Cook with Kre

Making a Recipe for the First Time: What to Do First

Updated

When you’re making a recipe for the first time, read it all the way through before you shop or chop, make it as written, and get everything for the first few steps ready before the heat goes on. Save your changes for the second time. The first run is how you find out what the recipe actually does, and a change you made can’t teach you anything if you don’t know what the original would have done.

Read the whole recipe before you start

Read it twice. The first read is for the shape: how many components there are, what happens in the oven and what happens on the stovetop, and roughly how long it all takes. The second read is for the details that catch people out:

  • Hidden waiting. Marinating, chilling, soaking, rising and resting often appear only in the method, not in the time at the top.
  • Equipment. A specific pan size, a food processor, a thermometer, a cake pan that needs lining.
  • Ingredients used twice. “Divided” in the list means part goes in early and part later. Measure the two parts separately so you don’t tip it all in at once.
  • Preheating. If the oven is needed in step six, it may need turning on in step one.

The guide to reading a recipe before you start goes further into spotting the waiting steps and the unfamiliar words.

Should you follow a recipe exactly the first time?

As far as you can, yes. Use the ingredients named, the pan size given and the method in the order written. If you swap the flour, halve the sugar and use a smaller pan, and the result disappoints, you won’t know which change did it.

There are sensible exceptions. If you’re missing something, a like-for-like swap is better than not cooking. If you know your oven runs hot, set it for that. And salt to your own liking at the end; the recipe’s amount is the writer’s taste, not a rule.

What to avoid on a first run is the ambitious change: doubling it for a crowd, converting it to a different cooking method, or making it for guests before you’ve made it once for yourself.

Get the first steps ready, not the whole recipe

Mise en place, having everything measured and prepared before you start, is the professional answer. At home, a lighter version works: get everything for the first ten minutes or so ready, then prepare the rest during the passive stretches, while something simmers or roasts.

Before the pan goes on:

  1. Clear the counter and put the bin or a scrap bowl within reach.
  2. Get out every tool the recipe needs.
  3. Measure and prepare the ingredients for the first few steps, in the order they’re used.
  4. Start the oven if it’s needed.

The first steps of a new recipe are often the fast ones, such as softening onions, toasting spices or making a roux. That’s where reading ahead pays off.

Times in a new recipe are estimates

Every stovetop, pan and oven is a little different, so the times in a recipe you’ve never made are a guide. Set your timer for the low end of any range and check then. Go by the cues the recipe gives: golden at the edges, thick enough to coat a spoon, a skewer that comes out clean.

For meat, fish and eggs, a thermometer settles it. FoodSafety.gov’s safe minimum internal temperatures are 165 °F (74 °C) for poultry, 160 °F (71 °C) for ground meat, and 145 °F (63 °C) for whole cuts of beef, pork and lamb with a three-minute rest.

Taste as you go

Taste at the points where you can still change things: after the sauce has simmered, before the pasta goes in, before the soup is served. Most dishes that seem flat need salt, and the rest usually need acid, a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar. Add a little, stir, and taste again.

Keep your place in an unfamiliar recipe

In a recipe you don’t know, it’s easy to lose track of what’s done, especially with a long ingredient list. Tick off each step with a pencil as you finish it, or move a sticky note down the page. If you do lose your place, lost your place in a recipe? shows how to work out where you are from the pan in front of you.

After the first time, write it down

While it’s fresh, note what you’d change: the real cooking time in your oven, whether it needed more salt, whether it served as many as it said. Those notes are what turn someone else’s recipe into yours, and they’re what make the second time easier.

Cooking it the first time with Kre

Cook with Kre is one way to get through a new recipe without the page. Bring it by link or paste it in, and Kre talks you through it one step at a time, with the amounts beside each step. Ask what a step means and Kre answers from the recipe, or says plainly when the recipe doesn’t say. It keeps your place and your timers, so say “hold on” when you need a minute and pick up where you left off. Kre goes by what you tell it, so whether the dish is done stays your call. See how Kre cooks with you.

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