The Use of Recipes

Or… What I did, when I did that thing, (and why)

Broadly, there are two schools of cooking:
Baking and Pastry the crafting or breads, cakes, chocolates, confections, pastries, and plated desserts.
The other is commonly called “Savory”.
The protein, vegetable and starch cuisine you know as “cooking”.

Baking and Pastry are exacting science. There isn’t a lot of room for creative interpretation.
Either everything is in the correct ratios – in the right order – or you have failure.
The bread didn’t rise, the crust fell apart, the jelly didn’t gel, the chocolate is dry, the custard is runny.

In “cooking”? Everyone has an opinion, therefore everyone can be an expert.
And a success.

We’re going to explore cooking as building blocks.
Certain aspects of every recipe are necessary for that recipe to broadly work – other things are either optional, or make that recipe into something related – but called something different.

First up, will be Ratatouille. See the “recipes” page.
Olive oil, onion, garlic, zucchini, green bell peppers, and eggplant.
Oh, you don’t like eggplant? Omit it… and the bell pepper too.
It’s now Zucchini Provençal.

You don’t like zucchini? Well then, you’re making a pan tomato sauce.
If made with fresh tomatoes, it’s a Pomodoro Fresca.

You only want the eggplant, oil, onion and/or garlic?
How about a squeeze of lemon? Chickpeas? Tahini?
You have ventured east of French and Italian, into Armenian, Baltic, Greek, Turk, Kurdish, Arab and Persian cuisine.

Nothing is wrong.
It’s just different.
Give yourself permission to be different.

Photos and step-by-step to follow in subsequent posts.