We live in a world of recipes. You can find a recipe for ANYTHING on the Internet these days. Recipes for dishes can make getting dinner on the table easier when you’re in a rush, but recipes also restrict you in the kitchen. They stop you from adding more of the ingredients you love, less of the ingredients you don’t love, from making a dish your own. They stop you from thinking, and often from having fun. For me, recipes slow me down. If I’m following a recipe, I’ll read step 3 six or seven times, not remembering what I’ve read the second I turn back to the stovetop. I know you know what I’m talking about!
So, today I want to talk to you about freestyle cooking and how you can become a freestyle cook. Believe it or not, you probably know a lot more than you think you do about cooking, and a lot of cooking is just common sense. You’ll come to the right conclusion if you step away from the recipe and think for just a minute. And when you do, when you’ve made something yourself that you really enjoy, you’ll start to see the fun and gratification that can come from cooking. Here are some tips to get you started.
- Have some staple pantry items. There are some ingredients that I think of as palettes - you can put anything with them and have a meal. Pasta, pizza dough, eggs, bread. You always have a meal with these on hand. With eggs, you can make an omelet, a frittata, or get fancier and make a quiche or a soufflé. With pasta, you can simply dress it with Parmesan cheese and black pepper on it, call it Cacio e Pepe and feel quite fancy. Other component ingredients are important too and after just a little experience you’ll learn what things you use most of: canned tomatoes, rice, beans, stock, etc… The best advice I can give you is to have the best quality ingredients that you can - the quality of the ingredients has a direct effect on the end result.
- I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid!As with everything, practice makes perfect and starting out with simple recipes is the only way to go. You’re less likely to make a mess with fewer ingredients than with more. Don’t over-complicate your meal. Just make something simple.
- Give yourself a break.Don’t expect to be perfect every time you cook. Sometimes even the best cooks make a less than perfect meal, and sometimes… just sometimes, mistakes can lead to a fantastic new discovery, so embrace your mistakes. Also, remember that there are many ways to make the same dish. If the results are the same, theres no right or wrong way, just different ways.
- Learn from your experiences. Try to remember what you did when you followed a recipe for a similar dish. When you’re cooking freestyle, you’re generally changing up the ingredients, but the technique and the timing is easy to copy from something you’ve already done.
- Give yourself time.Don’t tell anyone what time dinner is served! Check your foods as they cook and if it’s not finished when you thought it would be, give it more time. No big deal.
- Season gently.You can always add more seasonings, but it’s very hard to take them out again! If you’re uncertain about whether your food needs more seasoning, just remove a small amount of the dish into a separate bowl and season that. Taste it. If it tastes better with more seasoning, add more seasoning to the whole dish. If it doesn’t, you haven’t ruined the whole meal.
- Taste your food along the way.That’s one of the biggest differences between home cooks and professionals - tasting along the way. Don’t serve anything you haven’t tasted first.
- Practice does make perfect. If you’ve had success (or even almostsuccess) with a meal. Do it again! That’s the way to imprint your own cooking into your memory. Or, if you’re very timid about making your own meal, cook from a recipe one night. Then, do it without looking at the recipe the following night… and maybe, just maybe… add a little something different to it to make it your own. You’ll be cooking freestyle!
I realize that since I’m in the business of creating and providing recipes, encouraging you to cook without recipes may turn around to bite me. But I’m really more in the business of making you more comfortable in the kitchen, and cooking freestyle is the ultimate result of being comfortable cooking. So, get out there! Start your freestyle cooking! I’m going to come looking for you creative cooks with a little freestyle contest! Keep your eyes on my Facebook page on Fridays (www.facebook.com/bluejeanchef) for more information, and sign up at the bottom of this page in order to register to win a cookbook for your freestyle efforts!
ML