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.
"Measure carefully, friends!" - Chef Jean Pierre on YouTube as he yeets in approximately random eyeballed quantities of everything.
Black bunny gang
Why yes, I do put a little cayenne pepper in my chicken soup. Why do you ask?
If it doesn't clear my sinuses completely how is it supposed to cure me? Of course it needs cayenne.
Cayenne goes on everything
That's Frank's
Isn't this normal?
Only for advanced pros
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.
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.
Tbf, pasta alla vodka is really never a bad choice.
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.
I have a very sensitive sense of smell, and I still can't do it. I'll always add too much or not enough.
I can't even smell anything well, my taste is very weak, but I know what my kids respond to, and after several years I have a good sense of how much of any spice will work.
Amount is the experience part. Hard, if not impossible, to estimate by smell alone.
I'm the rabbit. I also do a lot of tasting.
You may scream now.
Tasting is how you're supposed to do it.
I however just start throwing shit in and wait for the surprise at the end.
All cooking is vibes based.
It's baking where you've got to plan it out like d-day.
Is this an adhd meme?
Not really it's a "able to cook" meme
If you aren't cooking by vibe, are you really living?
Baking on the other hand...
Blindly following recipes I will never get. How can you be comfortable with depending on a stranger's whims for what you eat ?
I give them one try and the next time I do it my way.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
Wait until OP discovers that spices don't always taste like they smell...
"Can you share the recipe?"
"Nope!"
"Seriously?"
"Seriously, I don't remember."
Post memes here.
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Laittakaa meemejä tänne.
