Most experienced cooks add their own personal touches to familiar recipes rather than following them to the letter. Improvising in the kitchen can be a fun creative outlet and creating personalized dishes can be very rewarding. Here are a few tips to get started:
Know the Basics
It’s important to know some basic techniques before branching out and cooking without the help of recipes. Grilling, roasting, baking, sautéing and braising are all cooking methods that once learned, can be adapted to suit a variety of dishes. Become very familiar with some basic recipes that can easily be built upon with personal touches. Some foundation recipes that lend themselves to variations include: roast chicken, omelets/frittatas, tomato sauce, béchamel sauce, pastry, muffins, bread, rice, pancakes and stir-fries. Author Pam Anderson’s book How to Cook Without a Book: Recipes and Techniques Every Cook Should Know by Heart is a useful primer for cooks looking to expand their culinary creativity.
Start Simple
Once a cook is familiar with some basic recipes, it’s easy to start making small changes. For example, a béchamel sauce can be flavoured with cheese to make mac and cheese. From there, herbs, peppers, vegetables or meat can be added to create a whole new dish. Likewise, a plain omelet can be dressed up with the simple addition of cheese or vegetables. Start with classic additions and gradually branch out to try more unusual flavour combinations. A roast chicken can be seasoned with herbs, leeks and wine to give it a French flair one week and glazed with teriyaki sauce and served with rice for an Asian meal the next.
Pay Attention to Flavours
Making changes to recipes requires knowing what flavours work together. Some combinations are classic – tomato and basil, for example – because they taste delicious. Pay close attention when eating at restaurants to see what flavour combinations the chef is using and how they work in harmony. An excellent guide to food pairings is The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs, by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. The authors detail dozens of ingredients from achiote seeds to zucchini blossoms and list the best flavor matches for each ingredient. It is an invaluable resource for cooks, especially when working with unfamiliar ingredients.
Baking
Baking can be trickier for improvisational cooks because it’s more of an exact science. The ingredients need to work together to create the chemical reactions that help bread rise or make pastry flakey and tender. However, once the basic proportions of ingredients are established, the creativity can begin; a basic muffin recipe can be adapted to incorporate everything from carrots and spices to blueberries with lemon. Michael Ruhlman’s book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking breaks down recipes for baked goods and sauces to their proportions, providing the framework upon which cooks can build their own unique creations. For example, cookie dough is composed of one part sugar, two parts fat and three parts flour – from there bakers can add their own special touches.
Keep Notes
Keeping a small journal of ideas and notes about variations that work (and those that don’t) can be helpful, especially when trying to re-create a particularly successful dish.
Relax and Have Fun
Even the world’s greatest chefs sometimes make dishes that are disappointing so don’t get discouraged if something doesn’t work out. As a cook, it is very rewarding when guests compliment a unique and delicious creation that didn’t come from a cookbook so have fun and enjoy the creative process!
Trish Coleman - Trish grew up in a small town in New Brunswick, Canada and her family ate fresh home cooked meals every night. Her family grew most of ...
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