What is a recipe?

[RDG]

For me, a recipe is just an idea or an inspiration, but one that is subject to my own interpretation or innovation. The resulting end product of this recipe then needs to be followed in order to ensure consistency and quality.

It's almost like a the CEO of a car company telling one of his design engineers, "Hey, build me a new car." The basic recipe will have an engine, four wheels, etc. but the end result of the car is determined by the imagination of the engineer. If it's a great car, then that recipe to create that car is followed meticulously and consistently.

It's not so simple, I assure it: it's my job.
The recipe for a car is not so, in the same way that you could say "to recreate that dish, use food". the fantasy of the engineer has no great space allowed. Costs, speed, places, market, engine, thousands of matters are important, in the same way in which a cook must know where he wants to arrive. He must know that he is going to do, f.i., a fish recipe, with a delicate taste, with some exotic flavours, and light to digest. And, in every way, at the end, will have a recipe again.

 

[Michael in FtW]

I think we are faced here with the problem of neuvo nouvelle west-coast "made-up" (I need to express myself with my own interpretation - screw any correlation to the classical recipe) cuisine vs totally classic Italian Nonna's home cooking!

Both are valid cooking "styles" ... but regardless of which way you go - if you want to reproduce either when it is at it's peak of perfection ... DUHH ... you follow a recipe.

Okay IC - maybe it seems like I was picking on you (just using you for contrast to RDG) ... but if you create an "ultimate dish" that you want the other cooks in your kitchen to reproduce - how do you convey that? A recipe! And, if you are "Top Chef and owner" and create the ultimate recipe for "stuff" - would you really want your kitchen staff giving your recipe the "poo-poo" and saying, "ay, it's just a starting point ....." while you clients complain that it doesn't taste like it did the last time.

A recipe is so that you, and others, can reproduce the dish at some future time, or in some distant land, and preserve and reproduce the flavor as you made it. This is why when someone takes a recipe that calls for something like "cocoanut milk" and ask ... "can I use 2% milk ...." it's like fingernails across a blackboard!

 

[ironchef]

It's not so simple, I assure it: it's my job.
The recipe for a car is not so, in the same way that you could say "to recreate that dish, use food". the fantasy of the engineer has no great space allowed. Costs, speed, places, market, engine, thousands of matters are important, in the same way in which a cook must know where he wants to arrive. He must know that he is going to do, f.i., a fish recipe, with a delicate taste, with some exotic flavours, and light to digest. And, in every way, at the end, will have a recipe again.

There are many factors on both sides, i.e. food costs, location, guest demographics, etc. but I was trying to use a simplified analogy without having to get into too many details.

 

[ironchef]

I think we are faced here with the problem of neuvo nouvelle west-coast "made-up" (I need to express myself with my own interpretation - screw any correlation to the classical recipe) cuisine vs totally classic Italian Nonna's home cooking!

Both are valid cooking "styles" ... but regardless of which way you go - if you want to reproduce either when it is at it's peak of perfection ... DUHH ... you follow a recipe.

Okay IC - maybe it seems like I was picking on you (just using you for contrast to RDG) ... but if you create an "ultimate dish" that you want the other cooks in your kitchen to reproduce - how do you convey that? A recipe! And, if you are "Top Chef and owner" and create the ultimate recipe for "stuff" - would you really want your kitchen staff giving your recipe the "poo-poo" and saying, "ay, it's just a starting point ....." while you clients complain that it doesn't taste like it did the last time.

A recipe is so that you, and others, can reproduce the dish at some future time, or in some distant land, and preserve and reproduce the flavor as you made it. This is why when someone takes a recipe that calls for something like "cocoanut milk" and ask ... "can I use 2% milk ...." it's like fingernails across a blackboard!

And that's why I'm not a cook, and why I aspired to be more than just a cook. As a cook, you're basically an assembly worker. You pound out the dishes in your station according the specifications of the chef/restaurant. As a chef, while we have restrictions just like anyone else, we are also allowed a lot more leeway in terms of creativity. For example, I'll take a basic madeira sauce and rework it to how I want it to taste and to match whatever dish I'm pairing it with. That's the innovation part of it. At that point, it's my responsibility that each cook makes the dish the same way to ensure consistency.

 

[ironchef]

but if you create an "ultimate dish" that you want the other cooks in your kitchen to reproduce - how do you convey that? A recipe! And, if you are "Top Chef and owner" and create the ultimate recipe for "stuff" - would you really want your kitchen staff giving your recipe the "poo-poo" and saying, "ay, it's just a starting point ....." while you clients complain that it doesn't taste like it did the last time.

I had assumed that this was obvious and didn't need explaining. But to clarify, I was referring to recipes that I am responsible for. Not standardized recipes as given by the restaurant/hotel/etc., not recipes that are from the Chef de Cuisine/Executive Chef/etc.

