It's kind of nice when accidents happen and they actually help show people something you have expressed before on the subject. Two Fridays before, I gave my Basil Pesto recipe. Last Friday, I gave another Basil Pesto recipe from Chef Cody Lewis.
The accident was that I had asked Cody to do a little piece on sauces and then give one of his favorite sauce recipes. I didn't limit him on what recipe he gave me. Just by chance he picked the same recipe I had just posted. He didn't know I had posted that recipe before he submitted his recipe. It was just his favorite.
My question becomes "How many readers of the blog compared the two recipes?" If you had, you would have noticed that they basically used the same ingredients but in definitely different amounts. The only difference in the ingredients was that I also used black pepper and Cody did not.
I the cookbook,as well as in the blog recipes, I have always said that once you make a recipe it usually is different each time after that. I encourage you to make changes to the recipes to meet your personal taste. I love that these two recipes reflect that statement.
Of the six common ingredients, only two of them are of equal amounts. They are the olive oil and the Parmesan cheese. Cody uses twice as much basil as I do. While I use 50% more garlic and more than double the pine nuts. Cody uses double my salt but then I use black pepper too.
We even toast our pine nuts differently. Me on top of the stove and Cody in the oven.
But the amazing thing about all of this is that both recipes work and taste great. One has a little more basil flavor while the other is a little nuttier. If you would go out on the net and look, you could check five different Basil Pesto recipes and most likely none of them would be exactly the same. Everybody has put their influence into them.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is what cooking is all about: Create what tastes good to you and be happy. Now go out there and put your mark on your food. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment