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How do you guys cook without recipes? I want to learn to cook (24 years old, pathetic) but it's so overwhelming to try to go in blind.
Like for example yesterday my parents ordered stuff from Blue Apron and I cooked it (it was fried catfish fillets with paella), and it wasn't hard at all to do because they provided the recipe for it, but there would be do way I would have knows how to make the paella in the recipe by memory.
It seems like if you want to cook something, you should need to have a recipe for it, like every time.
Pity nobody's invented some kind of global information system on which nearly the total sum of all recipes known to man are accumulated and freely available, huh.
>>7535373
That's not what I said you condescending prick. I said I don't understand how people can just know how to make a whole bunch of stuff seemingly by memory, like all the people on here. They don't need recipes they can just do shit. Pull ways to make meals out of their ass
>>7535379
Food tastes good
If you put some foods together it can taste better
It doesn't take a genius to figure out what those combinations are, we have all eaten literally thousands of meals involving combinations of flavours
Now you've figured out what ingredients to use, it's just a matter of knowing how to cook them, which is straightforward
But c'mon, you think people just imagine new recipes on the spot every single meal? 99% of what people cook is just variants on other common dishes that ARE available in memory.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/chefs/alton-brown/recipes.mostpopular.page-1.html
Alton Browne is class
>>7535379
Because when you've cooked and experimented after a while you know what goes well together in what amounts.
Repetition and experience will go a very long way
To have a concept of a food you inherently have an concept of what might be involved
For instance, I have never made paella. I have never eaten paella. But I could have a fair guess, simply from knowing what paella is. Fry up some protein and aromatics, cook rice with stock and saffron, add seafood and cook through. My complete lack of research might result in a mediocre meal, but it certainly satisfies my mental model of the intended foodstuff.
>>7535364
People learn how to cook from memory after making the same dish a million times.
Pick a dish that you like and make it a couple of times, bam! You can now cook it without a recipe.. I recommend watching someone who knows how to cook (mom or grandma?) and learning some of their recipes. It's just practice.
Dishes with few ingredients are easier to remember. E.g. soups, sauces, which all revolve around a key ingredient with added spices, like tomato sauce or potato and leek soup.
>>7535429
A couple of times? Nig, you should remember after just once
Remembering ingredients and methods isn't like remembering numbers, it's a visceral sensory experience both in the cooking and in the eating. You don't have to deliberately commit it to memory, your brain will figure that stuff out.
>>7535364
Okay, you obviously learn a few recipes simply by repetition, but cooking without them is really easy.
What does a basic but well-rounded and not unhealthy meal need? Some carbohydrates, protein, vegetables.
Basically, pick and mix: (Rice, potatoes, noodles, ...) x (chicken, pork, beef, fish, ...) (tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots, spinach, kale, onions, ...).
If you cook a few times, follow a few recipes, experiment and aren't afraid to try something new, you'll quickly get a feeling for what fits together and what doesn't.
I mean, sure, if you want to use rare and exotic ingredients you will have to look up a recipe, but a basic meal for dinner? That's not that difficult.
Experience.
Seriously just cook, some people had the good fortune of standing in the kitchen and helping parents/relatives cook, they have a head start. If you did not have that, use recipes at first.
Cook a lot, buying prepared food is a waste, if you have the time to cook.
After you have done a recipe a couple times, experiment, change it a little, change the process, pretend you don't have one of the primary ingredients and substitute.
You will make some awful crap while learning, that's okay. Just remember what you did wrong, don't be afraid to eat your mistakes (assuming food safety) and analyze them to see what went wrong.
Use your leftovers, don't just reheat them, get creative.
Most important, when you have kids, get them in the kitchen with you so they don't have to struggle through this.
>>7535475
>when you have kids
this is 4chan
>>7535480
>I haven't made ANYTHING with beef in over a year because of that.
Spaghetti Meatballs
Pick a random recipe, go out tomorrow, buy the ingredients, cook it, eat it.
>>7535503
>I've never liked meatballs honestly.
Experiment with it until you like it. Stuff them with mozarella. Or with bacon bits.
>And usually what I do is I am just subscribed to a bunch of food sites I like. (Budgetbytes, kitchn, etc) and whenever something good comes in, I make it. OP, I recommend doing that. It's good shit.
I do that too. /ck/, various youtube channels, a cooking multireddit. Enough to give me ideas or the motivation to try something new.
>>7535425
The paella I made was actually just rice, peas, a premade "paella spice" mix, scallions, a can of tomato sauce and water
>>7535364
Cooking food is primarily an understanding of ingredients. If you know what happens to the flavor and texture of onions in 10 different settings, then you will understand how to use onion almost anywhere to get the desired effect.
I'd recommend studying recipes in order to learn how to cook without them. Whenever I cook something new, I look at a few recipes for the same thing, figure out which ingredients I should include that I might have neglected without a recipe, and take portions from each that I like. Sometimes I'll scribble a little note to remind me which ingredients are going where in a complicated dish. But mostly it comes down to a type of logic that is shared across dishes and across cuisines.
If you study different recipes, you'll begin to see patterns. For instance, a huge amount of recipes will begin with onions being sauted. The idea here is simple, though it requires a little knowledge upfront- how high do you want the heat, how long do you cook the onions for, and how much fat should be in the pan? But the main thing to know is just what result you're looking for, and you can always adjust time, heat, etc as you go. Generally you want the onions to become translucent. Then you can add other vegetables and such.