 

[patch]

I write food columns for newspapers so I am constantly developing recipes. They are a guide for people who want to re-create the dish for themselves. It is important that they be unambiguous, use all the ingredients listed (no orphan eggs remaining on the bench at the end!) and work. An inexperienced cook should be able to follow the recipe and get good results. If there is anything tricky involved, I make the details a little more explicit and explain why - eg when making custard keep the temperature low so the eggs won't scramble; don't let the garlic burn or it will taste bitter. I sometimes mention variations people can use to make the recipe their own.
Occasionally I cook from a recipe myself, particularly when it's ethnic fare and I want to get a feel for achieving the distinctive flavours of a cuisine.
I read cookbooks like novels... and then find it's 7pm and I haven't organised dinner.

 

[Timeloyd]

To me a recepie or receipte as I saw it spelled at a historical reenacrtment is a starting point. It provides the infromation to start from to recreate the origenal dish accurately. I will find a recepie I like, recreate and enjoy it's essences. Sometimes I look at it a recepie wondering what can I do with it. I will prepare it and see what it's like. Then like the proverbial mad scientist I start making changes to the recepie and adding my own variations. As a result my kitchen becomes my labratory, and the results of my experiment can be eaten. Though unlike Dr. Hyde I usually don't turn into anything or anyone else except a very happy cook.
Recepies can also come by accident when you try to prepare something and you have to create emergency adaptations. For example I was making Maccaroni and Cheese only the Milk had gone sour. Instead after draining the water I added 5 large scoops of Vanilla Ice Cream, and the Cheese packet. It was real rich and creamy with a slight vanilla taste. I had created a new recepie because of an accident.
Finally there is the backward recepie. I find something new such as Mulberries and consider what can I do with this. Hmmm. Twice as much juice as Black Berries and very sweet. I then find a recepie that they remind me of and create and adopt variations using them ending with a new recepie and dish.
I would call a recepie a record of how something was prepared so you can prepare it accurately recreating it in the future, share it with others to show off your creations, and use as a jumping off point to create a whole new food experience, and create new variations on it.
I am a wild food specialst because of the possibilities to create and discover a whole new world of food experiences, and recepies ~

Foraging The Edible Wild
http://community.webtv.net/Taimloyd/FORAGINGTHEEDIBLE

Timeloyd Rich

Time is an illusion. Lunch time doubly so.
Ford Prefect ~ Th Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

 

[kimbaby]

IMHO... A recipe is the bases to which to cook something, however you can vary away from the orginal recipe, and add/delete what you want...
It is steps to take, but you can leave out what ever ones you wish not to take, in short it is AN EXPERIMENT

 

[RDG]

Well, I see there two mai lines of thoght.
There is who thinks that a recipe must be looked as possible, and who thinks that a recipe is something useful to have an idea for starting to cook something else, according to their own taste and to the foods they have at home.
Of course, both lines are possible, but I need to make some specific observations.
The first ones will be sure to have the correct dishes on their table. They will cook in a wonderful way, but always in front of the book. If a dish is good, "their" dish will be good too. No danger.
But, they will not be able to invent anything. For them, it will be always difficult to open the fridge and arrange something tasty with the foods they have.
The others, on the contrary, will be very expert in this matter, and, generally, in their homes you will eat always curious but interesting dishes. Sometimes good, sometimes less. But they will lose the great dishes, the ones that have made the cooking history. Those for which is necessary to make no questions, and obey literally to the recipe. All their efforts to get a better dishes will brig to the losing of the dish itself.
As usual, a good fifty-fifty is the solution, according not to the quantity, but to the types of dish you are preparing. IMO. (is it correct? In My Opinion? I'm learning.... )

 

[Michael in FtW]

Thanks for being a good sport IC! I knew you wouldn't take what I said personal.

I'll go back to what I said - a recipe is a list of ingredients and the steps required to reproduce a recipe exactly as the author or the recipe intended.

Do I follow every recipe exactly? Heck NO!!! If I want to recreate the dish - especially if it is a cuisine that I am not familiar with, yes, at least the first time unless I see something wrong with it. Sometimes I will research several recipes to get an "idea" about a dish ... and run with it mixing, matching and adding my own "inspirations". I don't know how many pages of how many cookbooks that I've made notes tweaking the recipe in.

Who was it that once said, "A recipe is to cookery as paint-by-number is to art?"

 

[Andy M.]

...Who was it that once said, "A recipe is to cookery as paint-by-number is to art?"

I don't know who said it but it sure sounds arrogant and overly simplistic.

I see nothing wrong with the repeatability written recipes provide. I see repeatability as critical to the way many of us eat and cook. Do you have a favorite restaurant? I'll bet it's because you love the food there and if you have a favorite dish, you count on it's being there when you go back.

Any foodie or chef can follow recipes exactly, wing it with whatever is on hand or start with a written recipe and modify it. These are not mutually exclusively approaches.

I don't see 'never following a written recipe' as a badge of honor or a reason to boast.

Cooking should be a creative activity without losing sight of our cooking roots.

 

[Michael in FtW]

I don't know who said it but it sure sounds arrogant and overly simplistic..

True ... I'll have to dig and find who it was - I just know I read it once and had the same initial reaction that you did.

