Aldo Zilli and Pasquale Amico in an unguarded moment. Photograph: Linda Nylind
Recipes. A lot of the links we pass around from blog to blog, a lot of the pages that make up out favourite foodie publications are recipes. TV chefs rely on everyone rushing out to buy their latest book to recreate the food porn they just witnessed being constructed; internet chefs will often just type in the ingredients and hope for a recipe to make magic out of their limp larders. We have been informed (by the people who want to sell us recipe books) that if we don't follow the recipe, it just won't come out right.
But today in G2, Glynn Christian argues that we mustn't consider ourselves slaves to the recipe. We should feel a little freer, and trust that maybe we know more than we think about what we're doing. So does the idea of deserting the recipe terrify you? Or is it par for the course(s)?
Of course, the basic hypothesis here isn't mean 'completely make things up as you go along' - it's about taking the things you do know about food and find out what works. and what doesn't. Like the time my friend wondered if she could combine her favourite things and make toad in the hole but with roast chicken. That didn't, for example. But about adapting and experimenting, but in ways that are more likely to turn out well.
The creative cook's formula is: "If a goes with b and b goes with c and c goes with d, a will go with d, but only with a bridge of something using b and c".
So hang on. I know that DOES make sense, but in my mind I immediately start thinking stupid things like 'if egg goes well with bacon and bacon goes really well with bread in a bacon butty and marmite sandwiches are nice, as are marmite and marmalade sandwiches, and marmalade is made of oranges and sugar. So it should be alright if I put sugar on my eggs as long as I also have a vegemite sandwich and some orange juice. No wait, I've gone wrong. And then you end up with chicken-in-a-hole.
So what about you lot? Are you tied to the page, measuring each gram and counting every lentil? Or are you free and easy, taking the recipe as a starting point and spinning off from there? Does that ALWAYS go right? Or are there times when one substitution too far has led to an inedible feast?
