Yield: 20 6 ounce servings
Ingredients Amounts Butter 6 ounces Caulifower 1 head Celery, diced 2 ribs Leek, diced 1 Onion, diced 1 Parsley, diced few stems Bay leaf ½ Clove 1 Garlic ½ clove Rosemary pinch Thyme pinch Peppercorns, crushed pinch Flour 6 ounces Stock 1 gallon Cream 1 pint Salt 1 tablespoon Pepper 1 teaspoon
1. Cook vegetable, herbs, and spices in butter for 5 minutes.
2. Blend in flour and cook for 10 minutes over low heat.
3. Add stock and blend well.
4. Cook over low heat for 20 minutes.
5. Blend in hot cream.
6. Season with salt and pepper.
7. Strain and serve.
You can readily see that the standardized recipe is an essential industry tool. Nevertheless, learning to cook by following such a recipe one ingredient at a time is not the best way to do it. The standardized recipe was written as a record, not as a teaching tool. How good is any recipe-at telling you how to make a dish you have never made before?
To answer this question lets examine a typical recipe for a classical cream soup (Figure 5-1). It is not a standardized recipe because it is not designed to be used in a particular operation. It is the kind of recipe you find in dozens of books. If you gave this recipe to 20 beginning cooks they might very well turn out 20 different soups.
How can this be? The recipe gives specific ingredients. It specifies exact quantities. It states exact cooking times. It spells out each step in the cooking process. How can anything go wrong?
The fact is that, in cooking, there are many variables, and these variables practically guarantee a variety of results unless you under-stand how to deal with them. Many recipes give rigid instructions about things that vary from one kitchen to another, from product to product, from person to person.
For example, no two ranges perform in exactly the same fashion. No two heads of cauliflower are exactly alike. No two products of any kind are exactly alike, no two utensils are alike and no two cooks are alike. You yourself are not likely to turn the flame of the gas burner to exactly the same height two days in a row. Even the weather, the altitude, and the kitchen temperature can change things.
The recipe, in trying to assure a standard result by specifying cooking times, actually guarantees a variety of results because of all the variables. Different pots of soup prepared by different people on different equipment do not cook in exactly the same length of time. One cook's soup will evaporate more than an-other's, so the two soups will not have the same taste and texture and will not need the same amount of salt.
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