Mastering The Art Of Cooking With Template Recipes

Like most people, when I was learning to cook I was a slave to recipes. While it was a good way to start learning different techniques and ingredients, it did have some frustrating limitations.

Like what happens when you can’t buy a particular ingredient? And what do you do with that leftover half bunch of herbs? Or jar of sauce?

Or worse still, what do you do when you need to cook something but don’t have the luxury of time to pour over recipes and go shopping for exotic ingredients?

Over the years, with a lot of trial and error, I began to learn to cook more instinctively, on my own. Without other people’s recipes.

In my head, without really being conscious of what I was doing, I started thinking of recipes in general terms rather than specific ingredients.

From there I developed a collection of starting point or ‘template recipes’. So whenever I walked into the kitchen and looked into the fridge to figure out what to cook, I had a head start.

I knew what had worked before to make that soup or stir fry and could use that knowledge as a springboard for a new dish or meal.

Why use template recipes?

Template recipes provide a stepping stone or ‘training wheels’ to help you take the first steps to freedom from recipes.

They’re designed to give you some support and structure while also providing plenty of ideas to get you started.

At the same time they are there to encourage you to think for yourself. To try new things. To experiment and develop your own recipes and style.

8 tips to mastering the art of cooking with template recipes

1. Trust your instincts
The one thing I wished I realised earlier was that even if you don’t have much experience as a cook, all those years of eating three or so meals a day mean that we all have an amazing natural catalogue of food knowledge in our heads.

So please don’t underestimate your natural food instincts. After all, you’ve been eating for a long time. If you think something is going to be delicious, trust yourself, it probably will be.

I can honestly say, there aren’t many times that I think of trying something and it ends up not working. 90% of the time it ends up even better than I could imagine.

2. Pay attention to the classic flavour combinations.
There’s a whole wealth of food knowledge out there. So there’s no need to go reinventing the ‘flavour’ wheel each time you step into the kitchen. Some examples include bacon and eggs, tomato and basil, goats cheese and beetroot, fish and lemon, chocolate and hazelnuts, honey and almond, apple and cinnamon… You get the idea.

Whenever you’re eating and come across a good flavour combo, make a mental note.

3. Start with less.
Remember in cooking it’s always easy to add more than it is to take away. By focusing on starting with less ingredients or less courses you give yourself a chance to get it right and then build on your success.

4. Read the whole recipe before you start, including the variations.
In the kitchen it’s super important to know where you’re heading and how you’re going to get there. With template recipes this is even more important because you’re in charge. You’re not blindly following the recipe. You’re going to need to take control and make some decisions. To be the chef.

5. Develop a ‘vision’ or picture of the end dish in your mind before you start cooking.
You need to know where you’re going to get there with the least amount of hassle and fuss. So after you read the template recipe it’s important to decide which variation or path you want to follow.

6. Be prepared to taste and season.
I’m convinced that the ability to taste and season – to add whatever needs adding – is THE most important skill. It’s the key difference between a great cook and an OK or mediocre cook. So every time you step into the kitchen be prepared to have a little taste and ask yourself… Could this taste better? What does it need or what is it lacking?

7. Take mistakes as a ‘learning experience’.
Cooking is a natural process and no one can or should expect to get it right every time. I recently went to a talk by Rene Redzepi, chef at Noma in Copenhagen currently the best restaurant in the world.

One of the biggest messages he tells his chefs if that ‘failure IS an option’. So if the best chef in the world expects things to go wrong from time to time then surely we home cooks should expect the same.

8. Have faith in ‘Clancy’s Law of Cooking’.
You’ve probably heard of the great Irish philosopher Murphy and his favourite law, ‘if anything can possibly go wrong, it will go wrong’. When I was little, my Dad used to tell us that ‘Clancy’s Law’ was that ‘Murphy was an optimist’.

Fortunately, I seem to have inherited more of my Mum’s outlook on life and philosophy. So I’ve invented ‘Clancy’s Law of Cooking’. It runs along these lines…