Weekend Ramble: The Evolution of Good Recipes

Not every recipe you find on my blog is my own creation. Like every other chef and cook, I peruse the internet for fun ideas. Sometimes I will come across a really fine dish and won't change a thing about it. Those recipes give credit to the original chef. Most of the time, though, recipes from others will need tweaking in order to make them our own. In those instances I will still acknowledge that the recipe was "adapted" or I was "inspired by" the original creator. 

Chef Jacques Pepin even encourages us to use his work as a mere starting block and not be afraid to change things up in order to allow our own flavor pallet to shine. I'm sure he is proud of his creations, as he very well should be, but the recipe, he insists, is not so much about the individual chef, but rather about the food itself. We all have different taste buds, so modifying any given recipe to your own liking should be the norm.

Be that as it may, I still do my best to give credit where credit is due.

Now let's get into the actual evolution of any given recipe, be it original or adapted. I never try to "remember" things I want to change on any given recipe... ;-) After countless times of forgetting, I have found that putting things in writing actually works! LOL To that end, after making a new dish for the first time, Carolyn and I kick around the recipe after the meal for needed modifications. Changes are then made in my recipe file online, usually in a different color so they're easily identified the next time I make the dish. We'll do this same process as often as it takes to get the recipe just right... for us. ;-)

In a nutshell... never be afraid to make a dish your own, even if you got the recipe at hand from a famous chef. Chef Pepin insists that recipes are not about the cook, but rather the cooking. Nice... right? :-)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Have a great week, everyone, and thank you for your support!

Blessed be… and happy cooking!

                                                            Chef Michael R