Creating recipes

[hillvalley]

I am trying to write down a number of recipes I have bouncing around in my head. Someday I hope they will make it into a cookbook.

The problem is that when I cook I rarely measure ingredients. I do everything by eye. How do you go from cooking free fall to creating recipes?

[fifi]

I do this a lot. I will give you an example... My mother's cornbread dressing that was a requirement for Thanksgiving. She sometimes followed recipes but there were those things like the dressing, potato salad and such, that were done by experience and "eye". After she passed away, the grandkids insisted that the dressing should live on. Since I had helped her make it many times, I took on the task.

The bread part was easy, two recipes of skillet corn bread and two cans of cheap biscuits (baked pretty brown). This gave me a base for the quantities. This was crumbled into the big bowl for addition of the other ingredients.

Sauteed onion and celery: I remembered that the onion and celery was in about equal quantities. I sauteed a lot and started adding it to the bread in measured half cup increments until it "looked right", keeping notes as I went. (BTW... a digital voice recorder is really helpful.)

Diced boiled eggs: I boiled a bunch and kept count until it "looked right".

Chopped parsley: Same routine, added in 1/4 cup increments.

Rich chicken stock: Sort of the same routine except that I had to describe the final texture because the bread will be quite variable... "add stock until the bread is fully saturated but there is not a pool of liquid in the bottom of the bowl, about x cups".

Seasoning: Salt to taste is easy enough but I had to add the poultry seasoning in quarter teaspoon increments, tasting as I went, to get it right.

You get the point... Then I put it in the pans and into the oven noting technique such as "don't pack it down". I kept notes on how long it took to cook, giving instructions like: "browned on top and springs back to the touch".

[bbq4meanytime]

If you want accuracy and the ability to replicate, you have to measure your ingredients the next time you make something. Its actually not a bad process, you often find that the "about 1 cup" really wasn't 1 cup. Also, I find it helps to fine tune a recipe. Sometimes when I make something from eyeballing measurements the dish turns out better than other times. I try to figure out what proportion of ingreidents gave me the best result and write those down.

[Carrot Top]

This will take more time than you realize, probably. Any sort of writing that specifically describes something well that a group of other people can read and understand (all in pretty much the same way, as you would wish a recipe to be) has to be thought through pretty thoroughly.

As to how you go about organizing it, that depends on your personality.

Some people would take the tack to first list the recipes you wish to write, then jot down general notes and ideas and the quanitities and procedures that you do know. Then go forward, making the recipe, and writing down everything as you do it.

Then, finally, revise, revise, revise till as close to perfect as it can be.

Others would prefer to cook the recipes through one by one, sort of organically adding things as they go along....

In my profession I've had to write many very clear 'standardized recipes' that were either 'from scratch' or of adaptations of something that was close to what the intended final recipe was hopefully to be.

These were used by a variety of cooks and chefs in a professional kitchen, each with different ways of doing things, just as a group of cookbook readers would be.

There are many cooks who would prefer to 'wing it' and to be creative in their own ways, but it is a fact that one's 'guests' or customers, having eaten something that they truly enjoy, will come back and be greatly dissapointed if they can not have the same thing to eat that tastes exactly the same way as it did before!

Here are some guidelines for writing a 'standardized recipe': (With an aside that personally I adore the sort of recipes that Elizabeth David wrote, about as far from standardization as one could imagine!)

1. Define portion amounts on the top (or bottom, I prefer the top) of the page.

2. Name the recipe as clearly as possible so that a reader can 'guess' what it is.

3. List your ingredients in the order in which they will be used. If you have several parts of preparation that must be done separately then combined, break these ingredients up into those sections. This is useful for people who are reading the recipe who may not cook a great deal...it helps with conceptualization of the project and also with setting up 'mise en place'.

4. Be specific and standard in the amounts of your ingredients. If the item to be used comes from a can, list the weight or size of the can.

5. Be specific as to the type of your ingredients. Fresh? or dried herbs...chopped or whole or pureed tomatoes....

6. When writing the 'how-to' directions, keep them as simple as possible without leaving anything important out. Nobody really wants to read a paragraph on how to do a certain procedure with a knife in one hand, a simmering pot on the stove, and butter burning in the saute pan....the shorter and simpler, the better.

