Chef Marie

ARTICLES 

Can All Recipes

On The Internet or papers Be Trusted

As the internet is growing, so is the information available to all of us. Recipes are showing up everywhere. I recently decided to do an experiment which consisted of choosing a few recipes from various web sites without analyzing anything on the recipes and preparing them as directed. Unfortunately for me, only one out of four turned out to be really good. So needless to say, this experience has taught me a valuable lesson and confirmed my suspicion. You cannot trust everything you find on the internet when it comes to recipes.

Just selecting a recipe, following its instruction and getting cooking without thinking about it is not wise these days. I advise anyone to read the whole recipe two or three times to make sure the ingredients and the procedure make sense to you.

Think carefully and if anything seems unbalanced or quantities seem out of whack, or your gut feeling is telling you something is not right, you will probably be right. Then what can you do about it?

First, you can forget about the recipe and look for something else.

Second, you can do the recipe knowing of possible problems and therefore proceed carefully. If you realize that things are not quite right along the way, just make adjustments. Any ingredient that has strong flavors or lots of spices should be added a little bit at a time to avoid disasters. Always taste before adding more. When it comes to salt, I see huge numbers. I suggest that you just add a little pinch at first and adjust at the end of cooking. By proceeding carefully, chances are you will end up with something good and avoid a major disappointment and not to mention a waste of money.

Third, using your experience and knowledge, you can make some changes to the recipe before you start cooking. This solution is good only if you really know what you are doing and particularly feel comfortable about it.

Finally and probably the best solution is to combine the second and third solutions. I have decided to do that after this bad experience and found out that it really make a difference.

You are now aware of this, so remember to read a few times a recipe before deciding what you will do. Finally, keep in mind that cooking is like chemistry. Sure you need good ingredients and good basis you can rely on, but you also need to be opened minded about everything and use your neurons to avoid disasters. All this is part of the fun and part of discovering and creating process.