Monday, March 3rd, 2014

How do you create a recipe?

P1290508Whenever I’m trying to come up with a new recipe, or tweak a dish to make it a bit different or seasonal or more healthful, I have a few methods to get the juices flowing. I thought I’d share a few of them here, for those rare moments when inspiration, time, creativity, and hunger are aligned. So first off, there’s:
-Day-dreaming. Typically done while lying on the couch with the dog (presumably he is also day-dreaming about food), or while staring into the depths of the fridge or pantry. This can be surprisingly effective method for coming up with a new recipe because random ideas tend to jump out at you when you’re not trying too hard (like the sight of a carton of eggs in the fridge crammed up next to a bunch of herbs and a tube of anchovy paste gave birth to my green goddess deviled eggs). The negative flip side of this activity is that staring into your fridge can make you very hungry.
-Cookbook Grazing. Taking down my old-reliables from favorite author-Deborah Madison, Claudia Roden, Marcella Hazan, Lidia Bastianich, Madhur Jaffrey, Alford & Duguid—and hoping they trigger some sort of idea or forgotten combination. An example of this is remembering Hazan’s technique for removing the skins from chickpeas before using them in a soup, or a Batali recipe for a citrus salsa that uses the whole lemon, peel and all, reminded me that I can use the ENTIRE lemon for some raw preparations. Warning: This technique of reading cookbooks also has the potential danger of making you very hungry.

-Eating: This might seem too obvious but having a good meal, particularly one cooked by an ace home cook or inventive chef, can spark a flurry of ideas. This weekend I had an egg sandwich called The Forager at High Street on Market in Philly, and to dress the sandwich (which consisted of scrambled eggs, braised kale and seared mushrooms on a kaiser roll), they made a black trumpet mayo…why I never thought of adding mushrooms to mayonnaise, I don’t know, but now the idea is latched in my noodle.

-Doodling: I find this method to possibly be the most satisfying. If I can draw the ingredients, then I can visualize how they might work together. This is particularly helpful when trying to create a dish with lots of layers and components, such as a 8-layer Nacho recipe, so that a sketch like this:
P1290510Will hopefully end up looking like this:

IMG_0331

This is also a fun thing to do with the kids–have them draw their fantasy meal and then see if you can both make it for real. They might end up drawing something like gummy bear lasagna…but I’d actually love to see that doodle. If you want to be really inspired, check out this website: They Draw and Cook, which features illustrations of recipes from artists of all kinds. Pure eye candy.