techniques like egg white folding and temporing eggs, recipes are rendered useless.

But, if you have no idea what tastes go with what other tastes or need help with techniques, recipes are great guides.
 
I always have to kick it up a notch.

with a shot from your spice weasel?
SpiceWeasel.jpg
 
But, if you have no idea what tastes go with what other tastes or need help with techniques, recipes are great guides.

This is pretty much was I was trying to say.

Another thing, though...

When I was trying to teach myself how to learn to bake bread I was using lots of technique related materials. However, no amount of technique could teach me what I was supposed to look for at different stages of the process. It was only after I found a simple recipe with results I could reproduce that I was able to apply everything else I'd learned.
 
If you've never cooked whatever it is you are trying to cook .. how are you suppose to know how to cook it without a recipe?

After you've made it once you shouldn't need a recipe again unless it was just something extremely complicated. I usually print off a recipe, skim over it, and then go about my business.
 
If you've never cooked whatever it is you are trying to cook .. how are you suppose to know how to cook it without a recipe?

After you've made it once you shouldn't need a recipe again unless it was just something extremely complicated. I usually print off a recipe, skim over it, and then go about my business.

I have no idea what SHOULD be in a chocolate souffle, but I know that I needed it to be light and airy and be similar to a cake and creamy and chocolatey.

To do the light and airy, I knew to use beaten egg whites and folding into a batter.

To make it all stick together, a bit of flour in the mix.

To make the chocolate easier to mix into the "batter", I melted it down using the technique of double boiling.

To make it creamier, I used the technique of making a ganache by adding cream in with the melted chocolate. Since I have done it before, you had more liquid than you think to the chocolate so it doesn't get sticky and clumpy.

To make sure it is cooked, I used the technique of using a toothpick that I inserted in the middle and if it didn't have anything sticking to it, it was cooked through.

You have just made chocolate souffle from scratch with 0 recipe and 0 prep because you know how to perform techniques and know what flavors blend with other flavors. This is the secret of the Iron Chef and shows like that, or even how to make mixed drinks.
 
you just gave me a recipe

I gave you a list of techniques. In that instance I made chocolate souffle. I could have made an angelfood cake and a chocolate parfait from those techniques, too.

And I have to you measurements of any kind. I didn't even give guidelines as to portions.
 
man... just throw some stuff into a pot, cook, eat. not that hard to get something edible. But if you want something tasty, then you need to know what goes with what.

When i lived on my own, i would throw stuff together that made tasty, but simple meals.
chicken chunks + instant rice + cream of chicken soup = delicious
 
I gave you a list of techniques. In that instance I made chocolate souffle. I could have made an angelfood cake and a chocolate parfait from those techniques, too.

And I have to you measurements of any kind. I didn't even give guidelines as to portions.

A recipe is nothing more than a suggested way to make something .. par the technique the maker of the recipe deems the best way. Why do you think there are so many "recipes" for chocolate cake or pork chops or quiche or anything else that requires more than boiling water or turning on a microwave.

Even if you make it up as you go, you are formulating a recipe in your head for yourself.

rec·i·pe
n.

A set of directions with a list of ingredients for making or preparing something, especially food.


:) :heart:
 
A recipe is nothing more than a suggested way to make something .. par the technique the maker of the recipe deems the best way. Why do you think there are so many "recipes" for chocolate cake or pork chops or quiche or anything else that requires more than boiling water or turning on a microwave.

Even if you make it up as you go, you are formulating a recipe in your head for yourself.

rec·i·pe
n.

A set of directions with a list of ingredients for making or preparing something, especially food.


:) :heart:

"A set of directions with a list of ingredients for making or preparing something, especially food."

Exactly. When I make stuff, I have no list of anything. I have in my mind knowledge of what food items work together (like cheese and grapes or chocloate and peanut butter), but I have nothing listed. If I am in the mood for veggy stirfry, I do not use tomato sauce because those things don't go together. However, marinating chicken in a combination of food items that doesn't scorch because of the high heat is a good combination for a stirfry because I know the technique of stir frying requires high heat.

And to learn those techniques, I don't use directions. I know that the end goal of whipping egg whites (not yolks) makes the "foam" for light baked goods. How I do that is up to me, but I konw the most effective way is a fast beater that is electric to strain my arms less. What a recipe will say is "Whip separate egg whites until the peaks are made", explicitly telling you the end result.