Using someone else's recipe

How often do you follow a published recipe exactly? I find I seldom do. This is especially true in most of the recipes I find in the general popular media. Cooking magazines generally seem to have recipes that I am more apt to follow.

Two ingredients that I seem to always modify deal with the salinity and sweetness. I generally use less salt and way less sugar. Another common ingredient that I modify in quantity is the oil needed in the saute or frying pan. Since less oil is deemed to be more healthy it seems to be shorted in many recipes. Even with great pans and a Wolf range I seldom can get the job done with the amount of oil stated in the recipe. Many times I have to triple it! Still, I don't produce greasy food. Lastly, the stated amount of liquor or wine used in deglazing the pans is usually IMHO insufficient. I usually double it. Of course that could just be my love of the deglazing liquids!

[Jenise]

George, I'm so with you, on all three points, especially the oil. Oh how many times I harrumph to myself "as if!", believing as you do that the amount of oil called for has been reduced to an unworkable point in order to make the recipe more attractive to fat-phobics. Re sugar and salt, or other things in fact, I rarely cook by recipe. I tend to cook more by concept and ratio/proportion and have an excellent native instinct about what it takes to create what my palate will find a balanced flavor, so even if I'm actually using someone else's recipe I'm going to season to my own tastes--I don't even own measuring spoons. If I were going to add one more thing, acidity would the fourth item to address. Not every dish involves acidity, but for those that do my acid-loving palate often requires a bit more some recipes would call for.

How often do you follow a published recipe exactly? I find I seldom do. This is especially true in most of the recipes I find in the general popular media. Cooking magazines generally seem to have recipes that I am more apt to follow.

Two ingredients that I seem to always modify deal with the salinity and sweetness. I generally use less salt and way less sugar. Another common ingredient that I modify in quantity is the oil needed in the saute or frying pan. Since less oil is deemed to be more healthy it seems to be shorted in many recipes. Even with great pans and a Wolf range I seldom can get the job done with the amount of oil stated in the recipe. Many times I have to triple it! Still, I don't produce greasy food. Lastly, the stated amount of liquor or wine used in deglazing the pans is usually IMHO insufficient. I usually double it. Of course that could just be my love of the deglazing liquids!

I'm much like you. I usually follow the directions and ingredient list exactly,at least the first few times I make a recipe, but play fast and loose with the quantities. Less salt (sometimes), less sugar, more oil, vinegar and deglazing liquids, and generally two or three times as much fresh herbs and half again as much spices. Also more onions and garlic than the recipe calls for. I like strongly flavoured food.

We usually don't change too much the first time or two we make a recipe. That is unless we don't have an ingredient, have what we think is a reasonable substitution.

We generally treat recipes as ideas... unless it's a baked good, in which case we follow it pretty closely the first time or two.

I usually use a mix and match approach.

Find a few similar recipes, read them through, and take a little of this and a little of that and do what makes the most sense to me. Rarely follow one verbatim.

Then, after tasting, make any revisions that seem appropriate and stash it away.

[Robin Garr]

We generally treat recipes as ideas... unless it's a baked good, in which case we follow it pretty closely the first time or two.

If I didn't want to avoid starting a +1 habit here, I would so +1 this!

We generally treat recipes as ideas... unless it's a baked good, in which case we follow it pretty closely the first time or two.

That is why I am not a good baker. I never measure exactly on any ingredient. With cooking it works our great with baking...not so good. As my son says "Geo baking is chemistry."

[Jenise]

We generally treat recipes as ideas... unless it's a baked good, in which case we follow it pretty closely the first time or two.

If I didn't want to avoid starting a +1 habit here, I would so +1 this!

+2.

We generally treat recipes as ideas... unless it's a baked good, in which case we follow it pretty closely the first time or two.

If I didn't want to avoid starting a +1 habit here, I would so +1 this!

+2.

Oh, you wacky plugged-in kids!

I often eliminate all the sugar and much of the salt (I adjust the latter at the end, if needed), and I often up to double the spicing of recipes.

I also add things not in recipes and delete what I don't like.

As Cynthia said, a recipe is an idea for the starting point of a dish. I ahve files of recipes, but most of them have my notes about what I added and what worked (or didn't).