Cooking For Engineers

[sirpaul484]

A few weeks ago, I finally convinced my grandmother to give me her recipe books so that I can copy them to the computer. There is only one problem: She has omitted quantities and times from them. So, instead of having something that says "Add 2 cups of flour", I have "Add flour until the texture is right", or "add pepper until it tastes right", or, the worst one of all, "Cook until done". I tried making knoedels using her recipe, and instead of delicious potato dumplings with a bacon filling, I got a goopy mess. Is there anything I can do to "fix" the recipes aside from trial and error, or is it just a lost cause?

[kgb1001001]

I've faced this too. Your best bet is to look on the internet or in cookbooks for recipes that are similar and then try to fill in the missing bits of your grandmother's recipes using the information on the net. Through that and the process of trial-and-error I've managed to recreate a couple of my mother's recipes the same way.

Long, slow and difficult, but it does work given enough time.

Of course, since your grandmother is still alive, you could also suggest that you make some of the recipes together -- and observe the quantities and cooking times she uses, or take notes on the textures she's indicating.