Baking Vs Cooking
Cooking
When cooking up dishes there is no exact science. In a recipe if I say 1 onion and you hate onions, use less. If you don’t like another of the ingredients use something else or don’t put it in, if you love hot things add more chillies. As long as you taste along the way and you like it, it’s going to be ok. You should consider a recipe for cooking as more of a guide line for how a dish will be and just tweak it according to your tastes.
You also have to take into consideration that I may be using ingredients from different places to where you would get them from. For example I got some avocados the other day in the Bahamas and there were supersized as if they were on steroids, however I know that avocados in Europe are a lot smaller, all vegetables vary in size drastically depending on where you are or what season it is, although I seem to find that if they are too big they lose some of their flavour.
Caramelising finely chopped onions and garlic is kind of like a base to a lot of dishes it does not mean that they are what the dish will taste of they are more like flavour enhancers.
Fresh chilli’s vary in strength so it is always best to add a small amount cook for a while and taste, and add more if need be, you can always add more but you can’t take it out, remember this when adding salt, also if you are cooking for a lot of people adding less salt is better as they can add more, but some people are opposed to salty dishes due to various health issues.
Baking
This is more of a science a slightly different amount or things added in the wrong order can dramatically change the end result so be careful.
