I used to follow recipes exactly as written. The thought of doing otherwise felt, well, uncomfortable. You can probably chalk this up to a variety of factors — a desire to capture that elusive label of “authentic” cooking? something that can be explained by my Myers-Briggs personality type? a fear of failure? (However you define that regarding food.) Point being, I’d fret if I started cooking something and realized midway through that I was missing an ingredient, no matter how big or small.
But the more I cooked, the more I found that adjusting recipes wasn’t just something to do to fill a last minute gap, it was a pretty essential part of making meals that I liked. For example, since I didn’t grow up eating much salt, a lot of conventional American recipes taste too salty to me. I love ginger and garlic, so in some recipes I can tell I should double the amount of these ingredients. It’s all about finding your own preferences and fulfilling the desires of your own taste buds.
- Think of recipes as guidelines for your home kitchen, not formal rules. Many recipes are the excellent work of people who have a lot of culinary expertise and have tried and tested their instructions countless times, and you may find you don’t want to change them. But then there is the matter of practicality or personal preference. For example, if a tried and tested recipe calls for a dollop of sour cream and all you have at home is plain Greek yogurt, you will probably be able to easily improvise. Or if you, like me, can’t stand the texture of American cheese, you can buy another melty cheese to top your burgers.
- Start by figuring out flavors: If you’re someone who is relatively new to cooking or who is experimenting with unfamiliar recipes, my suggestion is to initially make things exactly per the recipe text. Then start improvising with flavors next time by making adjustments based on the basic categories of taste: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, umami. If you turn these into questions — is this too sweet? does it need more salt to enhance the flavor? — you can start figuring out how to adjust the seasoning of recipes in your own kitchen on the fly.
- Then, move on to bigger substitutions: Once you’ve got the right flavor profile established, it becomes easier to switch out other components of dishes. This is why I can be happy making fried rice with almost any vegetables in my fridge or freezer as long as I have soy sauce, garlic, and ginger (even powdered versions of the spices will work in a pinch.) Using these three seasonings as a base, I’ve found that I can add in plenty of different veggies but end up with a very similar flavor. Of course, then you add another element of figuring out how long to cook different vegetables—for example, carrots and onions need some time to soften, whereas mushrooms quickly become a flavor sponge, and I don’t like my red peppers too soft, etc. But almost without fail, the final product ends up being what I like.
Finally, who cares about “authenticity” or strictly following rules or even messing things up in your home kitchen? Remember that there is no exam at the end of the night or judge to rank you when you’re simply trying to decide whether to heat up a frozen lasagna or cook something from scratch. If something turns out terrible, it’s just a learning experience for next time. So let’s get cooking!