[geeks] Poaching an Egg

[Nadine Miller]

On Sep 2, 2008, at 3:24 PM, Rick Hamell wrote:
>
> True. I guess having grown up on a farm and learning to cook from  
> the grandparents might have colored my cooking experience and  
> abilities. Family recipes passed down verbally do not have any  
> precise instructions, and still taste fine after 30+ years of making  
> them. Even now when I see something like x amount of y, I just  
> eyeball it and toss it in, which has irritated and driven many an ex  
> out of the kitchen when I was cooking.
>
> Anecdotal; I had some friends who were of the Odd Couple type. One  
> cooked the same way I do. The other was really anal about it. We  
> measured out the ingredients each used for the same set of recipes  
> and found that the friend who eyeballed it was 90% of the time  
> exactly right on measurements. The rest of the time it was a pretty  
> minuscule difference.

I tend to do my cooking the same way, but I'm not (much of) a baker,  
nor do I cook in quantities large enough where variance in  
measurements is going to have a significant impact on the acceptance  
of the food.  The other half is just happy to have someone else  
cooking.  I'm more critical of my "experiments" than other people are,  
generally.

IMO, getting things cooked with the least amount of hassle is more  
important than the method by which the recipe is measured.  So, for  
me, that means "eyeballing it", since it's faster.

As far as recipes go, about the only one I follow with any real eye to  
the details is my mom's lasagna recipe, and even it's been modified to  
fit our preferences.  Other recipes I pick because they seem like good  
combinations of tastes we like.  If there are comments on the recipe  
site, I generally take those into account and may modify the recipe in  
similar ways, or after tasting, to change it to suit what we like  
more.  I don't do a lot of repeats because a) I am easily bored, b)  
pretty critical of my own cooking.

My biggest problem in my experiments (and that'd cover the majority of  
what I cook) is what I'd term a lack of "depth" or "complexity" to the  
flavors.  I'm still working out what that means exactly and how to  
remedy it in a given recipe.

=Nadine=