PB1A: Recipes

When you feel like making something more sophisticated than cup noodles, what is the first thing you might look for? A recipe! With the Internet, looking up how to make a certain dish is as easy as one-click, but why is a recipe important in the process of preparing a dish and what makes it a recipe?  

           

A recipe instructs the chef on how to prepare a specific dish with not only the proper quantities of ingredients needed, but also the method of preparation of those ingredients. Whether the recipe is used in a kitchen at home or at a restaurant, it serves the same purpose and audience—to guide the cook in how to prepare the meal.

A recipe is usually formatted so that it informs the reader of how many servings it yields, lists the precise amounts of each and every ingredient required, preparation and cook time, and directions on how to prep and cook the ingredients; the equipment needed to make the dish tends to be found within the directions of a recipe. For example, if you were to make Chef Emeril Lagasse’s “Simply Delicious New York-Style Cheesecake with Strawberry Sauce,” you can find all the essential information needed to make this cheesecake within the recipe. This specific recipe tells the cook that it yields 10-12 servings. The ingredients and the amounts of each needed are listed, but here you notice that there are two separate lists of ingredients—one for the cheesecake and the other for the strawberry sauce. This makes the recipe also more versatile because the cook can choose to make either both the cake and sauce or only the cake or only the sauce. Then there is the directions that instructs the cook on how to manipulate the ingredients for the dish. If you look closely at how the directions are written, you notice that it is direct and to the point: “In a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, combine cream cheese, 1 1/2 cups sugar, zests, and vanilla and beat until light and creamy. Add the flour, then the eggs and yolks 1 at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the sour cream, vanilla bean seeds, and bourbon and mix until smooth. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Wrap the pan in foil and place in a roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with enough hot water to come half way up the sides of the pan. Bake for 1 1/2 hours” (Lagasse, http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/simply-delicious-new-york-style-cheesecake-with-strawberry-sauce-recipe.html). It tells the cook exactly what to combine in what container using which utensil, how to prepare it to be baked, and how long it should be in the oven.  

            The most important aspect of a recipe making recipes unique will be its directions and ingredients. Nowadays, recipes can be reviewed and rated for how satisfied the cook feels about the anticipated outcome. For instance, Chef Lagasse’s recipe is rated five stars out of five stars, which means majority of the cooks who followed his recipe were very pleased with the end result. So as you can see, higher rated recipes usually have clear, concise, descriptive directions on how to prepare the dish, which results in an almost always near-perfect satisfactory yield.