Three Important Reasons You Can Change a Recipe
By: Julie Moreno
Tags: Learn To Cook, Food, Change, Adaptation, Cooking

On a lazy coronavirus Saturday, watching cooking shows on our local PBS station, America’s Test Kitchen aired a Tomato Gratin recipe in that week’s episode. With a garden full of tomatoes, and always a need for new recipes, I was excited to test out the recipe and share it in my weekly newsletter for our fresh-picked produce boxes.

But halfway through making the recipe, I diverted from the original directions.

America’s Test Kitchen goes to great lengths to make sure that their recipes are well tested and optimized for home cooks to recreate on their own.

I thought that if I was going to make changes to a recipe from a source, like that, I should be able to justify my reasoning for the difference.

But why?

All home cooks should feel comfortable changing a recipe.

Recipes are not a doctrine to be set in stone. Home cooks need to understand that they are permitted to make changes in any recipe even when they come from a reputable source.

(I’m not even touching on the fact that, thanks to the internet, anyone can publish a recipe. Be careful out on the web.)

Here are three factors that you should consider when cooking at home.

Your kitchen is different.

Most ovens and stovetops have their quirks and hot spots. And, on top of that, the output from your gas or electric range can vary from burner to burner, sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.

I rented for a very long time and got accustomed to cooking with bottom-of-the-line appliances. When I purchased my first home oven, I realized every oven is very different. It took me over a year to feel comfortable cooking some of my favorite dishes.

The convection was perfect for baking cookies, but cooking pizza crusts and roasting vegetables took adjustments with the rack positions and adjusting oven temperatures.

Be careful with all recipes until you make them successfully.

Your kitchen’s size and the equipment you have might not allow you to make everything exactly like the original recipe. If you don’t have an oven, can you cook it on the stovetop in a covered Dutch oven? If you don’t have a heavy bottom pot, something I lacked for years, you will need to change the burner temperature to get the same results.

You might not start with an equivalent kitchen, but you can still cook the same meal. Or maybe you will find an easier way to make something.

Overcome the challenge with a little improvisation.

Your ingredients are different.

Vegetables come in different sizes.

Your grains and beans might be more or less dry than the standard.

Meat will vary in fat and water content depending on the grade and if it was frozen or always fresh.

One year at the farm, all the cauliflower we grew was more than double the size from the store. I was translating every recipe from “one head” to equivalent cup measurements, so our customers could figure out how much to use.

Even though recipes have directions such as chop five carrots or three tomatoes, carrots and tomatoes come in different sizes. You can end up with vastly different amounts after chopping.

Now on the flip side, you can often include more or less of many ingredients and still end up with the same product. If you have five carrots, but the recipe calls for four, and you don’t have any plans for that last carrot, you can probably throw it in without any catastrophic results.

In addition to size, the quality of all ingredients can vary. In the tomato gratin recipe in question, I was using very ripe heirloom tomatoes, and I knew that they were much sweeter than any store-bought tomato, so I left out the added tablespoon of sugar.

Think about how your ingredients are different from the original recipe writer. It’s okay to substitute, but you need a plan.

Your tastes are different.

This one is a little more self-explanatory, but maybe the most important.

It’s why I like to cook and half the reason I became a chef. I am such a picky eater I want to cook things the way I want.

If you don’t like cilantro, leave it out. Don’t like spicy food, don’t add the red pepper flakes or the jalapeno. Everyone has different tastes, and while you want to know what an ingredient contributes before you take it away, you can make changes. You have to eat it.

In the gratin recipe, I realized that I don’t really like mushy bread. Especially after frying the bread in the first step of the procedure. (There is nothing better than fried bread.)

As I was snacking on freshly toasted cubes of sourdough, I realized that this dish was about soft and squishy bread. No matter how good my heirloom tomato sauce might be, I had no intention of soaking my crunchy croutons in the oven for 40 minutes.

You are your own chef.

Don’t be overwhelmed with the details. Cooking is the ultimate science project. And the best part, you get to eat your results.

Just like they say, if you make art, you are an artist, and if you write, you are a writer. If you cook, you are a chef.

You have the freedom and ability to create your own cooking world in your home.

Happy Cooking.