What kind of cook are you??

bget

Are you someone who follows recipes exactly or do you go on taste or instinct.

Personally I rarely use recipes of any sort. I go completely off the top of my head or things Ive made previously or my interpretation of things Ive eaten out and 9/10 times it turns out great..

Is anyone else like this??

Cedrus

A bit of both, recipes can be handy the first time you cook something but can be a bit slow and fiddly and you'd end up with half a bunch of this and a third of a jar of that so I usually go freestyle once I've done it a few times.
I also love trying to copy something I've had when out or making a meal out of what's in the cupboard/fridge. Developing a palate and understanding tastes and how they work with each other is the best bit about cooking.

olaola

Taste & instinct mostly. I might have something I like in a restaurant and re-create it at home. Or look up a few recipes and pick the bits I like the best out of them all and mash them together. I'm always going around with loads of printed off pieces of paper or scraps of paper with recipes on them in my handbag. I see something I like and then I get an idea for what to buy for dinner.

vibe666

i've always been the sort to get an idea for something into my head, then google a few recipes for ideas and make it up as i go, using the recipe ideas as inspiration.

the one exception to that so far is bread making as a few grams/ml's of something either way can be the difference between a tasty loaf and a brick.

but aside from that, it's all down to tasting, instinct and an enthusiastic love of adventure as well as seeing a bad dish as a new way NOT to make something rather than a failure.

Cedrus

vibe666 wrote: »

the one exception to that so far is bread making as a few grams/ml's of something either way can be the difference between a tasty loaf and a brick.

Yeah, baking's not standard cooking, there's chemistry involved. A tiny bit too much salt or water that's too cold and the yeast doesn't like it, the sequence and timings are more critical too. You can play with recipes but you can't forget about them.

vibe666

i'm also a messy fecker!

Mellor

Generally it's its just any old dinner i'll go with the flow. Like with chilli or curry, what goes in depends on what I ahve.

But sometimes for something i've never made I'll google a recipe. Like the other day, my GF mentioned that you can't get scotch eggs here (after a workmate brought in homemade with beef ones that weren't very good). So I googled the recipe, having never had one, and made them as a surprise.
Actually, now that I think about it, I wasn't bothered buying the spices listed and just made up with peri-peri scotch eggs. Bad example.

_blank_

First time cooking a dish, follow the recipe to a T, second time a bit of "experimentation" to see if another flavour works or not, if it doesn't, it won't go in the next time etc.

Other times, I'll search for a few recipes for the same thing, usually one or two ingredients will be different, and I may merge two recipes. I've done this for Dhal, and really like my results.

I'm also a messy fecker in the kitchen, do all the wash-up at the end, which drives herself mad, as she's a "clean as you go" type, which does my head in "I know I left a spoon there, where did it go...ah jaysis, it's in the dishwasher!":mad::pac:

Alun

I'm also one to follow a recipe once, although rarely to the absolute letter, and after that I'll modify and (usually!) improve it and it stays in my head forever. It makes things awkward though if you have people to dinner and they ask for recipes for something they've enjoyed

The only exception is baking of any kind, which I rarely do anyway apart from bread, which needs precise measurements to get the best results, and some of the more complex traditional Indian dishes where if I try and remember all the ingredients, especially spices, I'm sure to forget one, but even then I'll modify the proportions a bit.

My missus is also one for sneaking into the kitchen while I'm not there for a minute and tidy stuff away into the dishwasher. Does my head in!

corblimey

My meal making usually starts with seeing something on Food Network or UKTV Food (or whatever it's called) usually made by a famous chef and thinking that looks nice. I'll download their recipe, but lop off anything I'm not happy about (cheese, cream, fish, etc) as long as it doesn't make a mockery of the recipe (ie if it was for a creamy fish pie with cheese ). That's the first one I try, and after that, I'm really all about making it either hotter (spicier) or finding better ways of serving it - for some reason everything I cooked this weekend and will be eating this week goes best with rice, so I'm trying to find other side dishes for them, so I'm not eating rice every day. Same goes with spaghetti, potatoes, etc etc. I very rarely change the basic recipe though, if it works the first time, I'll stick with it, until something better comes along - I'm currently on my fifth version for Kung Pao.

Mrs Fox

I go by taste and instict with a dallop of throw-in-whatever's-in-the-larder...
which makes me one bad baker...

Tom Dunne

Des wrote: »

First time cooking a dish, follow the recipe to a T, second time a bit of "experimentation" to see if another flavour works or not, if it doesn't, it won't go in the next time etc.

Yup, that's me. Do it by the book the first time, then experiment. Great fun.

Des wrote: »

I'm also a messy fecker in the kitchen, do all the wash-up at the end, which drives herself mad, as she's a "clean as you go" type, which does my head in "I know I left a spoon there, where did it go...ah jaysis, it's in the dishwasher!"

Ha, that's me too. When I finish, it's like a bomb hit the place, herself is also a clean-as-you-go type. Drives me nuts.

Mr Simpson

I'm a split personality cook In college I'm organised and tidy, and like to have everything planned (I suppose it's because I have to). At home I'm the complete opposite, I like to experiment, and I'm anything but tidy

mike65

I do roughly what the published recipe says and then under/over cook it the first time.

