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With access to millions of recipes with only a few clicks online, it should be easy to find the best recipe for whatever it is you’re looking for. You’ve probably heard that if you can follow directions, you can make anything with a recipe, but if you’ve spent any time in the kitchen, you know that this isn’t necessarily the case.
There’s more to being a great cook than just being able to read a recipe. In addition to basic techniques, you need to be able choose a recipe that matches your skill set and one that’s written by someone that knows what they’re doing.
The next time you’re looking for something to make for dinner, consider the following items before choosing the first recipe you see.
1. Choose Your Recipe Wisely
If you are inexperienced in the kitchen, a recipe with few ingredients and simple steps is a good start. Where you get your recipe is also extremely important. Remember, anyone with a computer can publish a recipe to a blog, or even a site like All Recipes. This doesn’t mean it will work, or that it was even tested. Save recipes that you want to try one day when your skills get better; looking at complicated recipes that sound delicious is a great motivator to learn new cooking techniques. Trying them when you’re unsure is a surefire way to end up disappointed when they don’t work.
If you’re a beginner, some recipes in gourmet cooking magazines may be intimidating. A good place to start would be beginner cookbooks, or the packaging on products that you love to buy. Because these companies want their products to succeed, the recipes they choose will be easy to follow and more often than not work out flawlessly.
2. Learn the Basics
Unless your idea of cooking is throwing some canned soups and cooked meats in a casserole dish, it helps to know basic techniques like chopping and sautéing, or the difference between simmering and boiling. It doesn’t take much; there are plenty of tutorials online, or you can take a beginner’s cooking class at your local kitchen supply store.
3. Read Your Recipe Thoroughly
Read it carefully, including ingredients list, instructions and any notes that may be included. Not doing so can mean that you get halfway through and realize you’re out of an ingredient or haven’t planned enough time. Don’t just skim through the ingredients; read through everything from the description (there can be helpful notes in there sometimes), to the prep time, to the instructions. Even a professional can find himself in a bind if he doesn’t bother reading the recipe before starting.
4. Familiarize Yourself With Ingredients
If you see ingredients you are not familiar with, find out what they are and exactly how to use them. In this case, tomato is not always a tomato. Make sure you know exactly what your ingredient is and how it’s processed. If you’re recipe calls for crystalized ginger and you have fresh, that probably won’t do. Not sure what something is or if what you have will work? Do a quick Google search.
5. Don’t Attempt a Recipe if You Don’t Understand Techniques or Equipment
If reading a recipe that says temper egg into hot sauce and you have no idea what that means, skip it for now. Or if a recipe calls for using a pastry blender and you don’t have one or know what that is, come back to this later. You don’t have to run out and buy every tool or piece of equipment a recipe calls for; in fact, there are many tools that even professionals do without.
6. Understand How Recipes Are Written
For example 1 cup rice, cooked is not the same as 1 cup cooked rice. The first means take 1 cup of dry rice and cook it, yielding 2 cups of cooked rice. The latter is just that: 1 cup of rice that is cooked. This might not always affect the outcome of the recipe, but it can, and if you don’t know the difference, you may be left wondering why a recipe that worked for everyone else came out terribly for you.
7. Amounts Can Vary
This is especially true for things that aren’t always the same such as produce. If a recipe calls for 1 onion, what does that mean when an onion can be the size of a tennis ball or a grapefruit? If you don’t feel experienced enough to judge properly, stick to recipes that use exact measurements such as 1/2 cup diced onion. In many savory recipes, this may not make much difference, but for baking and desserts, you can easily ruin a recipe this way.
8. Be Careful About Substitutions
It’s probably okay to sub raspberries for blackberries if that’s all you have, but the more ingredients you sub the more you’re changing the dish. If you find you’re missing a spice or two, make it anyway. You might be pleasantly surprised. Of course, avoiding making these decisions is the reason you want to read and re-read your recipe. Before making a substitution, ask yourself if the texture, color, and flavor is the same. If so, it will probably work. If you make several substitutions, it isn’t helpful to rate a recipe online whether the substitutions work or not. Too many and you’ve created a new recipe!
9. Remember That Nobody is Perfect
Don’t be so afraid to fail that you avoid trying a recipe that may be a bit intimidating. The worst that can happen is that you have to throw it away, but usually you can still eat it. If you’re unsure how to prepare expensive ingredients, do a lot of research or have someone you know help you, but don’t be afraid to try. Fear leads to the same boring recipes over and over and over again.
10. Try a Recipe Yourself First
Don’t make something you’ve never made before for a special occasion, no matter how good it sounds or easy it seems to be. I’ve found recipes I absolutely couldn’t wait to try give disappointing results, which is fine if it’s just for you, but do you really want to serve something less than spectacular at a dinner party? Make sure that you are the first person to taste a highly anticipated recipe.
11. Use Common Sense
If you see something that doesn’t look right (like 1/2 cup of baking soda in a cookie recipe instead of 1/2 teaspoon), don’t do it just because the recipe says to. Remember that even the best recipe developers sometimes make mistakes and typos. Of course, you’re much more likely to find accurate, tested recipes in a highly publicized cookbook or cooking site, but even then, minor errors can be overlooked.
12. Know When to Give Up
If you’ve tried a recipe more than once with less than perfect results, remember that there are bad recipes and sometimes you just can’t fix them. There are so many really great recipes out there that there is no reason to focus on one that just plain bad.
Conclusion
Cooking doesn’t have to be difficult, but knowing how to read and follow a recipe can make it a more enjoyable experience. By choosing the right recipe to begin with, and then reading it thoroughly to make sure you understand what you’re doing, you can greatly increase your chances of making a delicious dish every time. Following the rest of these guidelines will help even more.