Cooking should be a creative activity without losing sight of our cooking roots.

Humm ... fire, sticks, rocks ..

 

[kimbaby]

Well, I see there two mai lines of thoght.
There is who thinks that a recipe must be looked as possible, and who thinks that a recipe is something useful to have an idea for starting to cook something else, according to their own taste and to the foods they have at home.
Of course, both lines are possible, but I need to make some specific observations.
The first ones will be sure to have the correct dishes on their table. They will cook in a wonderful way, but always in front of the book. If a dish is good, "their" dish will be good too. No danger.
But, they will not be able to invent anything. For them, it will be always difficult to open the fridge and arrange something tasty with the foods they have.
The others, on the contrary, will be very expert in this matter, and, generally, in their homes you will eat always curious but interesting dishes. Sometimes good, sometimes less. But they will lose the great dishes, the ones that have made the cooking history. Those for which is necessary to make no questions, and obey literally to the recipe. All their efforts to get a better dishes will brig to the losing of the dish itself.
As usual, a good fifty-fifty is the solution, according not to the quantity, but to the types of dish you are preparing. IMO. (is it correct? In My Opinion? I'm learning.... )

WOW you are a great observer, and you presented both answers with quite charmfully and you stayed neutral with your findings,great job

 

[mudbug]

I don't see 'never following a written recipe' as a badge of honor or a reason to boast.

I agree with this statement.

Seems like an inverse sort of bragging, implying that "I'm so talented that I don't need your raggedy little recipe to create something that will be even more special once I alter it."

Most of us should admit that we don't know how to cook a new dish the first time we hear of it and that we should follow the specifications until we figure out how to make it into something else--which becomes a "new" recipe (but a recipe nonetheless).

 

[patch]

I wrote a piece about recipes recently after reading that the average British home has 1000 recipes (in cookbooks etc) but uses only about three dozen. Here's the link if anyone's interested.
http://www.cookingdownunder.com/books/1000recipes.htm

I've been involved as a cookbook publishing manager for a couple of cookbooks and that is an interesting exercise in itself. Sitting in on the photography sessions opens one's eyes.

 

[mudbug]

Hiya, patch. Bienvenue and all that. I believe you about the recipes available versus recipes used. That would be me!

Re: the photography, are you talking about the tricks that food stylists use, such as oiling down a raw turkey or chicken to make it look grilled, or using a scoop of Crisco to represent ice cream?

 

[expatgirl]

What a wonderful patchwork of ideas and thoughts on a subject that I love. When I make a dish for the first time (especially one that I know very little about I like to find several recipes and pick and choose what sounds best----this is how I arrived at winning first place in a Gumbo cookoff years later). And Patch, what an awesome job it sounds like you have. Mudbug has asked an interesting question that I hope you find time to answer.

Question? Anybody ever take the time and trouble to give a friend a recipe (linguine with clam sauce in my case) and then be accused of giving wrong ingredients or leaving essential ones out because theirs didn't taste the same---then when you question them you learn that they had totally changed it?? For example, my sauce called for 7-8 CLOVES of garlic--she used 1/2tsp of garlic powder, mine called for fresh parsley (she didn't have any on hand so left it out), oh, and did I mention that she used one can of clams with juice instead of 2. To this day I still tease her about the fact that hers didn't taste anything like mine. Ha!

 

[Claire]

I chime in with those who look up a lot of recipes, then wing it. I often cannot reproduce a dish exactly or give someone a recipe for what I've made. I usuall cook from what I have at home rather than go out in search of a specific ingredient (I love to cook, but have limited patience for endless shopping), but do keep a very full pantry and spice rack.

However, I have great admiration for the Stick To The Recipe friends. They have overall better results -- I think fewer spikes of genius (that moment when you KNOW yours came out better than any of the recipes you looked at), paid for by almost no total failures.

I think it is simply personality, and I love a world of people who are NOT like me.

 

[Claire]

I, too, think that in this world of fussy eaters, food allergies, etc, that if you're a person who "wings it", it is easier to accomodate people than when you use a recipe verbatum. I've answered questions about whether you can use canola instead of peanut oil, seed or not seed cucumbers, use mushrooms instead of meat, etc. The ability to substitute in recipes comes from many years of messing with recipes to accomodate what is seasonal in your area, what is in your pantry, etc.

 

[patch]

What is a recipe

Re: the photography, are you talking about the tricks that food stylists use, such as oiling down a raw turkey or chicken to make it look grilled, or using a scoop of Crisco to represent ice cream?

Yes, spraying stuff or painting it with oil, only half-cooking things, dumping baking soda in the greens so they are super green, using hairspray, soy sauce etc.

Unfortunately when I take my photos I don't have too much time to resort to subterfuge as it's usually our dinner I am photographing!

I had fun with the ice cream the other day. I had stupidly changed some settings on my camera and kept getting overexposed pictures and had to keep putting the glass of ice cream back in the freezer while I hooked the camera up to the computer to see if I had got things right.

Once or twice we've eaten a dish before I discovered I needed a better photo.