>Chop up one big bunch of spring onions

>>8857188

>add a splash, dash, stash of 1 bunch of herbs

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>Use a thumb sized piece of ginger

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>>8857188
>following any recipe exactly, outside of baking, and expecting to get good results

>>8857339
But surely recipes are for people who don't know what they're doing so should be as accurate as possible?

>>8857481

The issue is that natural ingredients vary in potency and flavor so it's impossible to make a recipe accurate.

For example, suppose you are following a recipe that calls for "1 tsp of cayenne pepper". You get out your measuring spoon and you carefully measure out 1 tsp. However that doesn't account for the strength of the pepper you have. Do you have cheap McCormick bullshit that's basically just red-colored dust? You will need far more than 1 tsp. Do you have some really fresh ground pepper from India? That stuff could be hellishly hot and 1 tsp might be far too much.

You need to taste the ingredients and adjust seasoning based on what the foods taste like. Likewise cooking times might need to be adjusted because of your particular oven, cookware, or the size/shape of the food. The amount of liquid you use might need to be changed depending on how moist your ingredients are, and so on.

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>>8857188
>de-stem a sprig

>>8857339
This tbqh but fuck baking, shit's like chemistry

>add a handful of the brown stuff
what does this mean?

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>a good chunk off

>>8857515
>what does this mean?
I imagine it would be very obvious with context.

With no context it could be anything.

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>a cup

>>8857552

why you mad though? that seems simpler than writing out 237 mL. Or is the issue that you're too dumb to do that kind of conversion?

>>8857563
Everyone has a jug. Not everyone has varying cups. Haven't learnt the conversions yet either

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A big ole' dollop of mayonaise

>1 envelope of yeast

>>8857539
>off

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>sweat the vegetables in a saute pan

>>8857576
>Not everyone has varying cups

you don't need one. A "cup" is a standard unit of measure, equal to 237 mL or approximately 1/4 liter (250 mL). It's pretty easy to either eyeball, or to approximate with either Imperial or metric

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>activate one cup of almonds

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>add 6 cloves of garlic
>the biggest clove is larger than the six smallest ones combined

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>>8857481
>everybody shares the same sense of taste as the publisher of a recipe

>>8857495
This.

Following a recipe exactly is one of the surest ways of producing shitty food. A recipe is a guideline that you use to create a meal YOU enjoy based on the general profile of the recipe, and every recipe should include the phrase "or to taste" right next to every ingredient they list.

The only recipes you need to follow exactly are baking recipes, because chemistry is involved in the process, but even those may need tweaking due to the moisture and heat of your environment, and the individual profile of the flour you buy. For everything else, you adjust according to YOUR taste.

>>8857859
I feel like this is one if things you maybe take for granted because you've been doing it for a while though? That is, knowing the right amounts of things to put into a dish and being able to adjust it without fucking it up.

For a compete beginner. As in, someone who's never made something more advanced than beans in toast, its not that easy. If I don't follow a recipe completely my food always turns out complete shit because I just don't have the experience to know how to eyeball things or "season to taste". I want to get there though

>>8857515
Heroin you tard.

>>8857947
I think you're being perfectly reasonable - following recipes is a good way to start, particularly if you identify sites or chefs you like.

In terms of learning amounts and what to add, the trick is to constantly be trying what you are cooking (within reason) and taste/smell the raw ingredients as you add them, so you get a sense of what does what.

With seasoning just go a little at a time until it tastes good. You'll soon get a feel for how much each recipe needs.

>>8857947
>this is one if things you maybe take for granted because you've been doing it for a while though?

Of course.

If you have no one to take you buy the hand and show you how to cook, as a lot of people don't, it's something you just figure out for yourself, eventually, when the recipe you followed exactly is bland as fuck again.

>I just don't have the experience to know how to eyeball things or "season to taste".

Keep practicing and you'll get there.

The most important thing to remember is that it's not really about measurements as much as it is about ratio's. How much veg to protein, what ratio of veg compared to another, how much sauce compared to everything else, and this ratio also applies to your spices. Spices create a flavor profile, and there's always one spice that serves as the foundation, and you add to it by using a ratio of how much of the foundation you used.

So for my Indian profile, I use 2 parts cumin...because I LIKE cumin, and it serves as the foundation, then I add 1.5 parts coriander, 1 part cayenne, 1 part cinnamon, 1/2 part black pepper, 1/2 part cardamon, 1/4 part clove, 1/4 part fennel, 1/4 part turmeric, and damn near a 1/4 cup of garlic / ginger paste, plus chill's. It doesn't matter what I use to measure, as long as the ratio is close, and then I season as needed and salt to taste. I save any excess seasoning that I make for the next batch.

