“I don’t use recipes!” is an annoying brag!

[Lordoftheflyingpan]

AIBU in finding it really annoying and unbearably smug when someone says “I don’t use recipes, I just make up my own”?

It can occur any time the filthy word “recipe” is mentioned, but as an example:
A: This salad is really nice!
B: Thanks, it’s a Jamie Oliver recipe.
A: Oh, I don’t use recipes. I just make it up according to what I like.

I’m aware this is super petty, but if Mumsnet isn’t the place to put petty gripes then I don’t know where is.

YABU - it’s fine! Get over it/yourself.
YANBU - ugh, yes, so smug and annoying.

I cook virtually every day, I don’t use recipes much. I’ll use them for new dishes and baking but otherwise just throw things together. The conversation sometimes goes ‘this is nice, what recipe did you use?’ ‘Just kind of made it up’. Is that pretentious? Surely if you do anything on a regular basis you skip the instructions and just automatically get on with it.

I'm very much in Team Wing It. Not organised or sensible enough for recipes. I'm an adventurous but spectacularly hit or miss cook I'd definitely caveat my "I never use recipes" comment with that though so I'm clearly not bragging.

"My point was that if you're making the same basic recipes every single weak then you probably don't need to read a recipe."

And my point is that even if you're not reading a recipe, you're still following one.

I really want to thank OP for starting this thread. ☺️
I read it as I was on my way home on the bus and had been thinking about what I should do for tea.
Both DW and I have slipped into a bit of a rut and seem to eat the same things on rotation.
I knew what ingredients I had so I searched those plus recipe and found a recipe I really liked.
Then I realised it needed cider and I didn't have any.
Another look and I found one with red wine.
But I got home and DW was delivering training online training in front of the cupboards containing the beans I planned to use AND the red wine!
So I left out the booze and used put lentils instead of the beans.

I think I covered both sides of the opinions on this thread.
I did use a recipe (to begin with) and I changed it too. 😉😆

I learned loads of my cooking from my mother and grandmother and I love cookery books and online resources.
I have Riverford veg boxes and they make great YouTube videos.

Oh and the casserole I made was lush, I will make it again, might use cider or red wine though!!

I dont use recipes for most of my cooking.
However, I have watched family members cook certain dishes since childhood and picked up a knack for making them from memory.

I have made extremely terrible versions of each dish for years before getting the hang of it.

I do use recipes for dishes I have never ate before, or seen prepared in person.
It would be a disaster if I tried otherwise.

Funnily enough, given this thread, today I had to create a recipe for dumplings via WhatsApp for DS1 (who's 12) to follow because he got home before me and DS2, and being 12 he has not yet acquired cooking common sense. It was really taxing:

• There's a pan of stew on the hob. Turn it up until it starts bubbling and then turn down to 2. STIR OCCASIONALLY.

-Mix 100g self raising flour (blue bag) and 50g veggie suet (it's on the same shelf as the flour SOMEWHERE, it says Atora on the box), half a tsp of salt, and enough water to make a sticky, blobby dough.

-Carefully drop dessert spoonfuls into the simmering stew (not too big, they really swell up!

-Put pan lid on. Await our return.

It makes you realise how much knowledge we have and take for granted when you're trying to explain cooking techniques to someone who really doesn't have a clue

(the dumplings were perfect).

I don't use recipes.

I am a lazy cook, never organised enough to meal prep for a recipe. Defo not a brag in my case. I would be a much better cook id I followed a method. I'm a Chuck things together and hope for the best kinda chef.

I think if you are a keen cook then after a while you stop using recipes.
Once you know and understand the basics, which spices and herbs are used in different types of cuisines, Greek, Middle Eastern, Mexican, then etc then you develop an instinct and select ingredients knowingly and in amounts you know will work insted of chucking things together randomly. Which can result in a dogs dinner.
I do read recipes, but more for new ideas or interesting flavour combinations,
Once I have read and understood I can have a go at making something similar.
My mother was a dreadful cook, so had to teach myself when I left home. I always used recipes to start with but over the decades with practice and lots of travel I feel fairly competent now.

Interesting, I wouldn't see it as a brag, but I am impressed by people who do most of their cooking without a recipe. I'm a decent cook and I cook pretty much every day, from family basics to fancier stuff, and I pretty much always use a recipe. I feel lost without one! The silly thing is that in many cases, I change the recipe quite a lot - either because I know I prefer it like that (or it is cheaper, or healthier) or because I don't have the right things in. And I do that perfectly confidently and automatically. But I have to have the recipe there for a starting point. Yes, even for spag bol! (though that is one where I often wonder to myself why....?). My mother cooked the same way, so I guess that is how I learned. I also meal plan for the week and buy the fresh ingredients I know I will need. Largely old favourites (and I don't need to look at the recipes to check what to buy). Occasionally something new from recipe book. I have a lot!

