How to Read a Recipe to Be a Better Cook
I love cooking. Ever since I was a teenager, I've been experimenting in the kitchen. I've baked hundreds of pies, roasted countless birds, filleted umpteen fish, and peeled enough tomatoes for a lifetime. I've also burned a lot of garlic bread, ruined dishes with too much salt, and thrown plenty of meals in the trash. One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday morning is get cozy on the couch with my coffee and a cookbook, and thumb through the pages, picking out recipes I want to try. Over the years, I've learned there are three things you need to be a good cook.
When I look at a new recipe, I break it down into these three aspects:
Quality of ingredients
Specialized equipment
Specific techniques
Looking at these three things, I can tell whether a recipe will be easy or difficult for me. Each recipe has each of these aspects to varying degrees. Pantry "dump" dishes, which consist of opening cans and letting them cook in the slow cooker, don't need fresh ingredients, but do need a slow cooker (you can make slow-cooked recipes in the oven or on the stove, but it's more difficult to get the temperature right, and who wants their oven on all day in summer?) If you want roast beef, all you need is a good cut of beef, U.S.D.A. Prime, and you can basically throw it in the oven and check the temperature to know when it's done. A soufflé takes basic ingredients, and you could cook it in various dishes, but you need to know how to separate eggs, beat egg whites to stiff peaks, and fold ingredients together.
When you look at a new recipe, look at it in terms of these three things. Then gauge whether you have these three things, or whether you will need to improvise. That roast chicken you had on vacation is going to be difficult to replicate of you aren't working with the same free-range, small-farmed chicken that is full of flavor. You want to braise pork chops on the stove? A pan that is not clad (built with layers of metal) on the sides as well as the bottom won't give you proper heat distribution. After some experience, you will get to know which aspects are the most important for each dish.
If you are just learning to cook, then work on improving these things, but not all at the same time. Start with a simple recipe that uses vegetables from the farmer's market, but doesn't require any special techniques or equipment. Find the right vegetables for the season that were picked the day before. It will be delicious. Learn your cuts of meat, and learn to discern the things that make them taste wonderful: dry-aged and well-marbled beef, pork that was fed quality feed, and fish caught the same day.
A piece of equipment takes getting used to as well. Each machine or vessel has its own peculiarities, and it will take some practice before you know exactly how to use it to get the best results. How much time should you add to a pressure cooker if chicken breasts are frozen? What heat do you need to keep a cast-iron enameled pot versus a stainless steel one for the same recipe? What is the best utensil to scramble eggs? When you buy a new piece of equipment, give yourself time to get to know it and how to take care of it. Know that the first thing you cook with it may come out burnt or under-done.
There are some dishes in which technique takes the stage. Whether it's butchering a piece of meat properly, deep-frying, or whipping cream, you will probably need to practice a technique before you can do it with confidence. Work on these one at a time as well. Make a simple cake from a mix, and try frosting it yourself. Practice browning on cheap cuts of meat first, so you don't waste too much money if you burn it. Know that you might go through some rubbery shrimp before you learn to take it off the heat at just the right time.
Thinking of these three aspects of cooking independently will make you not only a good cook, but a successful one- at least most of the time. I still end up throwing new recipes int he trash once in a while. But I've learned not to try a recipe that will challenge me in all three of these aspects at once. There is nothing like sipping wine after a new dish that came out perfect, and your partner saying, "That. Was. Awesome. Write down how you made that!"
Happy cooking.
- Annabelle
My latest favorite piece of equipment:
Tramontina 4 qt. Braiser
(I get a small commission if you buy it from this link!)
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