No-Recipe Cooking

I think you can learn a lot about someone when you spend try cooking with them. How willing are they try something new? Make a mistake? Take instructions? Stray from a recipe?

Both my parents are amazing cooks. I'm pretty impressed by their division of labor when they make hundreds of dumplings from scratch and when they want the kitchen to themselves. My dad can do anything with leftovers and regularly decides to make soymilk from scratch or put a pot of rice wine to ferment under my comforter. My mom is the picture of efficiency and creativity in the kitchen and takes pride in adding some artistry into a dishe's presentation. Take this tofu, avocado, black egg, mango, celery, oyster sauce salad below. Not typical in Chinese cooking or typical in American cooking but extremely tasty!



I've learned that I can only expect laughter when I ask my parents for a recipe. Though this was initially quite frustrating, I've had to learn to cook by trial and error and rely on my sense of taste which has ultimately made me a confident, creative, and instinctual cook. Interesting that by not teaching me how to cook, they essentially taught me how to cook!

One of my greatest re-creations below! I reject most sweet pancakes for breakfast and prefer this savory crepe-like pancake below. My dad uses milk, flour, cheese, and onions. I jazzed it up by adding hot pepper flakes and mushrooms. The tricky part was figuring out the right ratio of liquid to dry ingredients. My parents accused me of being too specific when I tried to get an estimate of the ratio of flour to milk! I didn't write down my final recipe either (go figure) but I successfully evaluated the thickness of the batter by slowly adding more milk to the flour and watching how the batter would fall off the spoon.





I can't promise all Friday posts will be food related but these blog posts are definitely a great way to share my food and life theories. :)