It always amazes me how two people
can follow the same recipe and come up with completely different final dishes.
When I was in Jr High, I competed in
the county fair baking category. The recipe for chocolate chip cookies was
printed in the newspaper. To enter your cookies you had to follow the recipe
exactly.
Baking is one area of cooking where
following the recipe is pretty important. The chemistry that allows flour and
sugar to become tasty cake and cookies requires a certain amount of precision
and some elements shouldn't be compromised with a good understanding of the
purpose they serve in the mix.
A few days before the fair started
you had to turn in six of your best cookies on a white paper plate. They had to
stand on their own without any of the frills or decorations allowed in some of
the other competitions. The judges would sample one or two and the rest would
go on display in the glass cases in the homemakers building for the duration of
the fair.
It was always kind of strange to
look at all the cookies lined up on their identical paper plates. You knew,
that in theory at least, they all used the identical ingredients and proportions.
And yet the final cookies were so very different. Some were round balls that
didn't spread out at all. Some were thin sprawling cookies with lumps where the
chocolate chips were. Some were perfectly sized and perfectly smooth, making
you wonder if they contained any chips at all. And then there were the ones of
even size with just enough chocolate chip peeking through the top. You just
knew that they had the perfect mix of chewy center and crunchy, crumbly
exterior. Same recipe, different outcomes.
I practiced and practiced that
cookie recipe until I am quite certain my entire family was sick of chocolate
chip cookies. I definitely have it memorized and made it scale-able. Once I
found myself with free range of the commercial kitchen at field camp. I spent
at least one evening every week making dozens and dozens of cookies using the
floor stand Hobart mixer. My pretty kitchen aid is wonderful but I loved that
giant Hobie! (Remind me to tell you the story of the great cookie war and the
turtle walk some day.)
Following recipes can be important.
We may think we follow them carefully but the more you make something the less
likely it is that you actually do what the recipe says.
My mom had a recipe for a soup
called Hearty Hodgepodge You can find it in old seventies cookbooks. It is
loaded with sausage, beef, ham, potatoes and garbanzo beans. It is the soup I
crave on blustery winter days. She readily shared the recipe. It is even in the
family cook book. If I haven't made it for a while, I will glance at it to make
sure I am headed in the right direction.
One time I was at a potluck where
some one else brought the hodgepodge. It was watery and almost inedible. My mom
re-read the recipe and started laughing. She said, she hadn't actually made it
that way in years! So much of the recipe is subjective. Particularly with
something like soup, you have to taste along the way. You really can't just
dump it all together and hope to get a perfect result. The recipe provides a
guideline and in some cases there are rules but you always have to trust your
judgement on the final product.
Which brings me to green bean
casserole. I really like green bean casserole. My father-in-law always asked
for it. The spuds like it particularly when it is the middle layer in tater tot
casserole. There are literally dozens of recipes for green bean casserole. Some
are pretentious. Some are basic. At their core, they have green beans, mushroom
soup and french fried onion rings.
None of them should ever involve
adding milk! Ever. Similar potluck story. Same cook claimed the green bean
casserole. It was swimming in watery milk. I politely (yes, truly I was very
polite in my questioning) asked for the recipe. It was a national brand that
called for adding milk. Ugh.
So the basics....
Three cans of green beans (Drained.
For the love of all that is good drain the beans!!!)
One can of cream of mushroom soup
(this is the not pretentious, easy to make on a week night version)
A good handful of french fried onion
rings
Another good handful or two of
shredded cheddar cheese.
(If you must have a definition... a
good handful of onions is probably a half a cup and good handful of shredded
cheddar is probably about 3/4 of a cup. But don't take my word for it. Use your
judgment.)
No salt
No pepper
Nothing else.
And absolutely NO MILK.
Mix. Gently. No bean mash here. Put
it in a casserole dish. Top with more onions and bake until bubbly and
delicious.
One thing that makes this double
delicious (and pretentious) is making your own mushroom soup. I am going to be
making some this weekend in preparation for Thanksgiving. I will try to
document it so I can share. The key to the rich flavor is using dried wild
mushrooms. (OK. Fair call. It does use heavy cream. Heavy cream is milk. So I
put milk in my green bean casserole. But..... It isn't the same and it isn't
watery.)
The fresh mushroom soup lends a
strong mushroom flavor to the casserole. If you don't like mushrooms stick to
the prepared versions. You can find some lovely gluten free versions in the
specialty aisle. You can probably substitute cream of chicken soup. But never
cream of celery soup. Cream of celery soup is an abomination and the bane of
every unregulated pot of stone soup at camp everywhere.
So.... follow the recipe. But taste
and use your judgement. Unless it is burned to a crisp or the broccoli is full
of worms there are ways to fix it. Ask me if you need some help. And enjoy it.
Enjoy making your food. Enjoy sharing your food. Enjoy Eating your food.
--- Oh, and that county fair thing.
Yeah. I won the blue ribbon.
