Herbert Glarner wrote:
>
> We here, that's my wife and me, oftentimes just take a given list of
> ingredients (right from scratch adding or replacing some components),
> and without any further looking at quantities we take what we feel
> "could be right for us" (after the first time one will have noticed
> anyway if it was too much or not enough of this or that).
>
> We both think, that cooking like this is much more fun that following
> quantitative indications literally.
>
> That said to the point: yesterday, we asked ourselves, if we are a
> minority (seeing that our relatives mostly /do/ follow recipes
> literally), or if this is more or less the standard way among the more
> appassionate cooks (which I assume can be found in this group).
>
> So: What is your opinion? How do you handle quantities in recipes?


I ususally do as you do. I use the recipe as a general guide and take
the measurements as suggestions, not rule of law. And there's a
problem-- I end up making the same things in the same ways when I do
that. I go through he cookbooks thinking I'd like to try something new
and different, maybe learn to make an ethnic specialty that I've enjoyed
in a restaurant but never made at home. Then I realize I'm out of one
ingredient so I substitute another. It looks like too much of a spice
so I lessen it. I prefer a greater veg:meat ratio so I correct for
that. I go by what "could be right for us" and end up with what was
always right already, nothing new, nothing special, nothing like what
they served in the restaurant.


To my mind, changing recipes around the first time I make them is a flaw
in my cooking, one I strive to overcome. After I've made the recipe
once or twice, after I've decided that there's something about it I
don't like, THEN it makes sense to stop measuring and start intuiting.


Also, many people say they're not measuring when they're merely not
measuring with marked spoons and cups. For example, when it comes to
adding cinnamon, allspice, and cloves to the pumpkin pie, I don't get
out the measuring spoons, but I'd say I add pretty close to the teaspoon
of cinnamon, half teaspoon of allspice and quarter teaspoon of cloves
that the recipe asks for. I can do this because years of experience
have made me (and most of us on this group) good at hand sprinkle
coordination.


--Lia