7. Any creative adaptations you know or can think of for the recipe can be posted at the end, including advice on cooling, wrapping, storage, length of freshness, etc.

I know this sounds a bit compulsive...but you can not imagine the questions that arise if you are not really specific in your writing of recipes!

And each dish...can be sometimes completely changed or altered by just one differing amount of an ingredient or by one differing procedure. So to make your personal intent clear, it has got to be specific.

That said, it's a lot of fun to finally have a defined written recipe, whether to be used for professional purposes or not!

Good luck! I hope you will share your results!

[bleudauvergne]

6. When writing the 'how-to' directions, keep them as simple as possible without leaving anything important out. Nobody really wants to read a paragraph on how to do a certain procedure with a knife in one hand, a simmering pot on the stove, and butter burning in the saute pan....the shorter and simpler, the better.

Carrot Top, thank you for sharing your tips!

I think point 6 depends on who you're writing recipes for, and what kind of recipes you're writing.

If your recipes are going to be recieved by people who don't want unwanted details, and want a compilation of ratios and quick guidelines on putting a dish together, yes, of course, keep things simple.

On the other hand, if someone has a specialty in a certain kind of regional cooking, and want to write a cookbook about it, they should really go into as much detail as possible. Enthusiasts who buy these kinds of books are looking for details.

Example: I am a French cooking freak and I have a lot of French cookbooks. I have my standard bouquins with ingredients and summaries, which are extensive and thorough, and I use them all the time. However, my main purchases in the past 6 years, I'd say, are the detailed ones - the ones that go into local technique, customs, history, direct anecdotes, etc. the more, the better the cookbook. I can of course read a recipe and know the basic techniques involved for the various dishes, but now when I buy a cookbook, I want to learn and be entertained, too.

My favorite books are the ones that go into detail and mention their tricks and ways of tackling certain tasks. Recently I've been doing research into what the French chefs are publishing - Different chefs have a whole lot of different techniques for doing the same things, I have come to discover, and I've been learning valuable new ways of getting things done by reading a chefs tips on certain techniques or getting certain effects.

As for writing down my own recipes, I agree with the points above and would like to add that a kitchen scale makes things much easier to document than going through the steps of measuring volumes.

This is a great thread and a needed thread. Thanks!

[Carrot Top]

Lucy...I am in complete and utter agreement with you about the writing of the recipes and the so many odds and ends of things that could and should be added to make a cookbook a full and living thing!

I guess if the recipes are the spirit of the cookbook, these other things, the stories, the unusual or different touches, the 'secrets' so to speak...they would be the soul of a cookbook.

Of course it doesn't take a professional chef to write well of these either!

The stories and knowledge are as satisfying, when found, as a good meal itself!

Karen

[andiesenji]

I can only tell you what works for me.

I have a voice activated microrecorder made by Sony that has a very good microphone for picking up at a distance. I set it nearby but out of harms way and turn it on. Because there is a lag time, I always say ah or something similar before dictating ingredients or directions.

I usually weigh ingredients as I add them because using a scale with a tare feature is easier than volume measurements. I can always convert to volume measurements later if I wish.

The first thing I do is list the date, the title of the recipe and/or principle ingredient.

I gather all my ingredients onto a tray and list them in the order they will be added to the recipe.

Then I recheck the list of ingredients and the amounts. (If I made a mistake the first time, the second time will correct it.)

If one or more ingredients are unusual, hard to find, or need special preparation I will include the source or the directions at that place in the dictation.

As I put everything together, I dictate what I am doing and what utensils I am using.

If the recipe needs special attention, chilling, resting, etc., I describe what, how and where.

As I work I note the time so I can determine how much time will be required for various steps in the process all the way until it is completed.

If I want to speed things up, I will do two or three versions at the same time, A., B., and C., varying the amount of ingredients in each or changing the times required to reach a certain point in the recipe and describing in detail the variations in the different versions.

I then transcribe this into Word, put it into the format that works best for me, print it out to proofread it, make any corrections and proofread again until I am sure there are no errors.

I wait a few days, then make the recipe from the printed page to make sure that I have included all the ingredients, all the steps and have the same result I obtained earlier.