how good are you at following recipes ?

caseydog said:
I very rarely follow a recipe as written. I will use a recipe, but I will print it out, and scribble notes on it, and cross things out.

My standard practice if I want to try something new is to look at three or so recipes, see what they have in common, and then come up with a recipe that is based on what I learned from those recipes.

CD
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Yeah - similar. I will look at a few that appear close to authentic then see what the common denominators are. The first time though, I will usually follow the recipe very closely - after that I will look at variants.
 
Has anyone else here ever used AI to come up with a recipe? You enter ingredients you want to use, click the button, and it comes up with a recipe. I've done it several times, just for shizengiggles. I've only actually cooked the AI generated recipe once, and I think I may have posted it here, somewhere.

CD
 
caseydog said:
Has anyone else here ever used AI to come up with a recipe? You enter ingredients you want to use, click the button, and it comes up with a recipe. I've done it several times, just for shizengiggles. I've only actually cooked the AI generated recipe once, and I think I may have posted it here, somewhere.

CD
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That is actually a really interesting thing that I had never thought about! I've been kind of resisting the whole AI revolution though (or at least trying to). Though I'm sure there will come a time when AI will be writing poetry and painting drawings and we'll be peeling onions and washing bathrooms.
 
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from the replies you can see why i am reluctant to post recipes ,
there is really no point in it if as many people say they don't follow them anyways
why tell people what it might have taken you years to learn
if they are just going to do it "their way "
 
This is a timely conversation, as this morning, I pulled out my latest cookbook, one from Corfu and covering that cuisine, and as is my habit, I went through with a pen, marking the recipes I’m interested in making.

Since it’s a Corfu-produced book, it lists a lot of the ingredients by their local names, so found myself looking up varieties of this wine or that cheese or this other vinegar or that other paste, to see if I could either make it myself, buy it, or find a suitable substitute.

Some recipes were very easy to tweak to things I have available here, but some weren’t or required so many substitutions that I felt I wouldn’t really be making that recipe any longer.
 
grumpyoldman said:
from the replies you can see why i am reluctant to post recipes ,
there is really no point in it if as many people say they don't follow them anyways
why tell people what it might have taken you years to learn
if they are just going to do it "their way "
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As an artist, I can tell you that your recipes are like art. You put them out there for people to see, and then they take on lives of their own.

Go ahead and post your recipes, and don't worry about what people do with them. :okay:

CD
 
mmmm i thought i had answered that somewhere in this thread , but to answer your question
the 1st time i try any recipe i DO INDEED follow it to the letter even if i have to wait to get an ingredent that i don't normally have on hand ONLY then will i attempt to modifiy it if needed . i have to have a baseline to know what the changes do to the original recipe
 
caseydog: no i don't think i will , i was considering posting them but after reading the replys
i put to much time and effort into them for people to butcher them and then say they are not good so naaaa let them figure it out for themselves
 
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grumpyoldman said:
from the replies you can see why i am reluctant to post recipes ,
there is really no point in it if as many people say they don't follow them anyways
why tell people what it might have taken you years to learn
if they are just going to do it "their way "
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I respectfully disagree.
Some people will follow to the T.
Some will not, but is that really an issue?
Some will say: hey, that's an interesting approach?
I remember a friend of my mum, she loved my dad's cooking. Sat down while he was cooking and wrote down every step. And still she wouldn't get it like my dad.
Point being, even if you follow the recipe exactly, you are not sure you get the same dish.
Different output of oven or gas stove, different pan (wok, skillet, casserole pot, cast iron, stainless, carbon steel etc)
Different quality of ingredients...
But you still get a good meal. And if people think they can improve?
Maybe they do. Maybe they don't.
But why would that turn you off?
 
badjak said:
I respectfully disagree.
Some people will follow to the T.
Some will not, but is that really an issue?
Some will say: hey, that's an interesting approach?
I remember a friend of my mum, she loved my dad's cooking. Sat down while he was cooking and wrote down every step. And still she wouldn't get it like my dad.
Point being, even if you follow the recipe exactly, you are not sure you get the same dish.
Different output of oven or gas stove, different pan (wok, skillet, casserole pot, cast iron, stainless, carbon steel etc)
Different quality of ingredients...
But you still get a good meal. And if people think they can improve?
Maybe they do. Maybe they don't.
But why would that turn you off?
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I like the way you're thinking! Kinda reminds me of Laura Esquivel books, where in some books, there are characters who have the ability to effect people's emotions with what they're cooking, like their food has some sort of magic in it, but it is their food and their food only that has that effect. I like the idea of cooking being something extremely personal, and personalized, and the same recipe can turn out different each time because people add their own self to the food.

(Sorry, the mystical side of me got a bit carried away).
 
grumpyoldman said:
for people to butcher them and then say they are not good
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That gave me a little laugh because one thing that does drive me crazy is reading recipe comments at a blog, trying to get some insight or things to be aware of, and I’ll see where someone gives a recipe 1 star, says “Awful slop!” in the title, and writes a review like this:

“I followed this exactly and it’s inedible! I didn’t have raw cabbage, so I substituted sauerkraut, and I didn’t have potatoes, so I used beets, and it’s terrible! EPIC FAIL!”

:laugh:
 
You sound like someone who wants to retain a level of ownership with your recipes. That’s definitely a hopeless endeavor. Most people naturally want to customize.

I’m probably the closest to you in trying to follow a recipe exactly the first time, and most of the time I can, but every so often, I don’t have spaghetti, but I do have linguine, or I don’t have whole canned tomatoes, but I have diced, and I’ll substitute those in.
 
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