Do you prefer to follow recipes or do you prefer to improvise?

[Linda0818]

It depends. If I'm making something for the first time, I'll follow the recipe (with the exception of maybe leaving out/substituting a type of spice I prefer not to use, etc). But most of the time I improvise or just wing it. Then there are those dishes that I've made so many times, I no longer need the recipe at all.

 

[dragnlaw]

With a friend preparing a dish to take to a "Girl's Night" supper she suddenly exclaimed
- For heaven's sake, have your wine. You can't cook without it! and I'll drive!

does that answer your question?

 

[Linda0818]

I'm one of those morons who never learn.
I follow a recipe the first time and it is wonderful - pure company worthy!
Next time I say, pashaa, made that, done that, know it all and hardly look. Because it was so company worthy the first time, I make it the second time for someone. It comes out 1 step away from the bin... edible but disgusting.
and so I've learned to use company for the first time I make something and it is always wonderful.

go figure....

Oh boy, yes, I've done that enough to know not to ever do it again. Or so I tell myself when it happens. Do I learn? Nope. I just can't help myself.

However, there are some recipes I follow to the "T" every time, especially those I've screwed up by thinking I could have made it better by adding my own touches, but it didn't work out so well.

 

[Linda0818]

With a friend preparing a dish to take to a "Girl's Night" supper she suddenly exclaimed
- For heaven's sake, have your wine. You can't cook without it! and I'll drive!

does that answer your question?

She's so right

 

[CharlieD]

If I like somebody's food and asked for recipe, I will fallow that recipe. I also make my own stuff.

 

[Katie H]

If it's a new recipe, I usually follow it to the letter and, if I find it necessary, I tweak it and put my own spin on it. More often than not, I do make changes.

 

[caseydog]

Have many of you tried "copycat" recipes? The ones that "copy" great dishes from restaurants?

I have not had consistently good results with them. Some I have my doubts about when I read them. The ingredients just don't sound right in relation to what I ate at the restaurant. Others have looked okay, but when I followed them, I was disappointed. And of course, some have been really close to the real deal.

Just wondering what others here have experienced.

CD

 

[Linda0818]

Have many of you tried "copycat" recipes? The ones that "copy" great dishes from restaurants?

I have not had consistently good results with them. Some I have my doubts about when I read them. The ingredients just don't sound right in relation to what I ate at the restaurant. Others have looked okay, but when I followed them, I was disappointed. And of course, some have been really close to the real deal.

Just wondering what others here have experienced.

CD

I've tried a few in the past, but they weren't impressive enough for me to try them again. So I generally avoid the copycats and just go with recipes that I'm specifically searching for.

 

[jennyema]

I have been flying by the seat of my pants in the kitchen forever. Years ago I would eat something in a restaurant and pay attention to the flavors I was tasting, plus the obvious ingredients that stood out to me, and go home and try to replicate it. Just lots of tasting and tweaking involved until I got it right, sometimes better than the restaurant version and rarely a fail. Also watched my grandma, dad, and mom cook the same way. Baking is about the only time I will follow a recipe.

Oh BTW, I don't own a cookbook. If I want to try something new I've never done before, I use Google. Sometimes I compile ideas I see on Google and come up with my own version.

On your first point, I also sometimes pay very careful attention to something delicious I’ve eaten in a restaurant and try to recreate it at home. I’ve gotten to be good at that. It’s so much fun! And rewarding when you get it right.

But at one point I owned over 400 cookbooks. I’ve pared them down to 100 very reliable ones. I read them at night instead of novels.

I almost never get recipes from the internet because they are so maddeningly unreliable. I fell for a copycat no-knead bread recipe this weekend that called for half as much yeast as was required. Shame on me for not checking the source. Plus, I’ve made no knead bread at least 50 times, but not in the past 5 years.

The bread was delicious but not as leavened as it should have been.

 

[Jusa]

On your first point, I also sometimes pay very careful attention to something delicious I’ve eaten in a restaurant and try to recreate it at home. I’ve gotten to be good at that. It’s so much fun! And rewarding when you get it right.

But at one point I owned over 400 cookbooks. I’ve pared them down to 100 very reliable ones. I read them at night instead of novels.

I almost never get recipes from the internet because they are so maddeningly unreliable. I fell for a copycat no-knead bread recipe this weekend that called for half as much yeast as was required. Shame on me for not checking the source. Plus, I’ve made no knead bread at least 50 times, but not in the past 5 years.

The bread was delicious but not as leavened as it should have been.

I have been lucky. I've not had any issues with internet recipes so far but I really only use them for baking bread and the 1 pasta recipe I've tried so far.

 

[taxlady]

I have some recipes I follow and others that I just know. It often has to do with how I learned the recipe. If it was someone telling me how to make it, I usually don't bother with a written recipe. But, if it is something new to me and all I have is a recipe and maybe a video, it will take longer before I just make it without referring to the recipe.

