With my nose, of course.
Books can serve as an outline, but creativity is right there in your hands, your eyes, your laughter.
All of that make meals worth eating.
Also with my nose, thought I love to leaf through books and cooking magazines. I can’t remember the last time I followed a recipe. Perhaps if I baked again…but for the most part I have specific dishes I’ve made for years, and I make them over and over, each time slightly different depending on what veggies are available, and what spices or sauces (yes, sauces in a bottle) need to be used up. I like the predictable monotony of a limited repertoire.
This probably says more about me than the accuracy of recipes. I have to follow the recipe exactly the first few times I make it. Once I have the basics I feel confident to alter, add and improvise. But NEVER add more fish sauce than the recipe calls for.
I cook with my nose, my eyes, and that indefinable feeling that makes a good comedian or jazz musician. Once in a while you get in the groove and can do no culinary wrong. Once in awhile. Other whiles, it all goes terribly, terribly wrong.
Agamemnon, also with soy sauce, more is not better.
I like to experiment. I guess the best way to do things if i have a basic understanding of how to make a dish, and even if it’s not right, it’s always interesting and makes you think.
Plus you get the suspense of finding out whether you made a masterpiece of sorts, or something that makes you gag.
=]
YES. A recipe is like a dress pattern, you need basic techniques and understandings of how things work together, but then you can ad lib. In cooking, unlike mathematics, the order of the factors *does* alter the final product. But spices, touches, extras are like buttons, embroidery, pockets…you can change those to your taste as long as the fabric is cut to fit somebody’s body.
With my nose, of course.
Books can serve as an outline, but creativity is right there in your hands, your eyes, your laughter.
All of that make meals worth eating.
Also with my nose, thought I love to leaf through books and cooking magazines. I can’t remember the last time I followed a recipe. Perhaps if I baked again…but for the most part I have specific dishes I’ve made for years, and I make them over and over, each time slightly different depending on what veggies are available, and what spices or sauces (yes, sauces in a bottle) need to be used up. I like the predictable monotony of a limited repertoire.
This probably says more about me than the accuracy of recipes. I have to follow the recipe exactly the first few times I make it. Once I have the basics I feel confident to alter, add and improvise. But NEVER add more fish sauce than the recipe calls for.
I cook with my nose, my eyes, and that indefinable feeling that makes a good comedian or jazz musician. Once in a while you get in the groove and can do no culinary wrong. Once in awhile. Other whiles, it all goes terribly, terribly wrong.
Agamemnon, also with soy sauce, more is not better.
I seem to be hypo-osmic, so I use the cookbook… Though I do often add a bit more spice than the book calls for.
i try to do things on my own. and not read offa what others are telling me to do.
love it – I can’t cook, so I follow those numbers exactly.
I like to experiment. I guess the best way to do things if i have a basic understanding of how to make a dish, and even if it’s not right, it’s always interesting and makes you think.
Plus you get the suspense of finding out whether you made a masterpiece of sorts, or something that makes you gag.
=]
I start with a book and end without one.
YES. A recipe is like a dress pattern, you need basic techniques and understandings of how things work together, but then you can ad lib. In cooking, unlike mathematics, the order of the factors *does* alter the final product. But spices, touches, extras are like buttons, embroidery, pockets…you can change those to your taste as long as the fabric is cut to fit somebody’s body.