Do you modify the recipe as you cook?

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I like to cook, but I find that for many recipes I adjust the recipe as I cook based on the ingredients that I have on hand. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult to provide a recipe. For example, I LOVE tomatoes. When I have a large bowl of tomatoes, I sometimes make Tomato Bisque. After spending a few years trying different recipes and such, I found a general set of guidelines that allows me to create a bisque that rivals any you will find in a five star restaurant, and I am able to use my different varieties (depending on what I happen to have on hand). The vague description is:


Slice tomatoes and place on a sheet or pan with sides (juices will appear and with a cookie sheet, the juices will flow out of the pan). I usually peel the tomatoes, because if I do not, I will have bits of skin floating around. Not an overly bad thing, but I prefer it without.
Place sliced garlic on top of some of the tomatoes (say one of those pieces of a clove for each sheet).
Sprinkle lightly with salt (I use coarsely Kosher salt).
Sprinkle lightly with olive oil

Broil the tomatoes a bit, until the garlic begins to brown but not burn.

Turn the tomatoes so that the garlic is under the tomatoes (so it will not burn) and then broil the other side until you see it begin to singe or brown. Try to not burn it. If the skin burns, I just peel it off.

OK, now here comes the whole do it to taste part.

I dump the tomatoes, garlic, and any water/juices from the tomatoes into the blender. I then add salt and pepper (hmmm, how much), and fresh basil leaves into the blender. The flavor of the basil differs greatly, so I need to adjust that significantly sometimes. For the basil that I usually have, call it four or five large leaves.

I then add between 1/2 and 1 cup of heavy cream, then I blend that into a thick soup. My wife once added some tomatoes that were only mostly ripe, so the soup was a bit bitter. Tossing in some sugar cured that.

So, am I the only one that tastes (in a restaurant friendly clean way) and makes adjustments as they cook?

When a neighbor asked for instructions on how I make my spaghetti sauce, they were rather long, and included things like "add <something> to taste". Herbs and spices and so frequently differing in flavor.

[Jim Koepke]

What recipe?

I often cook without one.

Especially things like spaghetti.

Cookies, cakes and breads often get changed depending on what there is on hand. I make a zucchini bread with dried fruit and sometime nuts. Great stuff, but it comes out a little different each time, always great.

Then there are some recipes that are followed closer than most folks follow their religion. Things like egg nog do not need experimentation. Though sometimes I do change from extra rich milk to low fat milk. That only lowers the calorie count a little.

jtk

[John Coloccia]

Generally, I don't use recipes at all except the handful I've concocted that are complex enough that I like to write down the basic ingredients. I don't record any quantities, though. That all has to be done by taste. I taste almost everything before it goes in, and certainly taste as it's cooking. Even a simple ingredient, like fresh basil, tastes dramatically different from day to day and batch to batch. How can a recipe ever possibly work? It's like having recipe for straightening a board. Every board is different. At best you can have a technique that allows you to adapt to different boards.

Variety is nice too. Once you get to the point that you can consistently crank out food, mixing it up with variations is a refreshing change. The main problem I see is people who try to make a souffle without even being able to make decent scrambled eggs. How can you possibly make a complex and delicate dish if you can't even compete with the local guy in the sandwich truck? The recipe will fail regardless, then.

Now that I sorta' almost know what I'm doing, I can usually follow a recipe and get some fantastic results (though I usually tweak it a bit to taste), but many years ago, in my days of not being able to make scrambled eggs, the most complete and detailed recipe would fail miserably when I tried to cook it.

I see the recipe as a basic guideline...almost like a basic palette of flavors. It's still up to the cook to combine them in a way that makes sense.

[Belinda Barfield]

I rarely use recipes. I have a lot of recipes but don't typically have time to try them out, I should just throw them away. I cook with whatever is on hand. Because of this dishes I cook usually don't taste the same way twice. People ask me for recipes and I just sort of change the subject. With tomatoes I just make a roasted base sauce that I then adjust when I use it for spaghetti, chili, etc.

[Mike Cruz]

I stick by the recipe...exactly. That said, one must define "the" recipe. I have taken other recipes and altered them to make them my own. Once I've found "what works", I am vigilant about measurements and ingredients. I must say that that does not mean that some of my dishes haven't morphed to make them better. That just means that when I find what works, I stick with it. I may need to give a little background here... When I cook, I make oodles of whatever I make. When I make pasta sauce, I don't have the time to make it for "tonight's meal". I make 30-40 servings of it, can (jar) it, and put it in the fridge. Likewise, when I marinade steaks and burgers, I don't have the foresight or time to buy, tenderize, and marinade a steak or burger a day or two before I want to eat it. So, I buy steaks in bulk (used to be from Costco, but I moved on to local farmers to avoid the hormones and antibiotics), tenderize, marinade, vacuum seal them, let them sit for at least a day on the counter (just kidding...in the fridge), then freeze them. Whenever I want a steak, I defrost and cook. Perfect every time. Likewise with burgers. I buy about 10 lbs of ground beef, add what I add, vacuum seal them, let them sit IN THE FRIDGE for a day, then freeze them. Easy as pie when I need/want a/some burgers. Speaking of pie, we have our favorite recipe for apple pie and cobbler. We've gone so far (in years when we've had apples coming out the wazzu) as to make the pie/cobbler, freeze it, and have it ready for baking in the future. Works great.

