In article >,
Boron Elgar > wrote:
>Once you have learned the basics, you will find that much of your
>cooking will be done to your own liking. Strict adherence to recipes,
>though, is almost always called for in baking, where the chemical
>interaction of the ingredients is important.

Well, strict adherance might be called for in other areas too, if
the cook is a newbie. That brings an amusing story to mind...

One of the first meals I ever cooked for other people was a dinner
for 5, in a house of 4 other roommates. We took turns cooking
dinner for each other on weekdays. On my first day to cook, I
decided that the meal would have three courses; a salad, a soup, and
an entree.

The salad was easy. The soup, however, required adherance to a
recipe, which I didn't have. But first let me describe the entree:

Not knowing better, I strictly followed the recipe for the main
course ("samosas" -- which looked interesting and tasty when I
found it in the recipe book, I recall it was Moosewood Cookbook).
Unfortunately, it was too ambitious a project for a newbie, but I
managed. The "2-hour preparation" advertised in the book took 8
hours. Fortunately I started soon after I got up in the morning.
Somehow I managed to use almost every pot and utensil in the kitchen
-- the pile next to the sink after cleaning up at the end reached
half way to the ceiling!

Ah, the soup... well, a big jar of mung beans beckoned in the
kitchen. I had no recipe for mung bean soup, except for my Mom's
general advice. So, not knowing better, I took a bowl from the
cupboard, and figured, "five people eating, so I'll just measure out
five bowls of beans into the pot." I did just that, added water,
and turned on the heat.

Those of you who know how to cook can imagine what happened.

Mung beans are pretty small, so you can get a large mass of them
into a small volume, compared to larger beans that would have more
space between them due to their size and shape. I suspect that a
given volume of small beans will expand more than fewer large beans
in the same volume. Anyway, the beans shortly began overflowing the
rim of the pot. I transferred to a larger pot, then went to the
grocery store to buy more vegetables to cut into the soup, because
there seemed to be too many beans now.

Eventually the beans expanded to fill the second pot. I transferred
them to a big cauldron and went back to the store for more
ingredients.

The soup ended up quite tasty, actually. However, we were eating it
for an entire week.

>Enjoy your adventures and never fear asking questions on this group.
>We all started out as inexperienced cooks.

And I'm STILL inexperienced, but since I got married, I'm getting
much better. On those occasions when my wife and I collaborate, we
make some pretty amazing meals that neither of us could accomplish
alone.

I discovered that steamers are wonderful (you can't burn the food),
and stir-frying in a wok is easy.

-A