Are you an instinctive cook? I cook very well, but only when following a recipe.

[MamaG]

I can't just chuck any old thing in because it NEVER works,

IF I follow a recipe - fine, delicious, but I can't improvise. I'm of those who can

Ah well the trick is to look for patterns in recipes. So you know for example that most cakes take an equal quantity of butter and sugar. Once you learn the rules you can muck about.

start gently. try to cook a favourite without looking at the recipe - give yourself the confidence that it will be ok if you don;t weigh and measure every thing. taste it as you go along. then make small substitutions - (usually when you haven;t got the things you need) - try peppers instead of mushrooms, pork instead of chicken (though you'll need to work out appropiate timings) white wine instead of cider

I'm the same, I have had lots of compliments on my cooking but I always follow a recipe, I wouldn't know what to do otherwise. So we are never going to make masterchef are we? The inventors kitchen bit at the beginning is enough to give me nightmares

Instinctive. I can make something after having it at a restaurant. Not quite the same but still good. I struggle following a recipe TBH - I find I get all confused and it goes wrong strangely

In fact we don't have any scales atm so even my cake baking is guess work and it works. Just habit now I guess.

I am achieving this slowly by getting DH (consummate instinctive cook) to dictate his 'recipes' to me, which include lots of directions like 'season till tasty', 'cook till done' 'add handful of whatever veg looks nice' etc

I am getting there slowly but surely, although all it really means is I have a repertoire of well-worn favourites I can cook with slight variations and not too much prompting rather than truly chucking in any old thing. Maybe that's the secret.

just think about what fglavours yo u know go together, and take it from there. Some flavours and textures just 'go'. So use them together. If a casserole calls for chicken stock, try half wine/half stock - see, deviation is gooood .

IME, cakes need recipe following because the process is more scientific. If you add too much flour, cake will be stiff and dry etc. But 'normal' cookery, is only bound by whether food is cooked for long enough to avoid poisoning yourself

I like that, chocolate, looking for patterns in recipes. I'd never thought of that.

And the answer's no. I'm slave to the recipe.

I am very much an instictiv e cook. As someone else said I regularly copy dishes I have had in restaurants without a recipe. I do use recipes for baking cakes/biscuits etc the first couple of times I do them though.

agree about taking inspiration from restaurants. sometimes there'll be buried ingredients - certian flavourings that are hard to sopt, but the main ingredients and the method (roast, casseroled, pie etc) are obvious

most of my cooking is without a book.

I too, like littlelapin, have books for inspiration etc.

when baking, i can make stuff from head but do like following recipies of new things i see.

I often substitute/add/remove things from recipies tho.

sometimes i've noticed that certain recipies dont make the food how i like them so the next time round i'll do it the way i think it should go.

I think it's a confidence thing mamag, just go by trial and error and don be too hard on yourself

You can also swop ingrediants for others if you run out of something in a recipe and still have it turn out okay

I learned to cook because I went veggie (as a lot of teens do) and my mum point blank refused to cook for me thinking I would give up. I did - nineteen years later (fancied a chicken sandwich for some reason). But in the meantime I learned the hard way what worked and what didn't.

Oh and decent kitchenware is vital. You can't for example make a decent omelette in a crap pan.

Soup is easy to start with if you want to experiment. So long as you sweat some onions in butter and then throw a stock cube in some water and add the onions, you can pretty much add any quantities of veg/meat/fish and it'll turn out nice. Just add water until it's the right consistency and simmer.

I must be a bit of both. I usually have a recipe out when cooking, however, sometimes don't look at it (or just look at the picture). Sometimes I read it and think, it'd be so much better if I just, added some wine, substituted some vegs, add some more veg, use chicken instead of pork, etc.

But my mother seems to think I am more instinctive, so maybe the recipe is just a prop.

The more you cook I think, the more confident you get on what goes with what.

I am a terrible cook - I can just about follow a recipe but can cook the same meal many many times and still not remember how to do it without the instructions in front of me. I also have to have all the ingredients and pans etc laid out before I start.

I do substitute ingredients in recipes when cooking though; usually it is a case of whatever is in the fridge goes in

Instinctive for savory stuff, definitely, which really flummoxes DH when I try to explain to him how to make something. He has to have amoutns, timings, everything written down, and I can never remember.

I only use recipe books for inspiration really. I would say though that I do follow recipes for things the first time, or that I don;t make very often, like puddings that need to be precise (lemon mousse, pavlova etc)

If you wan to be more instinctive, I would agree with varying on old favourite, and experimenting a bit.

There was a great thread on here not long ago about what people put in their Spag Bol sauce...it really made me think how much you can vary something which seems quite simple.

To be quite frank I hate cooking - it's a time consuming chore - but I love to eat! however, what I do cook seems to turn out OK (except for cakes and biscuits!- I blame the oven!) and I do a mean roast dinner. If I had more time and more space to make a mess I expect I would enjoy it more!

Bit of both. Like following recipes if process/ingredients unfamiliar, but otherwise quite happy to muck about.