[Myk Rian]

Cook? What's that?

[Bryan Morgan]

I use recipes only as general guidelines. I don't think I've ever followed a recipe to the letter.

[Dan Hintz]

SWMBO is insane about following a recipe... if it's not on the box (or her mother didn't do it), it's not getting done. This causes no end to my frustrations when a seasoning mix comes out watery on the plate because she refuses to tone back the amount of water.

I, on the other hand, will fiddle until I get exactly what I want. Some days I look at what's available in the local market (i.e., our fridge) and make something from that.

[Belinda Barfield]

I, on the other hand, will fiddle until I get exactly what I want. Some days I look at what's available in the local market (i.e., our fridge) and make something from that.

The SO's mom raised five kids and is a master of making something out of whatever is on hand. She makes one dish that I refuse to eat. She calls it Refrigerator Soup, whatever is in the fridge that is in danger of going over the dark side goes in the pot.

[Dan Hintz]

whatever is in the fridge that is in danger of going over the dark side goes in the pot.
If it's on the edge, Amy makes sure to have me taste it before including it in anything. She's considerate like that.

I just wish she would warn me it might be bad before saying "Try this and tell me what you think."

[Brian Vaughn]

I'm also in the "List of ingredients, but no amounts" camp. I tend to cook by taste, and quite often more by smell. Lasagna, spaghetti, fetuccini, all have distinct smells, and you can usually tell if it's off with a good sniff. The downside is I usually forget what each herb smells like, so I have to open 10 different jars to find the smell I'm looking for, but it works. It drives my wife nuts when I pull out a jar of spaghetti sauce, pour it into the pan, and then start adding things to it because it didn't "smell right". (Of course, it also drives her nuts when she asks me how I made something and I shrug my shoulders and start listing ingredients, along with the phrase "I think".)
On the other hand, certain items that I don't make often and are a bit less forgiving, I do tend to have a specific recipe for. For instance, Merengue cookies - you really need to have the proportion of egg whites to sugar right, otherwise it falls apart, gets grainy, or gets sickly sweet. Fudge is another one that I have to write down the correct temperature to stop, because I have made several pans that either crumbled or were barely solid.

[Mike Henderson]

I modify every time I cook, even if I've cooked the dish a hundred times before. Seems like I always have an idea for something to change. Sometimes my wife will suggest a change, also.

The one dish I'm never satisfied with is my spaghetti sauce. I've made it hundreds of times but it never tastes as good (to me) as the sauce in some restaurants. So far, I just haven't figured out what they do (or add) that I don't.

Mike

[Marty Paulus]

LOML hates when I get to cooking and enjoying a few adult beverages. 99/100 times it will be an awsome meal. Only problem is I don't follow the recipe and improvise with what we have on hand. I also usually don't remember what I put in and approximately how much. Needless to say it never comes out the same twice. I have been getting better with writing down some of my modifications. I make a vodka tomato pasta that is awsome but I had to modify the amounts because there was so little sauce the first time I made it. I did write the mods down and made last week. Came out perfect. I also make a beef tenderloin with a cream sauce that I cannot find the recipe for anymore. Luckly that list of ingredients is short and simple.

[Dan Hintz]

I make a vodka tomato pasta that is awsome but I had to modify the amounts because there was so little sauce the first time I made it.
Little too high of a vodka-to-sauce ratio, eh? ;)

[Marty Paulus]

Actually the recipe calls for vodka and cream. The amount listed for each was not nearly enough. Ratio stayed close but amouts did increase
hic ;)

[Belinda Barfield]

I also cook by the Julia Child method . . . a little wine for the sauce, a little wine for me. :D

[Andrew Pitonyak]

when I get to cooking and enjoying a few adult beverages. 99/100 times it will be an awesome meal.

Now that you mention it, my spaghetti sauce always tastes better if I pop a bottle of wine when I start cooking.

[Mike Davis NC]

I make up stuff as I go. I like to watch the chefs on TV and get ideas but never look at recipes. The one thing I did write down some guidelines was my BBQ sauce, the raisins make it special and the molasses makes it dark.

[Mike Cruz]

WOW, I'm in the serious minortity here...

[Leigh Costello]

I am a recipe hoarder. That being said, I seldom use a recipe. I figure someone somewhere sometime ago was asked how something was made so they wrote down what they remembered. And judging by some the recipes I have read, memory is a tricky thing. ;) I have learned what works well together, like my favorite hand-painted wine glass filled to my specs and consumed with wild abandon, and cooking. I only had my hubby turn up his nose once and since then he has developed an impeccable set of taste buds! :p I have also been appointed to head our church's cookbook committee...this should be very educational...for the cooks as well as myself. I believe all recipes are just a suggestion and are open for modification.

[Marty Paulus]

Now that you mention it, my spaghetti sauce always tastes better if I pop a bottle of wine when I start cooking.
My wife makes an awsome spaghetti sauce. However if she doesn't open a bottle or box when she starts it will not be nearly as good. Now if I can just get her to use fresh herbs each time instead of the dried stuff in the spice cabinet.....