From the Kitchen; Reading a Recipe

More to the point I should say, how “I” read a recipe. You see very rarely do I read a recipe the way it is printed. I look at the pictures for meal ideas and then choose a recipe based on what ingredients they recommend or what ingredients I can substitute. That is because I am a visual person. (Read my last posting “Visualize This …” to understand what I mean by a visual person.) Show me what the finished dish is suppose to look like and I pretty much know how to go about making it. That is if I have all the ingredients or can make do with what I have on hand. So why do I use a recipe at all? Because there is lots of good information in any recipe, I just don’t feel that any recipe should be used as if it was written in stone. A recipe to me is a suggestion of ingredients, cooking times, and in some cases suggestions on what goes into the pot first.   

For an example I have selected a recipe for a Three-Minute Steak with Pineapple Relish from my Cooking Club Magazine. You can see a thinly sliced steak with relish sprinkled on one end and two side dishes on a plate. The recipe starts by telling you to have your butcher cut the steaks for you. What butcher do they mean? I buy my meat pre-wrapped and on sale. The only butcher I see is the guy who puts the meat out and in my store that would be a stock boy, sorry stock person. But back to the recipe, they then list all the ingredients for the relish and what ingredients to use when you marinate the meat. This is followed by step by step instructions on what to do with all the ingredients and how to cook the steak. This is a typical menu; right? However you still have to look at the picture to see what they suggest for sides and how to plate the steak to make it look appetizing.

 

 

Now let’s do it my way. First of all it is dinner time and I do not have the time or money to locate a butcher shop, find the butcher, then have him or her cut me two small pieces of meat. My wife is hungry now and demanding food. I do the only thing open to me; I locate my freezer, find the meat, and then I dig and chop out the two small pieces of meat on top. Notice how I did this all by myself, without the help of any butcher? What a guy. For the sake of this article let us assume the meat on top was a couple of pieces of frozen flank steak. So now that I have found my meat and while I am thawing it in the microwave, it is then that I take the time to glance through my Cooking Club Magazine until I find a recipe for the meat I am thawing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this case it is the Three-Minute Steak with Pineapple Relish I mentioned earlier. Since the accompanying picture shows suggested side dishes of mashed potatoes and something red. I am now in business.

 

Looking at the picture I see they show the relish sprinkled only on top of the meat. This means I can use this recipe on any type of meat, chicken, pork, fish, or even my all time favorite, hamburger. After all we be poor folks, and hamburger is our most important meal of the day; unless of course we can find us a hotdog or two. However I am thawing flank steak and since the recipe calls for steak, I’m cooking now. The recipe suggests I flavor or marinate the meat with oil and Worcestershire sauce. That way I do not have to oil the sauté pan when cooking the meat, but since the recipe calls for a Pineapple Relish I am thinking of substituting the suggested Worcestershire sauce for pineapple juice and oil instead. I think it will add more of the flavor my wife and I both like.      

 

Moving on to the relish I see that they want me to make enough relish to feed a small army. If you remember we are poor and not that wasteful. I am only feeding two people with an extra bite or two for Maggie May our owner and master mutt. I only need enough relish to fit into the palm of my hand. Maggie, our owner will not be getting any relish since she is on a diet anyway. Therefore in a bowl I put in only enough cut up pineapple to equal the amount I am going to need for this meal. All the other ingredients are for flavor so they will not add any balk to my relish. For that matter I use this “palm full per serving” method for almost everything I prepare. If I am making something like onions, peppers, potatoes, and corn or peas I cut up only enough of each so that when I mix them all together I have a hand full per serving. Lucky for me Maggie does not like anything but meat so I don’t have to make any of that stuff for her.

 

The rest is easy. Follow the instructions the recipe gives. Make the side dishes and try to figure out what that red stuff is behind the potatoes in the picture or what I have that is red. I think I will use canned stewed tomatoes since they go good with potatoes anyway. The only other tip I can give you is to line up all the ingredients you are planning to use in advance of starting to prepare your meal. That way you do not have to grab anything with wet sticky fingers. Remember to loosen or remove the tops from any bottles, jars, or cans. Or you could measure out needed ingredients in advance. Keeps you from playing that, Where is the *%#*%&^ stuff when I want it, game.

 

Cooking should be fun and let you use your creativity. It should not be a mechanical, I have to do everything they tell me to do thing. The first ingredient to go into your cooking pot should always be love and the enjoyment of a finely prepared meal. Maggie always loves any meat I cook and my wife enjoys almost anything I fix; as long as she doesn’t have to cook it herself. That alone makes me a great cook; in their eyes anyway.