Cooking Recipes versus Cooking Technique

Sometimes I'll try a dish at a restaurant or pot luck event that I really like. At a restaurant most of the ingredients can be picked out by taste and maybe at the pot luck the recipe was provided. But when I get home and try the recipe, it's just not the same. What's the difference? I had all the ingredients, measured them out properly and it's still not the same.

The difference is technique. Technique is an accumulation of those little items that cooks never think to write down with the recipe. A recipe that's just a list of ingredients with no instructions will not be easily duplicated by different cooks or by the same person if the dish isn't prepared on a regular basis. Many people that cook know someone they feel is, or was, a much better cook than they are and they try to emulate that person's style of cooking. They may have all the recipes from that person and they are trying to emulate the techniques that were used.

A sister-in-law of mine once asked my mother why she couldn't make tea as good as my mother. She said she bought the same brand of tea bag, they lived close so the water was similar but Mom's tea was always so much better. Mom indicated she wasn't sure. Later when my sister-in-law was diluting and mixing the tea, Mom came up and in an excited voice said "Wait! You're stirring the tea in the wrong direction!". Startled my sister-in-law, thinking she had done something wrong, immediately started stirring the tea in the other direction. That's when Mom couldn't hold it anymore and burst into laughter.

Many recipes call for meat to be browned or seared early in the process. Browning meat changes the texture and the flavor of the meat being browned but the technique used can make a big difference. Among the items that can make a difference are

• How heavy is the skillet or pot used to brown the meat?
• What kind of oil was used?
• How hot was the pan when the meat was added?
• What was the temperature of the meat?
• Was the meat all added at once or browned in batches?

Chefs on TV like Guy Fiere, Bobby Flay, or Rick Bayless all readily share they're recipes and some techniques. The trick to learning from these shows is to pay less attention to the ingredients of a dish and more attention to how it's prepared. Once when talking to a chef about a dish he made I jokingly asked for the recipe. He was glad to give me the recipe saying "recipes are easy, it's the techniques that really make the dish".