Sometimes a recipe will say something like "add 1 tablespoon of fat and heat" before you begin cooking. This kind of instruction is generally not very important- you know that you'll need fat in your pan to allow fooder to sizzle and not stick, rather than just turning into a hard black crust.
Your senses are important, use all of them when you cook. Feel that the pan is hot before you add your meat, and listen for it to sizzle when you add it. Meat should always be nicely-browned. This is another example of understanding your ingredients.
Look at recipes and read about different cuisines, and you will learn a lot. Pay attention to the role of each ingredient and when it is added.
>>7535364
You figure out the basics of how recipes work, and what goes well together. Then you make your own.
>>7535705
Cont.
You want your food to hit the pan and react. I have a roommate who adds all the food to the pan and then heats it up. Generally this will result in very bland food, similar to if you had microwaved it. Cooking in a pan allows foods to brown or char a little bit and take on a much greater depth of flavor. While cooking is very important to developing your skills, I'd say that the act of cooking is largely the application of knowledge, and a great deal of that knowledge will come from reading recipes. Totally experimenting and figuring out what works is probably a little more advanced than where you're at. But approach it from different angles. When they tell you to add the tomato sauce neat the end of the cooking, ask yourself why. And think on the nature of tomato sauce. It's sweet, yet it's acidic, and it's liquidy, but it's also thick. Water will evaporate when it's hot enough, and liquid water does not pass 100C. These characteristics are essential to understand. When you study food, look at recipes, but make ingredients your focus. Perhaps look up a variety of recipes for one particular ingredient. And do not hesitate to research the ingredient and even learn what its constituents are. Read ingredients lists of foods that you purchase. Be willing to learn constantly and it will not be a difficult task.
In the vein of paying attention to recipes, pay attention to temperatures and learn what happens at different ones.
Ovens generally default to 350 of you just hit bake without being specific. There is a reason for that.
A lot of sugars, including glucose, start to Caramelize at 320, but some of the results of those reactions caramelize further at around 360.
That puts you into golden brown and delicious without overreaching into black and bitter.
Also, now that I said that, get an oven thermometer. The temp it says it is at and the temp it is really at can be very different things, which can cause you issues, especially when you are still in the "following recipe" stage of learning.
>>7535364
it's all about knowledge and experience. you can't make that up. means, you will make mistakes.
don't be mad about your paella, this is one of the more complicated dishes. at least the mediterranean paella. with oranges, chicken, pork, shrimps, squid and so on.
>>7535429
I don't know, Anon. To me, memorising a recipe != knowing how to cook.
>>7535364
Do you know what intuition is? People think it's some innate ability, but that's not true. Like all skills, culinary intuition comes with practise and experience. Of course, some have a natural talent for understanding how to recreate a dish after trying it once and/or improve a dish that's missing a certain something, but knowing how to cook something without using a recipe is no more a mystical ability than any other skill.
Basically, the best way to learn it is to do it. The only problem is "where to start?" Well, watch a comprehensive cooking show or two and try /the techniques/ you see (not necessarily the dishes/recipes). Then practise, practise, practise. Just like riding a bike, something eventually just 'clicks.'
It's kinda odd, by the way, that you mention paella as I made my first one just a couple months back. No recipe. Just putting what I remember goes in every vegetable paella I've ever had, ever. Had it perfect my first go.
>>7535364
Purchase "The Kitchen Matrix" by Mark Bittman, it will help you put things together
Not OP, but adding to his question.
Any TV shows, or YouTube Channels I should watch get the basics down?
>>7535364
I just rely on what I've learned on how to cook individual food items and then combine them
That's how all cooking works
>>7535997
He didn't make paella, just rice with peas.
>>7535364
>How do you guys cook without recipes?
A recipe is a sum of parts.
Can you make a roux? A bechamel?
What is mirepoix? Or the cajun Holy Trinity? What are they used in?
Do you know what temperature meats should be cooked to?
What's the smoke point of olive oil? Canola?
How do you attain the Maillard reaction on flesh?
Should you put sugary sauces near high heats for an extended period of time?
What happens when you cook onions over very high heat? Over low heat? What about eggs?
What is braising? When should I use it?
About how long would it take 4 pounds of pork shoulder to cook and be tender? What temperature am I shooting for?
There are many things that you learn from following a recipe for the first time. I know the answers to all of these questions off the top of my head, and I suspect many people here know them, too.
Once you understand the basics of a dish, you can apply them piecemeal to other dishes with other ingredients.
>>7536333
I wasn't trying to boast. Such a thing would be silly on an anonymous imageboard.
I merely wanted to make the point that there is lots of knowledge to be had in cooking that you simply must learn firsthand and remember.
Why did you even bother with that patronizing comment?
>>7536326
>Maillard reaction
get a load of this dingus throwing around words he barely understands
>>7536350
Am I supposed to justify to you somehow that I have a passing knowledge of the uses and mechanisms behind the Maillard reaction?
What was the point of this post?
>>7536362
>What was the point of this post?
To suggest that maybe you shouldn't act like a pretentious shit in the future.
>>7536368
I'll act however I goddamn well please, thank you very much.
>>7536368
>mentioning the Maillard reaction is pretentious
It's this sort of mentality that is fucking up society in general. A culture of "don't-ever-seem-like-you're-giving-an-effort".
>>7536380
>You are a cunt but you are not wrong.
Story of my fucking life.
Luckily, a tech company was willing to deal with my cuntiness, so now they pay me fucktons of money because I'm usually right.
>>7536385
what's that, another 4channer working in software engineering making over 100k a year? this time on the cooking board?
gee, you dont say.
>>7536395
Less than $100k.
Database architecture.
