Recipes Are Guides, Not Formulas

Judging by the comments in some cookbooks, you would think recipes are chemical
formulas to be measured out and carefully mixed. It just ain't so.

A favorite line of editors always refers to the measurements used, which are
often given in both metric and Imperial. You are cautioned to use one set of
measurements or the other, but never to mix them. The implication is that if you
do, disaster will be the result. It's a bit like the exhortation which goes
something like "three free-range eggs", as if the dish cannot be produced with
any other type of egg.

This is the sort of thing that has inexperienced cooks quickly turning the
pages, looking for a recipe with less ingredients or abandonning the idea
altogether and heading for the takeaway. I call it 'the tyranny of the recipe'.
It's as unnecessary as it is silly.

If you are one of those who ignore a recipe simply because the list of
ingredients is too long, or looks too complicated, please keep reading. You
don't need to change your cookbook. You just need to change your mindset.

The first thing to remember is that recipes are written by people trying to pass
on a method they use to cook something. They are a convention for exchanging
information which has developed over many years and which, on the whole, work
very well. But that's all they are. You are not dealing with chemical formulas
that will blow up in your face if you measurements happen to be a few grams out,
or you change one ingredient for another.

In just about any recipe you can not only change ingredients around, alter the
amounts used and so on, you can also leave them out altogether. You may not
achieve exactly the same dish as the cook who wrote the recipe, but so what?
Who's to say that your version won't be just as good, or even better?

Good cooks, and that really means experienced cooks, will read through a recipe,
grasp the general idea, and proceed to put it all together using previous
knowledge and their own tastebuds. How things taste to you, and even how they
look, are far more important than any written instruction and far more
liberating.

Try this simple test. Open two different cookbooks at the chicken recipe section
and compare the recipes. It will very quickly dawn on you that the recipes in
one are simply variations on the listings in the other, the biggest variation
being in the flavorings used. So the conclusion must be, if the recipes can be
varied in flavors and quantities between cookbooks, you can do exactly the same
thing and still come up with some stunning dishes for your friends and family.

Using cookbooks as a source of ideas only is an enormously liberating experience
for most people, turning a chore into a pleasure. As a bonus, it often produces
far superior results as well. For example, did you know that many of the dishes
published in cookbooks have never actually been cooked? They are frequently just
rewritten from notebooks and archives. That's because the professionals know
that the contents are not critical. It just makes us look more highly skilled if
we pretend they are.

Don't be trapped in this way. One of the most influential cookery writers of her
day, Elizabeth David, put only the barest of information in her recipes and
often didn't bother to mention quantities at all. Beginner cooks might have
struggled a little, more through nerves than anything else, but more experienced
cooks were quickly at home creating their own versions of classic French
recipes.

And that's something to bear in mind when you are cooking for the family.
Professionals did not invent cooking, ordinary people did. Many of the classic
Italian and French dishes are not the results of swanky restaurant posing, but
simple food prepared from fresh ingredients with many regional variations. They
have nothing to do with the culinary antics of celebrity chefs.

Take a break from tyranny. Close the cookbook and make something you have cooked
before, but change it a little - or a lot if you wish. Add, substitute or take
away one ingredient, taste or smell everything before you use it and get used to
the idea of cooking with your palate, which really means your nose. You will
probably find that you surprise yourself by how much you instinctively know and
how much you have learnt. You will also be pleasantly surprised by how much
easier life in the kitchen has become.

Copyright © 2006, Michael Sheridan. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Michael Sheridan is a former head-chef as well as an acknowledged authority and
published writer on cooking matters. His website at http://www.thecoolcook.com
contains a wealth of information, hints, tips and recipes for busy home cooks