Do you guys usually mess up a recipe the first and maybe second time?

Cafe Society
1

It usually takes me one or two good college tries to have a recipe down. Good thing is that usually past that, I can do it without thinking. For example, first time I made risotto, all you could taste was white wine. I don’t think I’ve tried a recipe the first time and it’s come out absolutely like I wanted it to. However, I guess it’s a good thing in a cook to be able to recognize failures and how you’re gonna make it better the next time around. Admittedly, I don’t have scientific accuracy with measuring and lot of money to spring for say, buttermilk just for one recipe.

This has really led me to steer away from trying any big smoked meat projects or cooking steak because I don’t want to waste money :confused: can anyone empathize? Advice?

2

It happens. I’ve just recently taken up baking and I made some pretty bad bread he first couple tries. I’m just getting to the point where I know if the dough looks and feels right.

The only advice I can give is to keep at it and enjoy eating your mistakes. It’s pretty hard to screw up a steak to the point it’s inedible and real honest to God BBQ is a lifetime learning process, just keep cooking and eating and you’ll get closer to your ideal over time.

3

Usually, no, but it does happen. I don’t follow strict recipes for most dishes so the first couple of times are needed to experiment and improve. I don’t totally mess up often, but for something new I often know I could do better.

4

Oh I never really mess up to the point of inedible. I’m way past that stage. It’s more just like “oh these xyz aren’t what I really wanted them to be. Maybe I’ll cook them a little longer/less or add more salt/garlic/spice.”

My big one has been making breads. I found a bootleg bojangles biscuit recipe that just wasn’t that great. Usually turns out too compact. It’s hard for me to get nice fluffy biscuits but I haven’t been making them all the time or anything. I couldn’t imagine trying to make big, fluffy, crunchy croissants.

5

Same - I rarely destroy a meal, but they get better with practice.

I know people who seem to never cook the same dish twice. They’ll serve their first ever attempt at a recipe to guests. It’s not inedible, but rarely good. I wish they’d just make whatever they did last time, with the benefit of practice and hindsight.

6

I tend to be the other way around. I nail it the first time then screw it up after that.

Generally because I’m way more focused doing something unfamiliar and then think “I’ve got this” on the next go and that’s when I forget to put the chicken in the chicken lasagna or something like that.

Then I improve again. But because I rarely cook the same thing very frequently never attain any real benefit from repetition.

7

Pretty much like the others. Once in a great while, especially if I’m not paying close attention to the recipe instructions, there can be a mishap.

8

Ditto. I’m a good cook but a better baker. I’ll usually get it a bit off when I try to tweak a recipe the first time, but once I get a feel for the relationships, it’s smooth sailing. I mess with bread recipes like you wouldn’t believe.

9

I have problems trying to make Indian/South Asian dishes which call for frying whole spices in oil before adding further ingredients. It’s extraordinarily easy for a n00b to burn the spices which makes the entire dish taste like shit. The recipe usually says something like "fry spices until they start to pop, then add (whatever.) Except it seems like the time you have between frying the spices until they “pop” and adding further ingredients is like 0.0025 seconds.

10

I generally don’t screw it up. But usually I try my best to follow the exact directions as closely as possible the first time I make it, saving any tweaking for round 2 and after. I like to get a sense of what the person who wrote the recipe was getting at, and then decide what I do and don’t like about it.

11

Not usually an issue for me. However, I have been cooking a long time and I can read a recipe and know whether it’s going to turn out the way I want. I have a lot of experience with techniques as well. I create recipes quite regularly including cookies and candy.

In my mind there’s a big difference between “messing up” and deciding to tweak a technique or ingredient the next time.

12

This.

Now the odd thing is that I have several dishes that I’ve been making for years, so efficiently that I no longer consult the recipe. Some of my kids have moved away from home and asked for the recipes so I dug them out. And it almost every single case, I was doing something way off-recipe. In the case of the Parker House rolls I was making 24 rolls when the recipe said it made 36 (but that’s not so bad–they are nice big rolls and nobody objects to that). In other cases I was leaving out something (can of tomato paste in the chili) that really changed its essence.

13

Generally, no, I get something pretty decent even on the first try.

On the other hand, I still maintain a policy that I don’t cook a recipe for guests until I’ve done it myself at least three times. When I have guests over, I want something that’s perfect, not just something that’s edible with ideas for how to improve it next time.

Thinking back to when I was much less experienced (20 years ago or so), I was more likely to mess something back then. Even so, most of the results were still pretty tolerable. My college roommates and I had a deal: if they bought the ingredients, I’d cook the meal, and I never messed up anything enough that they complained.

Frankly, I’m at a stage right now where I don’t follow any recipes. If I want to make something new, I consult the web and pick three or four of the best-looking recipes for that thing. I look at all the differences, decide what I think I’d like best, and come up with a hybrid of the four that seems like the best fit for me. Sometimes I realize that a recipe is really X, with some changes. (Like I made an Italian soup recently and decided it was just a riff on my basic minestrone, thickened with crushed garbanzo beans. So I didn’t follow any recipe.)

I’m not sure how to advise proceeding except to keep trying and keep observing. You should be learning patterns of how flavors and techniques go together. Think of it like chemistry. There are only 100 basic atoms that combine to form all the molecules. (And, really, the top 20 atoms account for a huge percentage of what we encounter). As you learn how those atoms combine, you’re only learning 100 things, and not 100,000 things. This is one reason I love the show Chopped, because you get hints of how chefs think in exactly those terms.

Take notes on what does and doesn’t work for you.

You mention smoked meats and steaks, and I do have a specific suggestion there. Get a meat thermometer. Heck, get a lot of them! One thermometer for every steak and one for the top of the grill/oven and one for the bottom of the grill/oven. Put a thermometer into each quarter of your turkey and each half of your brisket. Thermometers are cheap compared to meat.

Everything you do is driven by internal temperature. Whether the ideal cooking time is 12 minutes (for a steak) or 12 hours (for a brisket), pull it off based on temperature, not time. If the temperature is right, you’ll always have something edible, even if not perfect. (In fact, my best brisket got way too hot in the smoker. The bottom was burned after just three hours… but the rest of it was absolutely finger-licking delicious and tender. Temperature does not lie.) After a lot of experience, you’ll know temperature by looking, touching and listening, but the thermometer is how you get that experience.