How Do You Develop Your Recipes?

[The Late Night Gourmet]

I think this question must have been posted before (maybe even by me?) but I can't find it, so here it is (maybe again).

I'm thinking about this because, after falling away for a few months, I have my cooking mojo back. I realized that the essence of how I develop a recipe isn't so much about where I go to look for ideas: it starts before that, when I'm building a recipe. There are always going to be times when I have to grind out a recipe just so I have something decent to eat. There are always going to be times when I am meeting a cooking obligation of some kind. And, I will always find amazing things that I've eaten that I want to duplicate.

But, for the most part, I start thinking of ingredients and how they might go together, techniques and how they might or might not work, and whether or not I want to be really adventurous.

 

[Herbie]

I cant pick one option from that list.

I see a recipe that looks good, and I modify it
My food has to be gluten free and if I'm eating it dairy free and mostly meat free, so I often adapt dishes.

I decide "I'm in the mood for (cuisine or style)", and I search for recipes to provide inspiration.


I often do this if I'm trying out a new cuisine or want to expand my repertoire of a cuisine from which I already cook some dishes. I go through stages of curries or Chinese food as I tend to stock up from the local specialist shops and so have a lot of food to cook.

I see something on sale, buy a bunch of it, then look for recipe ideas that feature it.
Especially if I see something I've never cooked before but also is something is in season and plentiful.


I just wing it...whatever happens, happens!
I did this to night. Usually I look at leftover veg and make a soup/curry/stirfry/fried-rice/pasta-bake. I call this 'concoction'!

Other - I learn first hand from other home cooks, esp. other cuisines.
I do like to learn from people familiar with a cuisine rather than a celebrity cook so I get a more authentic technique. I can adapt from there as all home cooks do.

 

[rascal]

I have lots of food here either in the freezer or tinned. I make what I feel like. Or order in takeaway.

Russ

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I mostly adapt other recipes that look good, but (sometimes radically ) adapt to them our tastes. But I have been known to also just wing it, see what transpires and then adapt and amend as needed. Usually it is seeing something that looks good and taking it from there. ..

 

[detroitdad]

should allow multiple votes. I would have voted for 2, 3. and 4.

 

[Morning Glory]

Yes - difficult to pick one. I've done all the above on occasions. But the thing I do most often is work round one ingredient so I ticked:
'I see something on sale, buy a bunch of it, then look for recipe ideas that feature it'. For example I just had to by some baby pink soft leaved radicchio recently - it is so pretty. And recently @medtran49 mentioned fennel pollen - so I had to by some of that.

But the other way with one ingredient is via the Recipe Challenge on CookingBites and that has now become the most often way I develop recipes. I've really found its inspirational to take one simple ingredient and then research and experiment with really exploiting it in original ways. Flavour combinations feature high in this process and I frequently use a marvellous book 'the Flavour Thesaurus' which analyses and explains the flavour of individual different foods and other flavours which work with them.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

But the other way with one ingredient is via the Recipe Challenge on CookingBites and that has now become the most often way I develop recipes.

Thanks for mentioning this. When I started writing the thread, I thought about adding this - I've found myself driven to make things entirely because I rise to the challenge - but I got distracted and forgot about it.

By the way, do you know if it's possible to set up a poll with multiple picks? I wanted to do this here, but I couldn't figure out how.

 

[Morning Glory]

Thanks for mentioning this. When I started writing the thread, I thought about adding this - I've found myself driven to make things entirely because I rise to the challenge - but I got distracted and forgot about it.

By the way, do you know if it's possible to set up a poll with multiple picks? I wanted to do this here, but I couldn't figure out how.

You can, yes. Just select the last option under 'Maximum Selectable Responses' and as many choices as you wish. You should be able to edit your poll to allow this by clicking on the little green 'edit' - top right of your poll.

 

[medtran49]

Pretty much all of the choices for me, so I picked other. And the challenges and cook alongs have reminded me of things we haven't cooked in a long while or of things that I've wanted to cook but have never gotten around to doing it, like Parisian gnocchi to name a recent one.

 

[Karen W]

Almost all of the above. Sometimes I'll tweak a receipe to my own taste, or use ingredients I like, or have on hand. Sometimes, I look at several recipes & combine ideas, or wing it, or come up with my own creations/ideas. Seasonal ingredients, like produce, are inspirational as well.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

Okay...I've modified the poll to allow multiple choices! Please re-pick, if you like.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Okay...I've modified the poll to allow multiple choices! Please re-pick, if you like.

My vote had duly been updated.