Are Recipes Necessary?

Yes and no. For the inexperienced cook, recipes are essential. What is more important for the novice is to learn the many and various cooking techniques. Many cookbooks include descriptions of both methods and ingredients, and they are well worth reading.

Gradually, as the cook gains experience in the kitchen, fewer recipes are needed. We learn just how much butter to melt in the skillet and just how the skillet should be before we add the eggs when we make scrambled eggs. We have developed a method for making chicken noodle soup and can throw the ingredients together without measuring anything.

We learn how to time the cooking so that the various parts of the meal are ready at the right time. I remember well, and painfully, the day my mother informed me that I would be preparing dinner, which was our noon meal. My dad was a farmer and when he came to the house for dinner, it better be substantial and it better be ready. This was my first experience in preparing a whole meal and my efforts were a disaster. The steak was getting cold while the potatoes were just coming to a boil. Dad was very cross because he needed to hurry back to the fields and I was humiliated. Now I can throw a meal together in a very short time, if necessary, and the timing is just right. It just took practice.

Finally I’ve come to a point, as most dedicated cooks do, where I can make up some recipes and they turn out to be delicious. Recently I wrote a post about curried cauliflower soup that I more or less made up, wanting to present some leftover roasted cauliflower in a way that Dennis would find appealing. (He had nixed the roasted cauliflower as a stand-alone dish.) Yesterday I wanted to make that soup again, but couldn’t remember how I’d made it the first time. Yikes! The version I came up with was not as good or appealing as the original.

The problem was that I didn’t make notes about ingredients in the first version. Usually I do that when some concoction turns out well. I must remember to continue that practice. Years ago I regularly made a salad I called “March Hare Salad,” and we loved. Now I can’t remember any of the ingredients except romaine lettuce. Why didn’t I write it down?

There is one area in which recipes remain essential to me, and that is baking.  Cakes demand the most care, both in technique and ingredients, although one can tinker just a bit with them. One of our favorites is “Good Boy’s Cake,” The original recipe calls for a cup of butter, but I’ve found that it works well with just half a cup.  The difference is only in texture. I also find that most cookie and cake recipes call for too much sugar and I’ve successfully reduced sugar content by half. Still, I wouldn’t dare depart from my biscuit and cornbread recipes, and I’ve fine-tuned my piecrust recipe so much that it would be difficult to specify exact amounts of oil and milk.

Are recipes necessary? Yes and no.

Copyright 2015 by Shirley Domer