ElleEm

vibe666 wrote: »

i've always been the sort to get an idea for something into my head, then google a few recipes for ideas and make it up as i go, using the recipe ideas as inspiration.

vibe666 wrote: »

i'm also a messy fecker!

I could have written them posts myself.

I will always look up about five recipes for what I want to cook, then make up my own recipe using the others as guidance.

I am so organised at the beginning, then I get so messy. Sometimes if I say I'm gonna spend the day in the kitchen cooking, my boyfriend will plead with me not to, just cos of the sheer level of mess I leave behind.

hardCopy

ElleEm wrote: »

I could have written them posts myself.

I will always look up about five recipes for what I want to cook, then make up my own recipe using the others as guidance.

I am so organised at the beginning, then I get so messy. Sometimes if I say I'm gonna spend the day in the kitchen cooking, my boyfriend will plead with me not to, just cos of the sheer level of mess I leave behind.

Yeah, I tend to be the same. Usually I'll see some ingredient in a recipe that I don't like or don't have and then google alternatives till I find another recipe that does without that ingredient.

My girlfriend has described my cooking as "rustic", a backhanded compliment at my occasional lack of presentation.

_blank_

hardCopy wrote: »

Y
My girlfriend has described my cooking as "rustic", a backhanded compliment at my occasional lack of presentation.

Hmm, I've had my food described in the same way.

Cicero

If a recipe really excites me I'll follow it but those would tend to be very high end cooking recipes from the likes of michelin star chefs/books

Books like Jamie Oliver I'm more inspired by combinations of flavours or of ideas and would vary the recipe depending on available ingredients- trial and error is good but you do need to watch what your doing if you move away from the basic elements of a recipe

The Sweeper

Some recipes, some freestyle. Always recipes by the letter when it's a dessert, bread or baking.

When cooking I'm less likely to go by recipes and amounts. For instance if I bought a 300g box of mushrooms and a recipe called for 250g of sliced mushrooms, I'm just not going to put 50g of mushrooms back in the fridge. It's not going to happen.

I like to follow recipes, with some tweaking, when trying new cuisine - szechuan provincial cooking, for instance, or what goes into the curry pastes from the spice islands and so on.

I'm definitely a 'phase' cooker though. One week it's curry for the week. Another it might be chili. That'll kick off a mexican week of fajitas and nachos and refried beans. Then suddenly there'll be a hankering for pie and it'll be a sit-down read of Pie Minister followed by a variety of pie recipes.

LaChatteGitane

If I use a recipe it is purely as a guidance and not as gospel.
I'm rather intuitive when it comes to ingredients, textures and flavours, oh and quantities.

pickarooney

Pretty much the same as Des except I clean as I go. I find I have to keep my hands active or I get bored and when I get bored I burn things (that might sound a little creepier than I meant it to!) so if anything is boiling or gratining or simmering I'll wash up while it does its thing.

daigo75

I personally go by "feeling". I seldom follow recipes and, when I do it, it's for baking, as the quantities must be much more precise.
Result is usually great, my wife and daughter are very happy. I can't wait for tomorrow to experiment with the St. George Mushrooms I found in my garden. Almost a kilo of them, 20 metres from my door!

confusticated

I think I'm the only one who does this, and I know it's supposed to be a bad idea, but I often go by eye for baking things. Not anything using yeast because it just doesn't work, but pretty much anything I've made once, and sometimes the first time...I think it's because I've been baking with my mam since I was really small, and only really got into cooking at around age 18 or so, so I'm much much better at judging the consistency of pastry, for example, than if meat is fully cooked.

LaChatteGitane

@confusticated.
I also do ingredients for baking by eye. Even yeast bread. I've been baking bread for the last 100 years :eek: and on a weekly basis. I don't weigh or measure anything (far too lazy to get the scales out )

Cedrus

confusticated wrote: »

I think I'm the only one who does this, and I know it's supposed to be a bad idea, but I often go by eye for baking things. Not anything using yeast because it just doesn't work, but pretty much anything I've made once, and sometimes the first time...I think it's because I've been baking with my mam since I was really small, and only really got into cooking at around age 18 or so, so I'm much much better at judging the consistency of pastry, for example, than if meat is fully cooked.

LaChatteGitane wrote: »

@confusticated.
I also do ingredients for baking by eye. Even yeast bread. I've been baking bread for the last 100 years :eek: and on a weekly basis. I don't weigh or measure anything (far too lazy to get the scales out )

There's measuring and measuring, you have the experience to not need instruments to measure, you have it in your eye and your fingertips, but it's still measuring because you're not dumping ingredients randomly into a bowl.

Lesser mortals like I, still need spoons and scales:(

confusticated

Cedrus wrote: »

There's measuring and measuring, you have the experience to not need instruments to measure, you have it in your eye and your fingertips, but it's still measuring because you're not dumping ingredients randomly into a bowl.

Lesser mortals like I, still need spoons and scales:(

If it makes you feel any better, that's the limit of my judgement abilities - my potatoes are never, ever, ever ready at the same time as the rest of the dinner.