My parents were both excellent cooks. They chose excellent recipes and followed them meticulously. Measuring cups and measuring spoons were scraped level. Weights were precise. Needless to say the process of making many dishes was slowed by this precision, exacerbated by their maintaining a kitchen where everything was in a drawer or cupboard or on a pantry shelf.
Somehow I upended this order. I measure almost nothing precisely. Probably the only thing which gets measured correctly in my kitchen is salt for pickles. Most everything is out where I can grab it, and making a meal is a circus. I don’t even measure to bake. Texture is my guide. An amount in my palm will be a tsp or tbsp, and I come pretty close.
What about you? Precise? Free form? In between or a mixture?
I don’t bake and I don’t follow recipes to a T, I’ll look at a recipe I’ve never made before and basically wing it, more or less. I cook by eye, taste and feel. I’m not getting paid to cook anymore , so it’s just a free for all round here
For baking and preserving, I measure, although not with a great degree of precision. I mean, I have measuring spoons but I rarely use them. A regular spoon (that is, flatware) is close enough to a teaspoon for me, and a soup spoon is pretty close to a tablespoon. Everything else is by guess and by god. The way I see it, cooking is an art, baking is a science and preserving is a matter of not getting anyone sick (or dead).
[ETA]
(Pedantry ON)
I would argue that your parents were not excellent cooks. They could follow a recipe meticulously, and it sounds that’s exactly what they did, but IMO, an excellent cook can freelance. Substitute proteins or seasonings to tinker with flavor profiles. Hotter and faster or cooler and slower to explore textures. Serve a meal that tastes like it was from a recipe but was actually just cobbled together with whatever was in the fridge and pantry. Those are the skills, to me, that distinguish excellent cooks from good preparers.
(Pedantry OFF)
Measuring weight in baking is a must for us (and I have problems taking cookbooks or bakers serious who bake and don’t weigh their ingredients - yes, you can get some decent end results but I would argue it has little chance to be even close to be really good and even more difficult to replicate often. Baking, if it is bread, cake, pate a choux etc relies heavily on texture, structure, crust etc and that is hard to achieve without weighing). For most cooking it is less important but if we work with more elaborated, restaurant-level recipes where it might be more important that the ratios of ingredients is good, we sometimes also weight the ingredients
And yes, cocktails without measuring are most of the time underwhelming. And it is telling that the best cocktail bars anywhere don’t free pour - it is often a good measuring stick how serious we take a bar
I measure flour, sugar, liquid for baking. Not by weight, just measuring cups. Cut back on sugar if it sounds too sweet. Vanilla and salt never. I know what a tsp looks like. For savory foods very rarely. Tbsp of lemon juice here, a quarter cup of something else there.I can pretty much gauge measurements and depending on taste.
Cocktails - We just put ice in a glass and pour.
ETA - I’m not a serious baker. I use AP flour, salted butter and imitation vanilla.
Baking: weigh, preferably, volume if I have to. Then adjust for the needs my particular ingredients have. For example, I use freshly milled flour often and it always needs a bit of adjustment for liquids.
Drinks: wing it.
Cooking: First time making a recipe always measure so I get what the author intended. After that, change things up at will. I definitely do this for cuisines that I am unfamiliar with. I’m not just going to chuck something together and claim it’s x,y or z without understanding the cuisine. The jammys do a lot of travelling by kitchen.
Mix. I rarely bake, so the need for precision, and also just me lack of experience requires that I follow instructions to the T (for the most part). Generally the newer recipes of any kind, I will make the effort to be more precise where I feel I need to.
Recipes I know well is all eye-balling and tasting as I go, and looking for texture and consistency. Generally, if it’s a tsp or TBSP for a common dry ingredient that I know isn’t going to be a deal-breaker (spices, salts), I eyeball more often than not. Similar for common sauces (soy, oyster, chili, etc.) because I have a better sense how it may also affect taste.
I don’t have the space to bake, even if I wanted to.
BarneyGrubble
(Fan of Beethoven and Latina singers)
13
My favorite YouTube chef, Chef Jean-Pierre, constantly says “measure carefully”, while blithely cooking without measuring. BUT, he does say that he does measure carefully when baking.
I eyeball stuff when cooking, but measure by weight when baking.
I measure/weigh when baking because I dont do much of it. I also measure when I am cooking a cuisine I dont know/has unfamiliar ingredients, until I am comfortable with the flavor profile. Everything else I just wing.
We hosted my brother and his family and my parents over the Fourth of July weekend. My brother and sister-in-law love their Aprerol spritzes and he got my mom kinda hooked on them over the weekend when he was making them at home. We went out for one last dinner and he ordered one for his wife and my mom. And guess what? The proportions were totally off (too much Aperol not enough spritz). I didn’t think you could mess up such a simple drink! They asked for an additional prosecco floater, which evened out the bitterness.
BTW, so sad for what is happening in your adopted state of TX.
I’m like @Vecchiouomo 's mom - everything gets measured in my house. I feel I could wing Thai curries a bit since I’ve made enough of them and I am learning I would like a little less coconut milk than called for in most dishes and a few more Thai chilis.
I used to use coconut milk as the sole base for Thai curries, resulting in a very rich dish. Every since the NYT recipe for brothy Thai curry I only use one can and chicken broth. My PIC still prefers the richer version, but I don’t make it that way anymore.
And Chef Michael Smith encourages people to wing it, to use his recipes as a guide.
I always chuckle. Some of my relatives are recipe sticklers.
I do measure more for baking, with respect to yeast, baking powder, baking soda, butter, and flour. The sugar can often be reduced.
.Things like vanilla and cinnamon can be adjusted to taste.
