How to Develop Recipes

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How to Develop Recipes

When it comes to creating a dish, there are two distinct processes at work: inspiration and execution.

The process of coming up with a first idea for a dish is known as ideation. This is when the chef is working with a pretty blank slate (albeit it’s usually in the context of creating a specific type of meal, such as an appetiser or a meat course), and they’re brainstorming ideas for what they want to achieve. This can take a variety of shapes, and chefs have described how their ideas first came to them in a variety of ways.

Chefs understand this because of their education and experience, and they don’t strive to create flavour combinations from scratch. Instead, people use combinations that they “know” or “love” to function effectively. They may substitute a single component from that pairing for something comparable on occasion, but they aren’t attempting to create completely new, never-before-seen flavour combinations in general.

It’s time to put the plan into action once the basic concept has taken shape. This is usually a very iterative process, involving cooking the dish, tasting it, and soliciting comments. That input could come from them (by considering what they’d do or do differently), but it’s more likely to come from others. This might happen when individual components of the dish are cooked separately, or when the entire dish is cooked together. Chefs appear to taste individual parts as they go until they’re satisfied; then they put everything together, taste the combination, and then test it on others, but this varies based on their style and comfort level with what they’re creating.

Food Research Lab
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