I have had a few flops by following other people's recipes, where mostly the food was edible, even if not worth repeating. I think I have gotten pretty good at looking at a recipe and being able to tell if it's likely to work well or not.

 

[dragnlaw]

I believe that many failed recipes one get from "others" can quite often be because either an ingredient or method step was left out. The answer being "of course, I did that, I always do. Didn't you know?"
Also amateurs are just that - don't know how to read or write a recipe properly, IMHO.

 

[larry_stewart]

I also do both.
Many times I'm looking for new things, ingredients, flavors, inspirations. I'lll search for a recipe ( or sometimes one just kinda falls on my lap). I almost always make it the first time following it exactly. If it comes out perfect, II won change a thing and follow it pretty exactly in the future. If I feel the recipe is good, but not exactly what I want, and I can make changes to personalize it to my liking ( adding / subtracting ingredients, messing with the amounts...), I will make those changes ( writing them down) until it is exactly what I'm looking for. And then, with the new enhanced recipe ( with my changes(, I will then follow the recipe exactly again, since I already did all the legwork to improve it.

Also, my memory isn't what it once was, so even a recipe II may have made a bunch of times, I made know it 90% by heart, but still have to refer back to the actual recipe itself.

During garden season, I often have an unpredictable variety and amount of veggies I need to use pretty much at that moment, so I will experiment with them in different dishes that will vary depending on what I have on hand.

Things like certain vegetable soups, pasta sauces , stir fries ... are similar but almost never the same. I just kinda make things up as I go along with a good idea of the direction Im going, but never %100 sure what ill exactly come up with.

Whats good is after so many years of trial and error, I ( like most of us) have the ability ( usually) to walk into the kitchen and create. Trust me, I've had my share of failures, most still edible , but a few wound up I the trash, compost or back in the day, fed to the chickens. Some times my throw together meals are better than the ones I've had planned out.

 

[dr morbius]

Have many of you tried "copycat" recipes? The ones that "copy" great dishes from restaurants?

I have not had consistently good results with them. Some I have my doubts about when I read them. The ingredients just don't sound right in relation to what I ate at the restaurant. Others have looked okay, but when I followed them, I was disappointed. And of course, some have been really close to the real deal.

Just wondering what others here have experienced.

CD

I made (and liked) a copycat Rice-a-Roni recipe. Came out better than the stuff in the box, which is typically sticky in my experience. I found it online, but I couldn't tell you at this point which recipe it was.

 

[LPBeier]

Unless I notice something wrong before I start, I usually make a new recipe as is once. If I like it enough to try it again, I will usually tweak it. If I make it a third time, I usually just make it from memory and other tweaks follow!

 

[dragnlaw]

Usually repeat recipes with me are far enough apart that I don't remember all ingredients but more importantly quantities - I'm horrid for that.
Matter of fact my short term memory is so bad right now I read a recipe and even double check my mis en plac!

 

[larry_stewart]

Have many of you tried "copycat" recipes? The ones that "copy" great dishes from restaurants?

I have not had consistently good results with them. Some I have my doubts about when I read them. The ingredients just don't sound right in relation to what I ate at the restaurant. Others have looked okay, but when I followed them, I was disappointed. And of course, some have been really close to the real deal.

Just wondering what others here have experienced.

CD

I've never had luck with them either.
I try them with such great expectations, and usually end wondering what the person who made the copy-cat recipe was thinking , or whether their palate is made of wood.

 

[rodentraiser]

I start out trying to follow a recipe, but then I see something like four ingredients for Alfredo sauce and I think, why bother, and buy a jar at the store. Or I'll see shallots in a recipe and grab the onion I have sitting on the counter. Or there will be ingredients listed like freshly ground pepper or freshly ground nutmeg and I throw in the nutmeg I have in a jar and no pepper because I don't like pepper that much. Then I wonder why the food doesn't taste as great as the recipe looked. LOL

My recipes for ham and potatos in cheese sauce or potato, bacon, and cheese soup or potato and ham/bacon anything is all starting to taste the same, since I add Parmesan cheese, Alfredo sauce, and sour cream to all of it. But at least it's all edible.

 

[GotGarlic]

Have many of you tried "copycat" recipes? The ones that "copy" great dishes from restaurants?

I have not had consistently good results with them. Some I have my doubts about when I read them. The ingredients just don't sound right in relation to what I ate at the restaurant. Others have looked okay, but when I followed them, I was disappointed. And of course, some have been really close to the real deal.

Just wondering what others here have experienced.

CD

I've tried a few. The one I can think of that I use regularly is the one for Olive Garden's Spinach and Artichoke Dip. I do change the seasonings, though. Instead of dried basil, I use Penzeys Mural of Flavor and instead of garlic salt (which I don't stock), I use half granulated garlic and half salt.

Copycat Olive Garden Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip

 

[georgevan]

Follow recipe to the T----no confidence in doing otherwise