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On 17/10/05 16:19 +0100, Jakob Whitfield wrote: > Inspired by the cooking hacks discussion, I have a question for > people: how do you use recipes? If I want to cook something in > particular, I will usually find a recipe for what I want to try, > preferably by someone who will have tested their recipe to destruction > and have made it foolproof, however didactic and prescriptive they may > well be (Hello, Delia!). If this works well, I will *then* start > mucking with the recipe to adapt it (if necessary) to my palate. I long ago found that the more didactic and irritating the recipe-writer (Hello, Delia!), the less palatable the meal was once I'd followed their precise instructions. What I generally do these days is take a recipe and use the relative amounts of ingredients and the cooking time/temperature described as a vague framework to get the basic mix right. I have enough of a feel for the best way to combine/cook things that this framework is enough, and I can add my own touches around the edge. > If I just want to make 'tasty dish with ingredients x', I will use my > imagination and my knowledge of technique to see what I come up with. I also do a lot of this, especially with casseroles, pasta sauces, risottos... those things which can stand quite a lot of variation. Nut Roast, on the other hand (for example) can come out looking and tasting revolting if you don't get the right sort of ingredients mix. > Obviously, there are certain areas of cookery that are more resistant > to mucking about and need precise cooking, eg. patisserie or sourdough > bread (two examples from my experience). Here a precise recipe and a > knowledge of what particular failure modes mean are most useful to me. Definitely. Although not Delia.
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