Writing and Testing Recipes

[nakji]

Most of the time I follow recipes.

Other times I'm trying to recreate a dish I've eaten on my travels without any source recipes in English. Most of the the time it goes okay for me, since I can tweak and adjust as I go along. If I ever get happy with my results, and end up being successful with the dish, I am often foolish enough to make the dish for other people. Why foolish? Because they invariably ask me for a recipe. I usually just say something along the lines of, "Well, I've not written the method or ingredients down, but if you ever want to come over and cook with me, then I'd be happy to show you how."

Only one person has ever taken me up on that offer.

Right, so, I'm thinking that a lot of these dishes would be nice if I could write down, if only for my own satisfaction. But being the sort of person I am, I'd find it quite hard to provide recipes to people without feeling fully confident that they would work. Since I am a novice cook still in many areas, I know the tears and frustration that come with a failed attempt at a poorly written recipe.

So for those of you who do write recipes regularly, how do you start the process?

Where do you get your inspiration?

How many times do you test a dish?

What tricks do you use to make sure your measurements are accurate?

What do you do with the leftovers?

We've got some insightful topics on this matter in interviews with Society members Dorie Greenspan and Russ Parsons, as well as an interview with the Washington Post's Jeanne McManus, but I'm interested in what home cooks have to say.

[Pam R]

I use small notebooks for recipe writing. The type that you can easily pull pages out of. I always start with a list of ingredients. No quantities. Flavours that I think will work well together. Either flavour combinations I've had before or just flavours that make sense in my head.

I'm in the middle of writing a slew of soup recipes. I've already written a cookbook made up entirely of soups -- so I have a basic template that I work with. But basically, I take the ingredients and weigh/measure what I will start using. Always make sure to leave big spaces for additions or changes.

Then I start to write out the basic steps, using my own shorthand and leaving spaces for qualifiers and cooking times.

As I cook, I constantly make changes and write everything down as I do. Sometimes it's a little hard to make out my own chicken-scratches.

Some recipes, things that I make all the time but never write down, may only need one official test batch. Some things need only a couple of tests because you can adjust as you cook (soups, sauce, salads, etc.) Recipes that get put together and baked or roasted or slow cooked can take many more tests because the adjustments might have to come at the beginning of the process.

Leftovers? Recipes always get handed around to family members for critique. My family members (all in the food business) can be brutal. For most recipes, I like to freeze some of the batch -- that's part of the recipe! Good to note if it thaws ok - any special instructions for freezing or thawing.

[cbread]

I'm no cook, and being by nature poorly organized, I try to counteract my organizational shortcomings. I make it my practice to write very exact notes on items that can be fussy like breads. For forgiving items like soups, I write little if anything for myself. When friends ask for recipes, I tend to write as short a recipe that the friend's kitchen skills will allow. I add far more specifics for a novice non-baker than for a seasoned bread baker.

"Where do you get your inspiration?" I'm not sure anything I make can claim to be inspired, but if I see a recipe that looks like I'd want to use it as the starting point for something of my own, and if it is complex enough to need writing out at all - if it's involved enough to challenge me (which is a very broad swath of the culinary landscape) I write out a complete new recipe that will embody the take I want on it. As I gain experience, this part gets more direct and intuitive.

I structure it the same as a good cookbook recipe. List ingredients in order of usage. List steps in sequence... I am a slow writer so I am least specific in areas I know by heart and most specific in the areas I am least competent in. I'm not writing a cookbook, but by being very detailed in the areas I am new to, I get rid of variables that could trip me up.

"How many times do you test a dish?"

Presumably, if the dish becomes something I want to do again and again, I redo it till it is second nature.

I photocopy my handwritten recipe so that I can make notes right on the recipe itself, making notations of spur of the moment changes to the recipe, note the results, note suggestions to myself for changes to the recipe. When cooking through my new recipe for breads and the like I note down the exact time each step is taken, right on the recipe page so I can minimize errors, and quickly diagnose any errors that may occur. It's very process oriented, dull and methodical, but it has helped me greatly with the less forgiving areas of cooking.

"What tricks do you use to make sure your measurements are accurate?"

Nothing unusual, just a gram scale for fussy materials like baking, breads etc. Faster, more accurate, easier. Weight measurements are more repeatable than volumetric measure.

Edited November 4, 2010 by cbread (log)

[stuartlikesstrudel]

This is a really interesting topic

I'm also interested to hear how people decide when a recipe is "done"... a bit like the question of 'how many times do you test a dish'?

For me, I like to try new things so I don't really have any 'signature dishes' or things i make over and over, or if I do, i always mix it up somehow by trying different spices/quantities or adding a new ingredient. I don't really have that experience to know when something is pared down to perfection (if there is such a thing!) and doesn't need any more additions or tweaks. I think I'd always want to add another flavour or something.