If you cook something enough you don't need a recipe

I have dishes I've been cooking regularly for 20-30 years, and I still prefer to have the recipe in front of me. I don't even know why!

Generally speaking, unless I’m baking, I don’t use recipes. I may read things and then try to recreate and add my own things that I have similar to a recipe Ive read (usually in a supermarket free magazine). So consequently, no dish I make is ever exactly the same. If someone asked me for the recipe, it could only ever be an approximation.

Those of you who know which flavours go well together, can you explain that or do you have a link I could read? I have no idea really.

@Gwenhwyfar

Those of you who know which flavours go well together, can you explain that or do you have a link I could read? I have no idea really.

Ooh this book! I got it for my dad and then bought it for myself. Cheaper on eBay

Those of you who know which flavours go well together, can you explain that or do you have a link I could read? I have no idea really.

I don't have a link, but just have a google.

Follow tradition, recipes and flavour combinations have been refined over many years, and also used according to local varaibility.
So cumin rarely features in Italian cooking, so you know that if you are making a bolognese or ragu, cumin or coriander would not be a great flavour combination..

Fish or soy sauce is used in Thai recipes, but not Mexican food.

Just as we have worked out that spple suace goes well with pork, lemon is good with fish, so other cultures and cuisines also have "rules"
Stick to those rules and you are less likely to have a bad tasting dish.

Don't mix and match until you have a graps of what you are doing. Although some of the best chefs are masters of this flavour mixing- so called "fusion" food, it won;t work until you have a basic grasp.
My OH likes to cook, but likes to go "off piste" as I call it and ends up just grabbing random jars from the shelf.
It rarely works out well.

Start with the basics and work from there.

Thanks

I'm a competent cook (I regularly host multi course/dish dinner parties, sometimes for 12 or more guests) and I still often use recipes especially when cooking with new ingredients or learning new cuisines/techniques. And when baking of course. I can cook many things without a recipe but often use one to improve my repertoire or skills - and I'd say I've been a competent cook for about 10 years having first started cooking regularly 30 years ago.

The way your friend spoke to you made her sound like a rude wanker. YANBU.

@Anonymous48

I don't understand how it works when people say they just look at what's in the fridge or the cupboard and throw something together using what's available. Because at some point you decided what to buy and stock your fridge and cupboards with. Do you just go shopping and throw random items in your trolley? I figure out what I'm going to cook and go to the supermarket to buy the specific ingredients needed for those recipes.

Usually when I cook without a recipe it's because the garden has produced a lot of one particular thing, or neighbours have given us produce, or I've bought cheap seasonal stuff from the markets because it looked good. So I haven't acquired the produce with a particular recipe in mind. Then I go into the pantry and fridge and work out what I'll cook.

I have a truly large and well stocked pantry and spice drawer though - big enough that I separate by cuisine so one section for all Japanese ingredients, one for Korean, one for Middle Eastern, one for German, Italian etc. And 8 different types of vinegar, 7 types of oil, about 40 different spices and dried herbs. And a separate small fridge for condiments and sauces and the like some of which I make myself (eg at the moment I have doenjang, shattara, preserved lemons, Maldive fish, shrimp paste, tamarind pulp and others etc). So it's easy enough to cook without having to go to the shops.

Last night for example I had an excess of spinach and too much milk so I made bechamel (butter from fridge, flour from pantry), mixed some leftover pesto (made last week, it's summer here) with passata (from pantry), and used lasagne sheets (from pantry) and parmesan (from fridge) to make spinach and ricotta lasagne.

YANBU. DH rarely uses a recipe and seems to think my recipe based cooking is slightly inferior. He often has a "helpful" suggestion for improving whatever I've made. After years of this and thinking that I can't really cook, I've finally realised that I can cook and there is nothing wrong with using a recipe.

Now only positive feedback is allowed and comments are only allowed if invited by me. His attitude still pisses me off though 😡

I think after cooking for a family and enjoying it for decades, you find yourself not needing recipes except for inspiration, or to learn the basics of a new cuisine. Or for baking of course, where I always use a recipe.

I was lucky that my DM was an accomplished home cook who taught me the basics, plus I took Foods and Nutrition up to grade 12.

I am also lucky to live in a city that is very multi-cultural so restaurants to try things and ingredients to make them yourself are easy to find.

The big issue is buying too many spice packets and exotic ingredients that clog up my cupboards. DH hates that.