Recipe Modification Quotes

I'm not a particularly good cook. Part of it is that it is the kind of cooking anybody could do if they bothered. It's improvisational. I cook with whatever I have laying around.

If you're trying to make a recipe that you're not even going to bother tasting, you're doing something wrong.

I'm more comfortable weaving Indian flavors into American classics.

Part of being a really good chef or cook is being able to fix disasters.

I keep trying to perfect my mother's meatloaf recipe. I will never get it perfect, but I'm getting closer.

My wife cooks. I can't cook. I can remix leftovers pretty good, though.

I may find something that looks interesting and then go on to alter the recipe by adding spices, things of my own. I also look for time-saving recipes, dishes that can be prepared ahead and stored.

When I cook at home, most of the people I cook for want to be in the kitchen while I'm cooking. I love nothing more than someone monitoring how much salt I put into something, how much pepper I add - but nothing that you can offer is going to sway how I decide to deliver information to you; you'll either receive it or you won't.

Don't assume you're always going to be understood. I wrote in a column that one should put a cup of liquid in the cavity of a turkey when roasting it. Someone wrote me that 'the turkey tasted great, but the plastic cup melted.

My mom's always been a good cook, so I took a lot of stuff from her, but most of the stuff I took from Emeril or Bobby Flay right off the TV and make it. I just loved to cook, so it just became a thing. It's a release. Even if I'm alone, I'll cook a full meal, maybe even a two-course meal, just because I love to cook. It's my secret love!

We’re never satisfied when it comes to food. ‘You know what’d be good on this burger? A ham sandwich. Instead of a bun, let’s use two donuts. That way we can have it for breakfast. Look out McGriddle. Here comes the donut-ham-hamburger!’

Omit and substitute! That's how recipes should be written. Please don't ever get so hung up on published recipes that you forget that you can omit and substitute.

The role of a chef isn't to reinvent dishes but to tweak.

People may not know this about me, but I've always loved cooking. My favorite thing to cook is my mom's spicy spaghetti.

I'm really a scientist. I follow recipes exactly - until I decide not to. And then I'll follow something else exactly. I may decide I could turn this peach tart into a plum tart, but if I'm following a recipe, I follow it exactly.

One of the things I do as a food writer is to take a classic recipe made with meat, look at it a whole lot, and tinker with it according to my taste.

Cooking is the art of adjustment.

Everyone could use instructions on every aspect of cooking: pantry, storage, refrigeration, cooking, what to buy. Everyone that I come into contact with could use help.

You may say, "Oh, no. You can't touch a traditional recipe." But we ask: why can't you? Back in 1350, a vinaigrette was a stew, so we ask, why not? This can be applied to any kind of cooking, and that's the shocking part of it. It kind of bends all the traditions. It's a good thing.

I pride myself in figuring out how to elevate a dish with a little preserved lemon or, then, a sprinkle of Maldon salt.

I know how to bring recipes down to the level where people with no experience can feel comfortable making them.

I love a good challenge of looking with new eyes at a tried and true recipe in my recipe Rolodex.

Even though I'm big on recipes, I love to make up my own dishes and when you take a risk in the kitchen, you learn a lot about food!

My inability to follow recipes as written - without obeying the devil on my shoulder telling me to replace ingredients or change the temperature - is well documented.

Some of the recipes in the book have evolved for us. Many haven't.