A few weeks ago, I had the chance to talk at some length with a Big Man In Food. “Household name” is a strong term; let’s just say his name is well-known, but only in a certain kind of household.

During our conversation, I dropped a bombshell: “I don’t really like recipes.”

I don’t know why I expected him to be sympathetic to this view (believe me, he wasn’t), since much of his career has been dedicated to the obsessive pursuit and refinement of, well, recipes. The only possible explanation for my behavior is that, since I started working from home, my already introverted nature has only been amplified; any capacity for empathy has gradually been whittled down to a sort of psychopathy. Since I have minimal patience for cooking from precise instructions, I rashly imagined that he would share my general dislike for tablespoons and digital scales.

To let my bombshell go unqualified would be to do a grave disservice to the food writers and bloggers who provide invaluable resources to cooks everywhere. Of course I consult recipes, particularly if I want to prepare a dish from a cuisine unfamiliar to me, or one that requires a high level of precision–a gelatin preparation, say, or, my Achilles’ heel, a dough or a batter. I am indebted to the skill and generosity of many a self-publishing cook, without whom my recent dinner party would have had quite a different menu. But none of this alters my essential dissatisfaction with recipes, which goes beyond mere dislike of measuring cups. You see, I’m frustrated with the recipe as a form.

There are times when you want to reproduce something fantastically complicated, a dish signed by an auteur. The average person wouldn’t attempt to cook Thomas Keller by palate any more than he would play Rachmaninov by ear; in this case, bring on the (five-page-long) recipe. In most cases, though, I think that the everyday home cook is better served by a method than by an iron-clad list of instructions. However rewarding an individual recipe, a recipe-centric approach to cooking discourages self-reliance.

When I was first learning to cook, I would much rather have seen one paragraph explaining the essential acid/lipid ratio of a classic vinaigrette and how to recognize and correct for proper emulsification, than twenty different recipes, with wildly different yield, for shallot/sesame/grapefruit/raspberry dressings. Any number of variations are possible once the method is understood, but it can be difficult to deduce an underlying method if you consult the variations first. Similarly, teach me to make and regulate a cornstarch slurry, and I’ll decide whether I want a sauce thick or brothy. The way I see it, it’s sort of analogous to the “give a man a fish vs. teach a man to fish” debate in philanthropy.

I champion Caprial’s Desserts by Caprial Pence and Nigel Slater’s Appetite because, as cookbooks go, they do as much as possible to subvert the form. Pence’s book is structured around stripped-down but stand-alone recipes for classic desserts, each followed with three or four variations. These variations are less important for the extra options they offer than for the very process of recipe adaptation they demonstrate: it’s all up to you, they seem to urge. Slater’s book goes even further by eschewing measurements altogether (of course, this is far easier to do with savory cooking than with pastry): he is concerned most of all with teaching a cook to rely on his own whim and intuition; to work with what he already has in his pantry instead of rushing out to buy eighteen jars of spices he’ll never use again.

Two months ago, I might have tormented myself by trying to translate last night’s chicken pot pie into a traditional recipe. But there are a thousand such recipes out there, and it’s more fun for me just to give you a narrative. I don’t measure, but I’m mentally engaged with my dish every step of the way.

Chicken Pot Pie

The composition of the dish begins at the grocery store, where I notice that mushrooms are on sale. Celery seems especially expensive today, so I opt for frozen green beans.

Once home, I quarter and skin my chicken and begin to poach it. (I might easily have used the leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge, but I’ve been snacking on it all day and the carcass is looking a little spare.) While it’s poaching, I make a shortcrust pastry by hand, which I already know is just twice as much lightly-salted flour as small pieces of ice-cold butter. It’s an unusually humid day, so I use the barest minimum of water to bind my dough. It’s placed in the fridge to rest.

I sweat the hardiest vegetables (onions and carrots, in this case) in butter and oil. When they’re soft, I sprinkle them with flour and toss it all around a bit to cook; the flour and the fat combine to form a roux. Then I add my milk, which will join forces with the roux and thicken into a béchamel.

In go the potatoes, mushrooms and green beans.  Oh! I forgot about the leftover glass of white wine in the fridge…I’ll toss that in there, too. Hmm, now the sauce is a little thin. Never fear! I knead some butter and flour to make a paste called a beurre manié, and toss that into the mix. And then a little more. The sauce thickens up nicely.

I’ve torn the cooked, cooled chicken into big shreds, and I add that to the pot. What herbs and spices do I have in my cupboard? It could equally have been curry powder, but I go for dried sage and thyme. Blech! The sage has added an aggressive, woody sweetness that I wasn’t quite expecting–how do I counteract it? Big fistfuls of grated parmesan give some serious umami to the sauce and I’m back in the game.

The potatoes are tender now–off goes the flame. I salt the mixture, taste it, and salt it again. And again. I’m finally happy with it, so I preheat my oven and start to roll the pastry. Wouldn’t some star shapes be cute? I whip out the cookie cutter and decorate the crust with two five-pointed stars. A bit of egg wash and in the oven it goes.

Ten minutes into baking, I realize that I’ve forgotten to prick holes in my dough for steam to escape. I reach into the oven for my pie and, in doing so, knock the crust open in two places. The pie is returned to the oven, and within minutes, my kitchen fills with smoke: gravy is spilling out of the broken crust and burning on the oven floor.

I laugh. I try to get a good picture of the pie, and give up. We eat it, and it’s absolutely delicious. I eat the leftovers for lunch the next day.

The end.

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