I use this approach with every recipe and sometimes add shit, or remove it, and it always turns out good. You can mix it all together and taste it yourself, and experiment with adding or removing shit to get a better feel for it.

Good luck.

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>bring water to a boil
>add noodles

>>8858066
Thanks for the explanation mate. The ratio thing makes lot of sense. Guess I've been treating it like its chemistry or something. I never usually taste as I'm cooking so I'll have to start and messing round with spices. You ever read any books on cooking or is this all just from experimenting?

>>8858081
I put the noodles in right away. Why is one way better than the other? Just curious.

>>8858107
>You ever read any books on cooking or is this all just from experimenting?

I've read books and followed recipes exactly, but they usually turned out bland as fuck, with not enough sauce, with too much sauce, or with a protein to veg ratio that I just didn't like, and it's all because we're all different and have different tastes. I regularly eat 1 or 2 habanero's in my meals, and have no problems adding a tablespoon, or more, of minced garlic to my meals as they cook, but that would overpower a lot of people. So after watching a bunch of cooking vids from pro's that NEVER measure anything, and realizing that those assholes use almost twice as much as they claim, I stopped worrying about measuring shit and started using simple ratios based on the spice foundation I wanted to create from the recipe.

So now when I add the spice, I just grab whatever spoon, and start out with however many spoonfuls I need for the foundation, and then just work down from there using a simple ratio from the base spice. Then simply season it with salt to highlight the flavors, and add anything that you want to bring out more of the flavor of as needed.

It just takes takes practice.

Whip up a basic tomato sauce: 2 parts chopped tomato, 1 part chopped onion, 2-3 cloves of garlic. Carmelize the onion, add garlic in a clear spot and cook till fragrant, then add the tomato, and practice seasoning it with various profiles. Then use the sauce on eggs, chicken, beef, pork, whatever. That should give you the general idea, and the confidence to fuck with other shit.

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>I measure my ingredients with a scale for maximum accuracy.
>Their recipe rounds to the nearest 50 grams for everything.

>>8857339
Tbh I've found most baking recipes can be modified a little and still turn out good
It's not like leaving out one Mg will destroy a cake

>>8858826
Agree.

However, there is a huge difference between using measuring cups for baking and using measuring spoons for basic cooking. 1 heaping teaspoon of black pepper isn't going to be much different than one leveled teaspoon, but it'll make a pretty big difference in baking between a leveled vs. heaping cup of flour.

Baking is the only time I pull out the scale, as I've had the best results when I do.

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PAN

NICE AND HOT

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>add salt and pepper to taste

>>8858423
>__ cups of flour

what's most annoying is when recipes like this are written by """"""chefs""""""

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My onions are fucking retarded this year.
I would like an explanation from china.

>>8858826
>cake
Cake is barely baking tbqh, you can't fuck it up.

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>use fresh ingredients

>>8857705
it means soak them

>use an inch of ginger

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>add a sprig of fresh basil/thyme/oregano

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>one half-quarter yard of figs
>three seventeenths of a cup of kosher salt
>five furlongs of spammed cans
>a stone of minced beef
>three eights of a hectare of apples
>a pinch of vanilla
>eyeball the temperature and time it for six fifteenths of an hour on medium-low-high-medium
>season with an inch of pinched mince
>gently brown until boiling

>three noses of smell
>six feet tall

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>add a fist full of egg whites
>and a baby fist of butter

I'm a fairly new line cook in a decent restaraunt and I used to have the same problem most of you are mentioning about the vague descriptions of what to add but as >>8858066 very accurately pointed out you will get it and it's not an exact science.
That being said it drives me crazy when you watch or read almost ANY guide to Indian cooking at one point they say "then add your spice mix" with no explanation to what they are using. I get they are using their own masala but if your new to cooking, especially Indian, that is just the most annoying thing to read.

>>8860111
Oh yeah, because the amount of salt doesn't vary wildly depending on how you source your ingredients. Fuck actually using your brain and tastebuds, there's a one-size-fits-all amount of salt for you. It'll totally work the same if your beans have 40 mg of sodium per serving or 400.

>>8862944
>fresh
triggered

>>8857718
I take whatever amount of garlic they suggest and basically double it.

>>8862962
>3/8 of a hectare of apples
>hectare = 100m X 100m
>10000 square meters x 3/8
>3750 square meters of apples

Jesus Christ, anon.

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>>8865010
and then we tripled it

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>just a titch of spice
>add a smidgen of salt

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>add your favorite toppings

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>>8857188

>marinate for 45 minutes
>for best results, marinate overnight

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>bake until done

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>Leave to ferment for 48 hours
>For best results leave for 5 years

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>my oven
>attempting to follow any guidelines for how long something should be baked

I didn't realize my oven was powered by a fucking nuke.

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>nice and slow

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>give your meat a good old rub

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>add one handful of basil