How to Cook Without Recipes
The joys of winging it in the kitchen
When I first started cooking, I was a cookbook junkie. I would pore over the recipes and the glossy pictures, imagining the amazing flavors and smells I was going to create. I would plan meals a week at a time, and go to the grocery store with a list pulled from those recipes, and then follow them to a tee.
Then I learned about America’s Test Kitchen and their associated cookbooks. They prepare many variations for a given dish, and then figure out what makes the “best recipe.” What could be more satisfying than preparing the perfect pot roast, the apex of asparagus, and quintessential quinoa?
Necessity is a mother
However, at some point I became frustrated with recipes. I’d forget something at the store, or I wouldn’t have as much of an ingredient on hand as I thought, or… or I couldn’t afford another trip to the grocery store.
There were times in my life when making it to payday seemed nearly impossible. I couldn’t afford to hold out for the “best” version of dinner. And oh by the way, the ground beef in the fridge was fast approaching its expiration date, and the peppers were looking a little worse for wear.
And yet, the family’s still got to eat. Your parent brain kicks in and you adapt. You make the food you have. Maybe it’s bland and unappetizing, but dinner is on the table.
That’s when it got interesting
Sometimes I’d stare at the ingredients I had on hand. I’d stare at the pan on the stove, then the spice rack.
I had cooked enough meals to know the basics. I could chop an onion without chopping my fingers. I could make rice and pasta and potatoes. I could saute vegetables to the level of tenderness I liked, and I could cook meat to an appropriate temperature.
All I had to do was figure out which familiar elements could be combined, and then decide how to season them.
Different regions of the world combine flavors in their own unique ways, but they’ve each figured out their own combinations of flavors that go well together. For example, most of us know that tomato sauce goes great with oregano and garlic. But how much of each? Or should it be basil instead of oregano? Both?
The answer is: Whatever sounds good
That’s the big reveal here. There are no wrong answers. Okay, okay, there might be a few, but stay with me for a minute.
If you’re cooking tomato sauce, for pasta, lean over and smell it. How does it smell? Now get out some dried basil from your spice cabinet and smell it too. Do the two smells make sense together? Want to put some in? Go for it. Or don’t — it’s totally up to you.
If you decide to go with the basil, stir it in and give it a minute, and then grab a spoon and taste a little. (Don’t burn yourself!) What do you think? More basil? What if you had some fresh basil on hand? How does it compare to the dried?
Maybe you’d rather switch to oregano instead. A little more salt? Maybe some cayenne pepper to give it some kick? Are you wondering what rosemary would do? Herbs and spices are what bring food to life.
Let’s pause here for a second though: Have you ever heard of putting mint in pasta sauce? Or curry powder? I haven’t.
There’s probably a good reason for that. I mean, maybe you’re a daredevil. Maybe you’ll come up with the newest Indo-Italian fusion craze, I dunno. However, if you’re just getting started with this, you might want to lean into the things we know go together.
The beauty of this approach is that you can do something different every time.
Next time you make pasta sauce, maybe you’ll leave out the ground beef and use Italian sausage instead. Sage and garlic might seem right. Or some smoked paprika.
Every time you cook, start learning the tastes and smells of everything in your spice rack. Learn what goes well together.
If you you’re craving something with an Indian flair, look to things like turmeric, cardamom, cloves, cumin, black pepper, and mustard seeds.
For a more East Asian flavor, get out the ginger, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, five spice powder, and sesame seed oil.
Mexican food often involves chili powder, cumin, oregano, cilantro, onions, black pepper and garlic.
Traditional Greek herbs and spices include parsley, dill, oregano, marjoram, and fennel
Middle Eastern foods might include cinnamon, cloves, coriander, nutmeg, and cumin.
Bottom line: Experiment.
Pick a protein, pick a region or style, do a quick internet search to see what flavors are traditionally used, and see where it leads you.
