6 ms·

Really you just cook to your taste. Cooking isn't a science experiment. Like step 5 says, taste it and adjust. The foods already cooked by the time your adding

by tayo42 6y ago

Really you just cook to your taste. Cooking isn't a science experiment. Like step 5 says, taste it and adjust. The foods already cooked by the time your adding the spices

dmitriid 6y ago
That's a really bad advice to give beginners. If you're lucky, you'll guess right the first time, and end up with a good dish. And then you'll use that. If you're unlucky — and the more inexperienced you are the more unlucky you are — then you'll guess wrong, and your dish will be at best okay, and at worst inedible. A few failed experiments like this, and you'll hate cooking, or approach cooking with fear. Recipes have to be very precise, because recipes are aimed at people who are new: new to cooking or new to the dish.
- OwlsParlay 6y ago
  Experimentation is part of learning though. Heck, failing is part of learning! We really need to teach kids that just because you fail a few times at something you're not bad at it - it's part of learning.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    There's time for learning and time for "I want to make this right-ish". Basically if it's a lazy weekend and I'd like to experiment, being vague would be fine. If I'm a beginner and there are people coming over tomorrow evening, I want you to guide my every step.
    - ols 6y ago
      If you’re a beginner cooking for multiple people - stick to something that you already perfected. Even with a superdetailed recipe something can go wrong or be unexpected for a first-timer.
    - astura 6y ago
      A beginner cook doesn't cook a new dish they've never made before for dinner guests. Hell, I've been cooking my entire life and I wouldn't cook a new dish for dinner guests in most cases.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    You can't experiment if you don't even know the basics. > We really need to teach kids Ah yeah. Because every single beginner is a kid, and everyone learns to cook when they are kids.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    Guessing at obtuse instructions with no prior knowledge when there are many variables in play is not experimenting and learning from it is nearly impossible. You have to have some baseline knowledge to draw on, whether you’re a total beginner or just new to the dish. Imaging cooking was putting raw food in a box and a meal comes out of the other end. Imagine that box has a series of dials each ranging from 0-100. You don’t know what any of the dials actually do. Depending on your input, any number of settings can make a meal ranging from edible to amazing. But far more settings result in “Dubious Food.” Any individual setting can ruin the entire thing. Sure, you can power through 100 to the X combinations and ultimately, after much frustration and time and ruined food, sort of figure things out. But it’s much easier if someone says “set dial A to 53, dial B to 36,”. This lets you just tweak one dial and figure out what that dial does. Once you’ve done that you can go from dial to dial and then see how multiple dials interact. But if you just start fiddling with knobs you either get lucky or learn nothing; or you’re relying on knowledge you think everyone has even though they don’t.
    - throwmamatrain 6y ago
      I guess it's a good thing that cooking is nothing like this painful thought experiment! :D Failure is ok.
      - dmitriid 6y ago
        I'm an adult with a busy life. I literally don't have time for failures with food. Except on a weekend. And even then I'd prefer not to fail. Recipes should have all the ingredients in measurable quantities. All steps should be laid out in proper order, with proper technique, times and temperatures explained. Sure. Once you're past the beginner stage, you can just glance at the description and figure out what you need. But you have to pass that beginner stage first.
