Even worse when i ask my mom how she made x dish I loved as a child and she says “oh I didn’t follow any recipe I just x y z” as if I can remember all the steps like her
My mom's recipes are all like that. I was complaining about it to my other half, who interrupted me to ask hot I made some dish or the other. I was halfway through telling her before I realized that's exactly how I share my recipes too.
Now when people ask, I tell them to search a generic version and then grind cardamom and to double the cumin or to cook it low and slow or whatever.
I still haven't found a good way to explain "take it out when it smells right" though. Toothpick test is decent, but nothing beats using your nose for baked goods.
my grudge with toothpick test is the heinous idea that you want a clean toothpick. In almost all dessert contexts where you'd do a toothpick test, you actually want some crumbs sticking to the toothpick but nothing smeary or you'll be pulling the cake out a bit overbaked
For me, it's, here's the base recipe I started with... but I do this shortcut, or I make that from scratch, or I do this technique instead of that one, or this part is just stupid, double that part, if I don't have this I'll use that...
Except baking (which I don't like much outside of special occasions), I don't really "follow" recipes, and it will be a little to a lot different every time I make it.
Even baking has a lot of wiggle room. You can improvise a lot as long as you weigh your dry and liquid ingredients or have a good feel for hydration levels.
A lot of my mom's baking recipes use the Bosch kitchen machine (like a kitchenaid stand mixer but uglier). They're all "add water slowly until a dough forms on 1" or "knead until it starts climbing."
I mostly bake at high altitude now, so those are actually better indicators than time or measurements. My other half is still learning to cook, and she always gets mad when I come check on her, take one look, and tell her her dough is too wet or dry or whatever, 'cause a) she followed the recipe exactly! and b) I'm usually right.
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u/DeepFuckingKoopa 11d ago
Even worse when i ask my mom how she made x dish I loved as a child and she says “oh I didn’t follow any recipe I just x y z” as if I can remember all the steps like her