Alternatively, you could pick a type of cuisine you’ve never tried before and give it a go. If you’re not crazy about the result, think about what you would adjust to make it more appealing to your palate. Too much dill? Cut back next time. Not sweet enough? Add a dash of vinegar to brighten the flavor a bit. Want more heat? Grab the red pepper flakes. It’s your kitchen.
You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll start being able to pick out flavors in other people’s food. You’ll be able to identify what herbs and spices your favorite eatery — or your grandma — is using in that dish you like so much.
If you’re not quite up for totally winging it, start with a recipe you’re comfortable with, and make some minor changes. Read several different recipes for the same dish and see what they do differently. Use recipes as a starting point instead of scripture.
You’ve learned to operate your spice rack. Now what?
Now you can start thinking about vegetables. Onions go with almost everything, but not so with carrots. Corn and potatoes don’t often appear in Chinese cuisine, but snap peas and broccoli sure do.
Or maybe you want to play around with cooking techniques. What if you cooked that pork in the oven instead of the crock pot? Have you tried broccoli and cauliflower under the broiler? Maybe that kale is better braised with oil, salt and garlic than it is in your salad.
Starches are the least flexible.
If we’re going to talk about starches, let me start by saying you probably shouldn’t try this “wing it” approach with baking. If you haven’t heard the old saying “cooking is art, baking is science” now is the time to take heed. Certain things in the kitchen require precision. The two that come to mind are baking and canning. But in most other kitchen endeavors, you have a fair bit of flexibility.
So yes, it’s hard to improvise with bread. It’s also hard to improvise with pasta. What you put on or with the pasta is a different story, but the pasta itself is a fairly rigid process. It needs to be in hot liquid for a certain amount of time. Too little and it’s crunchy or sticks in your teeth. Too much and it’s mushy.
Likewise, rice is sensitive about how long it stays in water — and how much water you cook it in.
As starchy foods go, potatoes are incredibly versatile, but like rice and pasta, under-cooking them renders them fairly inedible.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re going to be cooking something starchy, get it started first. They all take a while. Save the creativity for after you’ve had some practice with other parts of your cuisine.
What if it all goes horribly wrong?
Once in college, I had a roommate who wanted to cook a hamburger patty from frozen. He thought to himself, “it’s icy cold, so the fix for that must be lots of heat in a hurry.” He put the frozen patty in a skillet on the stove top, and cranked the burner all the way up.
Of course what he ended up with was a hockey puck of frozen meat, encased in a charred exterior. But it was an important lesson to learn.
Once in a while you may have a culinary disaster. Way too much salt is going to be way too much salt no matter what you do. But with most missteps, you can still salvage whatever you’ve got.
If you get in trouble, go back to stage 1.
Assess what you have, and think about what you can do with it. Can you add more of something? Would it help to incorporate something new? Can you change direction?
The other day my 12-year-old son decided to make mac-and-cheese from a box. He boiled the pasta for the allotted time, and then dumped the milk, butter, and powdered cheese into the pot. He forgot to drain the pasta first. To him it was ruined, and he was taking it pretty hard.
I jumped in and tried to help him recover. We had cooked pasta in murky liquid, and no undo button. We dumped the liquid and added some shredded cheese to the pasta, along with some chili powder and cumin. It was not mac-and-cheese, but it was something. It was edible, and not entirely terrible. He was still disappointed, but felt a lot better about making something passable instead of throwing it all away.
This approach is more important than ever right now
With covid-19 coming onto the scene this year, many were caught off guard by the empty grocery shelves and shortages of common items. Most of us have never experienced this in our lifetimes. The idea that you can’t just run to the store and get more of whatever you want is a foreign concept to a lot of people.
Besides the shortages, things like social distancing and minimizing exposure are making a lot of us think twice about how badly we need to go to the store, or how long we can put it off.
As a result, people are much more conscious about minimizing food waste, using resources efficiently, and staying home as much as possible. Making do with what you have on hand and getting creative with how to keep your meals interesting seem like valuable skills to work on.
Start small, but start taking some chances. Start experimenting. Or, if it’s more your style, go all in and pretend you’re a contestant on one of those cooking shows. It’s your kitchen. Make the best of it.