      - cgriswald 6y ago
        People who can cook greatly underestimate how much pre-existing knowledge they possess. To a compete novice, my analogy is exactly what cooking is like.
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    Failing at chicken parmesan is almost impossible with a decent recipe so the recipe should for most part not be "add a dash of this and add a dash of that, you decide!" It's a fairly predictable dish.
    - shakethemonkey 6y ago
      I wouldn't call this a decent recipe, since it doesn't explain how to prepare or incorporate the tomatoes.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
beeforpork 6y ago
Bad advice not only for beginners, but also for any dough recipe, because amounts often need to be exact for a dough to work properly. In this case, cooking really is a science experiment. Also, I do not like 'salt to taste', particularly for raw egg or raw meat mixtures. Just tell me the amount of salt, whynot?
- steerablesafe 6y ago
  Flour varies in quality, so there is a limit on how exact a dough recipe can be. Not saying it's not useful though.
- astura 6y ago
  Baking requires specific ratios, seasoning food (the topic at hand) does not.
- bigfudge 6y ago
  My experience is the opposite. Most bread recipes for example are both incredibly tolerant of mistakes. Also — flour varies so much in capacity to absorb water and gluten content between brands that I'd say precision is very much illusory unless you are after industrial-style consistency. Small changes in how you handle doughs of different hydration, and changes in timing/temperature thereafter have a much bigger difference to the outcome. I think it's better to develop an intuition for what the right consistency is and work towards that.
  - ydant 6y ago
    I agree entirely. I feel like this myth of "baking is science, cooking is art" got started and I don't really understand it. 100% reproducible results for both is definitely "science". The processes that happen to make the flavors and textures and results you're looking for - absolutely "science". Some very finicky food types require a lot more precision than others, so some (very small percentage of) recipes you absolutely do have to follow very strict recipes and procedures. But the majority of stuff - baking or "cooking" - you can wing a lot and get great results. You just might not get exactly the results you thought you'd get. In my experience in a house that doesn't have strict climate control (no humidity control, windows often open, inexact temperature control), intuition on yeast-based dough is actually really important. Two days in a row the same exact simple bread dough recipe can behave very differently due to factors like ambient temperature and humidity. The trick is getting from a recipe cook to an intuitive cook. For me, I feel like that leap came primarily from a single book (and years of prior absorbed "Good Eats" knowledge): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3931154-ratio https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3931154-ratio Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman Highly recommended read.
nena64 6y ago
Cooking is science, as far is "love" lol (imho), as "we are what we eat" too... (meaning at quality first: often the differencies between quality and the supercheap isn't much, while counting the real yeld). Thanks a lot for this repositories, I'll trying to contibute.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
As an engineer I want a solid core recipe and then I'll start changing it up on the 3rd or 4th go, or obviously the next time if it needs more salt or sugar or whatever. It's easy to spoil a recipe and that can be a (relatively) expensive thing to do depending on the recipe.

