Vegan Forum

I think in cooking as in science, philosophy and martial arts there are some fundamental principles or rules which can help us achieve better results when cooking without following a strict recipe.

Lets us try and formulate all this principles in this thread.

Well here is the first rule
1. Always try what you are cooking when you are cooking This way you will not forget to add salt when it's needed And you will be able to rescue the situation in time if it goes in wrong direction.

The first rule is: wash your hands before proceeding to cooking

The second rule: If you are following a recipe, make sure that you double check, or even triple check, that you included every ingredient that was listed. Accidently leaving out an ingredient that may seem small often leaves a big impact, and then you are stuck .

lunarflowermaiden wrote:The second rule: If you are following a recipe, make sure that you double check, or even triple check, that you included every ingredient that was listed. Accidently leaving out an ingredient that may seem small often leaves a big impact, and then you are stuck .

I was in a lot of situations when I've missed an ingredient or two, if you don't have those ingredients you should try to improvise. I often search the net for similar recipes and see if ingredients I'm missing can be replaced with something else, or even can be ignored.

Hmm, I've found that after a while, you know the sort of things that should go into your cooking, for example: some kind of fat, some kind of base (meat, soy, vegetable, chocolate), some kind of matrix (flour, tomatoes), some kind of liquid, something to flavour...? If you have a knowledge of the type of cuisine, you can sometimes find a suitable replacement if you've forgotton to buy an ingredient by thinking about what is readily available in that area?

BigBecka, it's a great idea! Can you group the ingredients that you know can replace each other in cooking?

Here is an important principle. Taste often what you prepare. To be successful you need feedback as in any other business.