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No I understand recipe conversion (worked in restaurants for 10+ years) so I understand everything working on ratios. I just rarely in my professional or person

by moate 8y ago

No I understand recipe conversion (worked in restaurants for 10+ years) so I understand everything working on ratios. I just rarely in my professional or personal life cooked by saying I have X amount of an ingredient and want to use all of it. I've always started saying "I need X portions of a completed product, and therefor need to have <insert amount of ingredient>).

vram22 8y ago
Replying to you and the GP: Throwing a spanner into the works, just for fun: In India (and probably some other countries), cooks often don't measure out ingredients for dishes [1]. They just wing it / use their experience [2] (called andaaz in Hindi/Urdu). And the results are often or mostly good (except with bad cooks, of course). [1] I guess that approach works for all countries, except individual cases where people blindly follow formulas to the letter. [2] Of course, they are not flying blind, they use rough (or precise enough) estimates, that are based, again, on their experience, and on just seeing what amounts of what stuff (whether it is pinches, grams, ounces, kilos, pounds, or whatever), makes for a good dish.
- moate 8y ago
  Oh sure, but that's a WHOLE other thing. Last night I made potato soup for dinner. I peeled about 2.5 pounds of potatoes, and that was the only thing I specifically had in mind for "will this be enough portions of soup for the people I'm trying to feed" when I started, no measurements or ratios. Everything else was just me leaning on all my experience to make it taste the way I wanted. That's a whole different style of cooking, and most people don't get there until well AFTER they learned how to cook something with a recipe (or someone telling them how many handfuls of beans to add to the pot).
  - vram22 8y ago
    Good points, and I agree. I meant roughly the same, when I said "use their experience" / "andaaz", although did not make it explicit.

by moate 8y ago

vram22 8y ago

Replying to you and the GP: Throwing a spanner into the works, just for fun: In India (and probably some other countries), cooks often don't measure out ingredients for dishes [1]. They just wing it / use their experience [2] (called andaaz in Hindi/Urdu). And the results are often or mostly good (except with bad cooks, of course). [1] I guess that approach works for all countries, except individual cases where people blindly follow formulas to the letter. [2] Of course, they are not flying blind, they use rough (or precise enough) estimates, that are based, again, on their experience, and on just seeing what amounts of what stuff (whether it is pinches, grams, ounces, kilos, pounds, or whatever), makes for a good dish.

moate 8y ago
Oh sure, but that's a WHOLE other thing. Last night I made potato soup for dinner. I peeled about 2.5 pounds of potatoes, and that was the only thing I specifically had in mind for "will this be enough portions of soup for the people I'm trying to feed" when I started, no measurements or ratios. Everything else was just me leaning on all my experience to make it taste the way I wanted. That's a whole different style of cooking, and most people don't get there until well AFTER they learned how to cook something with a recipe (or someone telling them how many handfuls of beans to add to the pot).
- vram22 8y ago
  Good points, and I agree. I meant roughly the same, when I said "use their experience" / "andaaz", although did not make it explicit.