How does one cook without a recipe?

When I first got married I did not consider myself a good cook (and neither did anyone else for that matter). I had the basic skills and could follow a recipe I just hadn’t done enough cooking and experimenting to be confident in the kitchen. My husband’s mother and sisters were good cooks and my husband himself is a good cook. So while I wouldn’t attempt anything without a recipe he would throw together a whole crisp using one pie dish and no measuring without looking at a recipe. He asked me why I don’t just cook like that and I let him know I didn’t know how.

So my first year of marriage I spent a fair amount of time looking for the perfect recipes, trying one after another. Once in a while I would find a treasure that I and my husband would love and I would save that recipe. However I still desired to learn the skill of “cooking by heart” instead of by recipe.

I spoke with my mother-in-law about a dish my husband had told me he had fond memories of and that his mom would just “whip it up”. She showed me a faded recipe that had been attached to the cupboard in her kitchen, but also mentioned the ratios used in the recipe and that she didn’t have to look at it to make it unless it had been a very long time.

After talking to my mother in law I started to realize something about “cooking by heart” and the secret is that they either know a recipe “by heart” (have it memorized) or they understand the ratios and proportions of a certain recipe like flour to fat for biscuits. So freestyle cooks are just following looser recipes or adjusting ones they have memorized!

After my “Eureka” moment I started reading food and recipe blogs and learning the differences in different foods, such as breads vs biscuits vs pie crusts. Sometimes the differences were in technique of how to prepare and combine the ingredients rather than what the ingredients were. For example bread you knead to develop the gluten in it this makes it nice and chewy but biscuits you don’t want to develop the gluten so you have to be careful not to over-mix to keep it flaky.

Another thing I learned that really gave me freedom in my cooking was learning different substitutions of ingredients in the kitchen. This is also helpful when you run out of something, or are trying out a new recipe and just don’t have a certain ingredient.

So how do you learn to cook outside the recipe? First find simple delicious recipes that you can add to your weekly rotation and try memorizing the ingredients or learning the ratios of ingredients so you can adjust it to your needs. Learn the purpose of different ingredients in your recipes to understand why something is used and what can be substituted or left out. Be curious about cooking and experiment for yourself and very soon you will find yourself cooking by heart.