| AndyBa |
| I think in cooking as in science, philosophy and martial arts there are some fundamental principles or rules which can help us achieve better results when cooking without following a strict recipe. Lets us try and formulate all this principles in this thread. |
| AndyBa |
| Well here is the first rule :) 1. Always try what you are cooking when you are cooking :) This way you will not forget to add salt when it's needed :D And you will be able to rescue the situation in time if it goes in wrong direction. |
| WarChild |
| The first rule is: wash your hands before proceeding to cooking :) |
| lunarflowermaiden |
| The second rule: If you are following a recipe, make sure that you double check, or even triple check, that you included every ingredient that was listed. Accidently leaving out an ingredient that may seem small often leaves a big impact, and then you are stuck :(. |
| Sergio |
I was in a lot of situations when I've missed an ingredient or two, if you don't have those ingredients you should try to improvise. I often search the net for similar recipes and see if ingredients I'm missing can be replaced with something else, or even can be ignored. |
| BigBecka |
| Hmm, I've found that after a while, you know the sort of things that should go into your cooking, for example: some kind of fat, some kind of base (meat, soy, vegetable, chocolate), some kind of matrix (flour, tomatoes), some kind of liquid, something to flavour...? If you have a knowledge of the type of cuisine, you can sometimes find a suitable replacement if you've forgotton to buy an ingredient by thinking about what is readily available in that area? |
| AndyBa |
| BigBecka, it's a great idea! :) Can you group the ingredients that you know can replace each other in cooking? |