A loose definition of the word improvisation is to invent, compose, or perform something extemporaneously. For example if you've ever seen a Woody Allen movie, laughed at a sketch on Saturday Night Live or heard Miles Davis play notes of music not bound by this earth, you've experienced improvisation in action. As it is in movies, sketch comedy or jazz the joy of improvisational cooking is in the results that spring forth from inspired creation.
How do you use a recipe? Do you follow each step and measure each ingredient with the precision of a chemist? Do you nervously meter out the baking time of your cookies by tapping your foot to the cadence of the timer? We perform this culinary art to please more than our stomachs, the reasons too numerous to mention. Whatever the reason we usually approach it with recipe in hand. Often times a recipe we don't understand. The essence of Improv Cooking, with it's somewhat Zen like approach, demands you're imagination and instinct to help you solve the riddle of the recipe.
The Steps Towards Improv Cooking
Improvisational cooking is not so much reading and following a recipe as it is using skills and techniques to take a recipe to another level or create a recipe out nothing more than a larder full of ingredients. You have to possess a certain amount of skill and understanding before plunging in to any kind of cooking. Improv Cooking is no different. It forces you to trust your instincts as well. Follow these seven simple steps and you'll soon be free to open the fridge and just start cooking.
#1 Taste As Many Different Styles of Cooking as Possible
This is probably the simplest of all the Improv techniques to learn and master. Just eat as many different cooking styles as you can. The axiom is straightforward. The more you're exposed to, the more imaginative you'll become. Fill your headphones with nothing but Britney and it certainly would be difficult to imagine Charlie Parker's saxophone. Consequently, eat nothing but the same restaurant or home cooked food all the time and your cooking vocabulary will reflect it.
#2 Understand the Basic Fundamental Techniques of Cooking
You can't pick up a trumpet and expect to sound like Miles Davis without knowing a few things first. I won't go into all the things that could and will go wrong. I'm sure you get the picture. Well, Improv Cooking follows the same rules. You can't expect to be able to whip out a perfect Coq Au Vin without knowing the techniques involved to do so. But, the rewards will be greater once you do. The following list is more than just the basic fundamentals though. I've listed all the techniques and methods that matter to the experienced cook.
The Oven Group
Roasting - Cooking with dry heat that surrounds the food with as much direct heat as possible.
Pan Roasting - The wary little secret of every professional kitchen. This is a combination of method of starting the food in a hot sauté pan then finishing in a hot oven.
Broiling - A cousin to grilling, this is direct heat cooking with the heat source above the food instead of under it.
Braising - Moist heat cooking usually achieved in a sealed container like a Dutch oven, tagine or stoneware crock.
Baking - A dry heat method of cooking usually referring to breads, pastries etc.
The Wet Group
Boiling - Cooking in a large quantity of liquid, usually water.
Steaming - Cooking in a sealed container with a small amount of liquid (usually water but not especially) with the food suspended over the liquid so that it only comes in contact with the steam vapors.
Poaching - Best known as a method to cook egg, fish and perhaps chicken. This is cooking in a hot still liquid where the liquid never reaches more than a bare simmer.
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