by tayo42 6y ago

Really you just cook to your taste. Cooking isn't a science experiment. Like step 5 says, taste it and adjust. The foods already cooked by the time your adding the spices

dmitriid 6y ago

That's a really bad advice to give beginners. If you're lucky, you'll guess right the first time, and end up with a good dish. And then you'll use that. If you're unlucky — and the more inexperienced you are the more unlucky you are — then you'll guess wrong, and your dish will be at best okay, and at worst inedible. A few failed experiments like this, and you'll hate cooking, or approach cooking with fear. Recipes have to be very precise, because recipes are aimed at people who are new: new to cooking or new to the dish.

OwlsParlay 6y ago
Experimentation is part of learning though. Heck, failing is part of learning! We really need to teach kids that just because you fail a few times at something you're not bad at it - it's part of learning.
- viraptor 6y ago
  There's time for learning and time for "I want to make this right-ish". Basically if it's a lazy weekend and I'd like to experiment, being vague would be fine. If I'm a beginner and there are people coming over tomorrow evening, I want you to guide my every step.
  - ols 6y ago
    If you’re a beginner cooking for multiple people - stick to something that you already perfected. Even with a superdetailed recipe something can go wrong or be unexpected for a first-timer.
  - astura 6y ago
    A beginner cook doesn't cook a new dish they've never made before for dinner guests. Hell, I've been cooking my entire life and I wouldn't cook a new dish for dinner guests in most cases.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  You can't experiment if you don't even know the basics. > We really need to teach kids Ah yeah. Because every single beginner is a kid, and everyone learns to cook when they are kids.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  Guessing at obtuse instructions with no prior knowledge when there are many variables in play is not experimenting and learning from it is nearly impossible. You have to have some baseline knowledge to draw on, whether you’re a total beginner or just new to the dish. Imaging cooking was putting raw food in a box and a meal comes out of the other end. Imagine that box has a series of dials each ranging from 0-100. You don’t know what any of the dials actually do. Depending on your input, any number of settings can make a meal ranging from edible to amazing. But far more settings result in “Dubious Food.” Any individual setting can ruin the entire thing. Sure, you can power through 100 to the X combinations and ultimately, after much frustration and time and ruined food, sort of figure things out. But it’s much easier if someone says “set dial A to 53, dial B to 36,”. This lets you just tweak one dial and figure out what that dial does. Once you’ve done that you can go from dial to dial and then see how multiple dials interact. But if you just start fiddling with knobs you either get lucky or learn nothing; or you’re relying on knowledge you think everyone has even though they don’t.
  - throwmamatrain 6y ago
    I guess it's a good thing that cooking is nothing like this painful thought experiment! :D Failure is ok.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      I'm an adult with a busy life. I literally don't have time for failures with food. Except on a weekend. And even then I'd prefer not to fail. Recipes should have all the ingredients in measurable quantities. All steps should be laid out in proper order, with proper technique, times and temperatures explained. Sure. Once you're past the beginner stage, you can just glance at the description and figure out what you need. But you have to pass that beginner stage first.
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      People who can cook greatly underestimate how much pre-existing knowledge they possess. To a compete novice, my analogy is exactly what cooking is like.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  Failing at chicken parmesan is almost impossible with a decent recipe so the recipe should for most part not be "add a dash of this and add a dash of that, you decide!" It's a fairly predictable dish.
  - shakethemonkey 6y ago
    I wouldn't call this a decent recipe, since it doesn't explain how to prepare or incorporate the tomatoes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

beeforpork 6y ago

Bad advice not only for beginners, but also for any dough recipe, because amounts often need to be exact for a dough to work properly. In this case, cooking really is a science experiment. Also, I do not like 'salt to taste', particularly for raw egg or raw meat mixtures. Just tell me the amount of salt, whynot?

steerablesafe 6y ago
Flour varies in quality, so there is a limit on how exact a dough recipe can be. Not saying it's not useful though.
astura 6y ago
Baking requires specific ratios, seasoning food (the topic at hand) does not.
bigfudge 6y ago
My experience is the opposite. Most bread recipes for example are both incredibly tolerant of mistakes. Also — flour varies so much in capacity to absorb water and gluten content between brands that I'd say precision is very much illusory unless you are after industrial-style consistency. Small changes in how you handle doughs of different hydration, and changes in timing/temperature thereafter have a much bigger difference to the outcome. I think it's better to develop an intuition for what the right consistency is and work towards that.
- ydant 6y ago
  I agree entirely. I feel like this myth of "baking is science, cooking is art" got started and I don't really understand it. 100% reproducible results for both is definitely "science". The processes that happen to make the flavors and textures and results you're looking for - absolutely "science". Some very finicky food types require a lot more precision than others, so some (very small percentage of) recipes you absolutely do have to follow very strict recipes and procedures. But the majority of stuff - baking or "cooking" - you can wing a lot and get great results. You just might not get exactly the results you thought you'd get. In my experience in a house that doesn't have strict climate control (no humidity control, windows often open, inexact temperature control), intuition on yeast-based dough is actually really important. Two days in a row the same exact simple bread dough recipe can behave very differently due to factors like ambient temperature and humidity. The trick is getting from a recipe cook to an intuitive cook. For me, I feel like that leap came primarily from a single book (and years of prior absorbed "Good Eats" knowledge): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3931154-ratio https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3931154-ratio Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman Highly recommended read.

nena64 6y ago

Cooking is science, as far is "love" lol (imho), as "we are what we eat" too... (meaning at quality first: often the differencies between quality and the supercheap isn't much, while counting the real yeld). Thanks a lot for this repositories, I'll trying to contibute.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

As an engineer I want a solid core recipe and then I'll start changing it up on the 3rd or 4th go, or obviously the next time if it needs more salt or sugar or whatever. It's easy to spoil a recipe and that can be a (relatively) expensive thing to do depending on the recipe.