Question Of The Day #25

Do you follow recipes to the letter, make some adjustments for your own preference, or just use them as a starting point for your own inspiration? If you do adapt them, how do you know what changes are going to work?

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Comments

Andrew_73759

The *first* time we (GF and I) tend to follow a recipe fairly closely. Then when we've cooked (and eaten) it, we talk about what could be better, how we can change it : if its got potential we'll cook it a few times and change it until we have something we love. Otherwise, it won't get cooked again.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

I follow recipes to the gram when it comes to baking, ratio related things like a brine, pickling liquid, chemical changes and or possibly spice mixes.

I almost never follow a recipe for savory applications, I'll weigh and log what I did.

Most recipes outside of MC style, CIA publications tend to be rather useless to me, I'm

more interested in the flavor profile and techniques used.

I also don't think in recipes the way they often are published in magazines or other "dumbed" down

settings. - I see a plate or dish as a marriage of techniques, textures and flavors.

Kyle_Swanbeck_13795

It usually varies for me. If I am doing something that is more complex such as something more along the modernist style with chems I will usually follow the recipe but when it comes to just regular cooking I simply use the recipe as a guideline. I very rarely follow a recipe, I find myself thinking about what else I could add or wondering why they are doing things a certain way. I am confident in my over all skills and training to know what to do and how to put it together without following the recipe.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

A recipe is a guide, the starting point. Our job as engaged cooks is to take off from that starting point and find new paths to the end point. For example, Salmon 104: First recipe published by CS, and I've prepared it many times. But I tend to play with the flavor profile by changing the infused cream and purees. Wasabi cream and pea-nira puree, for example.

Seth_Ratner_91225

I often try to stick with the recipe as-is on the first attempt, mostly because I want to give the authors a chance to sell me on their vision for the dish. If I dont like something after the first try, all bets are off.

The only exception to this is salt. I find than some recipes in MC and CS are over-seasoned. I know they like to take the seasoning to it's practical extreme, but for some dishes (vichyssoise from MC, Baked Beans from CS) I think it goes takes away from a subtlety that some dishes call for. Other times it ruins the dish entirely. Generally I will either cut the salt in half and then add to taste at the end (recording the new value), or start from zero and just add until I like it. I taste the dish about a million times during the process, so I have a decent idea as to how much salt I'll be cutting by the time I get to that step.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I rarely will follow a recipe, mostly because the overwhelming majority of them are just plain wrong. Chefs are busy people and scaling down a restaurant sized production into something that is reproducible in a home setting often results in errors in amounts, ratios, portions, etc. A lot is lost in translation.

I will look at recipes as a sort of proof of concept if it uses a novel technique or a series of steps to achieve a goal but I will usually have to rely on my own senses to get the ratios right.

tshewman

Depends on the recipe. With completely new recipes/ideas, I'll generally follow it to the letter first attempt (scaled down to not waste cash). If not new, and I like the flavor and texture profiles, I'll stay with it, if not, I'll sometimes divide in two and try what I think might work vs recipe. If sourcing some ingredients is difficult, I'll look back at what I've done before with similar flavors. Sometimes, a recipe will be simply an inspiration to go in a completely different direction.

reck.harm

I think of recipes as ideas or blueprints. I try to stick to them but if there's some weird ingredient in it i can't get i just try to figure out what the purpose of that ingredient is and substitute something that serves the same purpose i can get. like substituting yuzu with lemon juice or lime. i also do that with ingredients a could get but are not in season. Actually i kinda feel that's spirit of modernist cooking. Figure out what is happening in a dish and use that knowledge to make it your own.

Tim_Sutherland_52834

Most ingredients I try and keep in the same ratio for the first time, except baking and hydrocolloids, which are exact. I will play with the modified recipe for the next few times and once I come up with something I am happy with I will follow it from then on.

Recipe methods I look at what the end result is and use a cooking technique that will get me there in the time I have available. Sometimes this means a SV recipe is done old school or a braise done SV.

Most recipes I look at for flavour pairings and end texture, then close the book and wing it.

DiggingDogFarm_65362

It's complicated.

Depends on what I'm seeking to achieve.

I look at recipes mostly for inspiration but in certain situations I'll follow a recipe (or formula) to the letter (and credit the source.)

Which leads me to one of my biggest pet peeves which is whiners changing a recipe in several ways and then complaining loudly about how bad THAT recipe is and how much they hate it!

DUH!!!!!

Johan_Edstrom_5586

FoodTV reviews are endless entertainment when it comes to that.

Jack_Mayer_85396

The first time I attempt a recipe I stay very close to the letter of the recipe, only improvising if I see something very clearly wrong. After that, I start tinkering ...

michaelnatkin

I'm more likely to stick fairly close for baking & pastry; for savory I pretty much just can't help myself - if I start with a recipe at all it usually gets modded on the way. I tend to read recipes more for inspiration about ingredients I'm less familiar with, or cuisines around the world or techniques that are new to me. Usually my kitchen common sense plus lots of tasting keeps me out of too much trouble. Obviously for hydrocolloids or other precision ingredients, that's an exception. The other exception is if I really want to know what a particular chef had in mind. I.e. recently I made the hoppin' john from Sean Brock's book and went to the trouble of ordering particular beans and rice from Anson Mills - so in that case I followed the recipe to a T.