Is following recipes for cooklets?

[Anonymous No.17284062]

Every time I follow a recipe, I feel like a dunce. My results always turn out better, but I get the idea I should simply follow principles and refine my ability over practice.

Marco Pierre White put this idea in my head, and watching Kenji Lopez sort of drilled it in.

I'm not a professional cook of any kind btw.

[Anonymous No.17284076]

>>17284062
Usually I follow a recipe by the letter the first time making a dish just to see how the base turns out. After that I make adjustments, starting with seasoning, but eventually I'll do ingredient substitutions and full on variations.

You don't have to follow this if you already know what you like, but its a method that has served me well, especially when I'm using unfamiliar ingredients or trying a type of dish I've little to no experience with.

[Anonymous No.17284091]

>>17284076
What about when you started out? How did you learn when things should be cooked at a certain temperature. Or intricate things like diced potatoes should be cooked with onions, rather than before.

[Anonymous No.17284117]

>>17284062
When baking you follow the recipe to the letter like it's a science experiment.
When cooking you can do what you like but if you change the recipe too much you are changing the dish, just be aware of that.

[Anonymous No.17284122]

No, properly following recipes is what separates the average CK Taco Bell soybean oil slop enjoyed from a competent amateur cook.

[Anonymous No.17284161]

>>17284062
That'll come naturally with time. You could try developing everything from scratch, but following recipes just brings you up to speed.

[Anonymous No.17284173]

>>17284062
Recipes are for normies to follow while they "try" to cook. You're much better off just knowing what you're attempting to make, what its parts are, how to cook each one, how long it takes to cook each part, etc.

Like if you want to make a cottage pie, it takes zero time to make gravy, 10 minutes to fry beef, and 20 minutes to boil potatoes for mashing. So start the potatoes, set a 10 minute timer, when it dings start frying the beef while starting the gravy. 10 minutes later add gravy to the beef, line your dish with it, mash the potatoes, throw it on top, and slap it in the oven.

I swear, a little effort and forethought are all it takes to be a good cook.

[Anonymous No.17284202]

>>17284173
>not making your cottage pie out of a ragù which takes 2 hours on the stovetop minimum to achieve the correct texture

[Anonymous No.17284208]

>>17284202
Haha yeah dude that's great, sounds pretty sweet. Now shut up I'm making a cottage pie.

[Anonymous No.17284210]

>>17284062
you have to follow your heart

[Anonymous No.17284277]

>>17284062
Your "principles" are ingrained recipes

[Anonymous No.17284463]

>>17284062
>Is following recipes for cooklets?
yes.

[Anonymous No.17284488]

>>17284062
Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE should follow a recipe when making a dish for the first time, otherwise you have no reference for how a dish should taste before adjusting for your own. (assuming you're using actual recipes and not allrecipes-tier garbage). Anyone claiming otherwise is drunk on arrogance, and will never be a truly great chef.

[Anonymous No.17284921]

>>17284062
I don’t follow recipes. I’ll look up 4 or 5 and read thru them so they all agree and how the dish should be prepared. There could be one guy that makes it way different. From there if it’s my first time I’ll do it by the book. But after a while you can do it from memory and measure by eye

[Anonymous No.17284954]

>>17284062
No. It's more or less a guarantee that any serious chef will have a better understanding of how to prepare a given dish properly than your average home cook. That said, once you have a handle on the fundamentals of preparing a certain dish, there's no reason to concern yourself with the proper way of making something. You should then begin to experiment with modifications to make the dish better match your personal tastes.

[Anonymous No.17285422]

>>17284161
>That'll come naturally with time
This, you develop your tastes as you cook.

[Anonymous No.17285459]

Cooklet here, hijacking your thread instead of starting a cookbook general

Is pic related a boomer meme or based?

[Anonymous No.17285611]

>>17284173
>recipes are for people that don't already know how to make the dish
I mean I know that's not what you were trying to say, but with all those words, that's what you fucking said.

>>17284076 is the correct way to go about things.

When you've learned enough you can make adjustments even the first time, but if you don't know what you're doing how the fuck else do you learn? How the fuck would I know off-hand what good proportions of X and Y ingredients would be for a dish I've never made?

[Anonymous No.17285627]

>>17284062
I see recipes as a rough guide on how to make something edible and not get food poisoning instead of something to be set in stone. Besides, there are very few things that cannot be improved with garlic powder. >>17284488 brings up a good point too, if you’re making something for the very first time or something you haven’t made in a while its probably a good idea to stick with what the recipe says to get a feel of how its done.

[Anonymous No.17285653]

>>17284062
If you are quite good at cooking and you understand your ingredients well, you don't need recipes.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN that not following recipes will make you a great cook, or that following them will make you a bad cook.
If you overestimate your abilities and think you don't need recipes, YOU WILL MAKE SHIT.

[Anonymous No.17285730]

>>17284062
Sounds natural and sensible. The starting point should always be a recipe, or collection of sub recipes that you're putting together. Furthermore, I would strongly recommend that as you modify recipes you make note of those modifications and you write improved, new, recipes that you can follow in the future and that you can share.

Understanding and reproducibility are key to good cookery, whilst you may introduce variations as you cook (seasoning to your taste, using up some spare vegetables, or just accommodating the ingredients you have, e.g. sour or sweet tomatoes) these should be variations to an underlying recipe you understand - at a conceptual level and a technical one.

Chefs that you see cooking on the fly have all of the basic recipes in their head, they're improvising from known starting points. Therein, learn the basics yourself, read many recipes, also historical ones to get a perspective on how dishes have evolved.

Most importantmy, if you really want to understand cooking and innovate, learn the science. Read Modernist Cuisine and the Flavor Matrix as starting points and go from there, watch the Harvard food science lectures. You can neither innovate nor improvise from a low position of knowledge.

[Anonymous No.17287458]

>>17284062
Recipe? Just ingredients
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xoah2BmdoY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuvT9lfkbYM

[Anonymous No.17287484]

>>17285730
I wanted some cooking tips, not a giant lecture you fucking nerd

[Anonymous No.17287836]

>>17284062
What cooking shows don't usually do is explain how/why certain ingredients do/don't work well together. If you don't know anything about the ingredients in the dish you're making then following a recipe is a must. Professional chefs like those you mention of course had all that drilled into their heads in culinary school and they can use that base of knowledge to improvise a bit in their cooking.

[Anonymous No.17287848]

>>17284076
This 100%.
A recipe exists to teach you HOW to make something.
Your own culinary background and experience teaches you how to then modify the recipe to make it better in your own eyes, be it tailoring to your taste, making it cheaper or easier, or reducing food cost.

[Anonymous No.17287939]

>>17284062
Recipes are there to give you an idea and how to make something edible. If you were making some dish for the first time, then how would you know how long to cook, bake or fry some thing? How would you know which spices/tastes blend well together well? What are the proportions to make the right teriyaki sauce (how would you even know how to make teriyaki without a recipe?)? The recipe is the starting point from which you can then deviate according to your own preferences, e.g. I like a sweeter teriyaki sauce so I add more sugar than the recipe calls for.
And following recipes is pretty much necessary when baking stuff and making confectionery. How are you supposed to figure out how many eggs or yolks to put in for the amount of flour you use?

[Anonymous No.17287954]

Speaking of recipes, what's your go-to place to look for them? There are hundreds of recipe websites and cookbooks, and millions of wannabe food chefs on youtube, and many of them are probably shit.