• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    It’s funny that smelling the spices and the food as I cook it to see if they’ll go well together is my main method of figuring out which spices to use.

  • Agent641@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    “Measure carefully, friends!” - Chef Jean Pierre on YouTube as he yeets in approximately random eyeballed quantities of everything.

  • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Why yes, I do put a little cayenne pepper in my chicken soup. Why do you ask?

  • ulterno@programming.dev
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    3 days ago

    Powdered spices specially, by the time you open the lid, you have already smelled it.

    Don’t even need to try.

  • kerrigan778@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I’m pretty sure most cooks use spices according to their internal feelings on what contexts the spices work well in. Basically the smell test except they have enough experience with the spice already to just do it in their head. Pretty sure this isn’t that unusual.

    • Classy@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      That’s me when my family wants me to whip up a random pasta lunch. Hmm, mulled black peppercorn and garlic? A bit of paprika? Tomato paste, oh now it definitely needs oregano.

      Shit, I’m just making pasta alla vodka again.

    • Glasgow@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      The human sensory experience is much more varied and foreign to your own than you think. Some can combine flavours in their head, others couldn’t explain a flavour they eat daily unless it was in their mouths at the time.

      I’m in the latter group but a supertaster and can tell what it’s missing with a spoonful usually. Couldn’t tell you what the result will taste like but know it’s lacking salt, cumin, herbs, etc. Wee sniff of what you’re going to add as you swallow to confirm.

      • filcuk@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Amount is the experience part. Hard, if not impossible, to estimate by smell alone.

  • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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    4 days ago

    Blindly following recipes I will never get. How can you be comfortable with depending on a stranger’s whims for what you eat ?

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        I take a look and say that might be interesting, then realize I have zero of those ingredients so I make something completely different that might be reminiscent of the food I wanted.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 days ago

            And why I marinaded pork chops in frozen mixed berries that were sitting in my freezer for idk how long last night so the acid could break down and make the meat more tender. Will it end up okay? I have no idea… But I’ll find out in a couple hours when I make dinner haha

        • Classy@sh.itjust.works
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          3 days ago

          I had haddock, white wine and gala apples once, and asked ChatGPT to make me a slow cooker recipe. The results were… Surprisingly not bad. I don’t think I’ll ever do it again though.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      3 days ago

      I usually try to stick reasonably closely to the recipe the first time I’m trying something out. That way if I don’t like the result, I know it’s not just that I ruined the recipe with my modifications.

    • gerryflap@feddit.nl
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      3 days ago

      I don’t do it, because I usually get confused by them, but it makes sense to me. I don’t know what will taste good, and by following a recipe you can leverage someone’s experience to get something that tastes good. Personally I just accept that I often eat something mid in the pursuit of good cooking skills

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      Especially when there are so many absolute garbage recipes by people whose jobs are writing content for magazines or SEO where the only requirement is that the picture of the food look good and selling weird kitchen instruments.

      Which is slightly better than our parents learning on recipes designed to use as many ingredients sold by Campbells as possible.

      95% of recipes floating around these days just fundamentally misunderstand the dish they’re trying to create, like 3/4

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      I almost always follow a new recipe the first time around to understand what the dish is generally supposed to be. After that, I start riffing off of it to make it what I want it to be. But you gotta know which general direction the dish was originally headed before you can successfully play with it if you’re a Home Gamer in the kitchen.

    • Bob@feddit.nl
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      3 days ago

      I think that’s why some people “can’t cook”. They treat a dish like a magic potion, where you’ll destroy the house if you add 2g too much chilli or something.

    • groet@infosec.pub
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      3 days ago

      Ever been to a restaurant, ate a meal cooked by somebody other than yourself? Pre-made frozen meal? Fast food?

      Dont want to sound mean or anything but most people are comfortable with having somebody else prepare a meal, so why is it different when you prepare it but somebody else tells you how to do it?