Antique recipes reflect a time before electricity, refrigeration and modern cooks' tools.
Before Fannie Farmer introduced the recipe format of listing ingredients and then technique, recipes were often handed down word-of-mouth and rarely written down. Consequently, antique recipes are confusing to the modern cook. Cooks of previous centuries did not always provide exact measurements, so it is difficult to know exactly how much of an ingredient is needed. Updating an antique recipe is an exercise that requires some research into antique cooking methods, but produces a modern recipe that a cook of today can follow.
Instructions
1. Select a recipe to update for the modern recipe format. It is best to start with an easy recipe that requires fewer than five ingredients.
2. Write down each sentence of the recipe in separate sections. For example, an antique recipe for mashed potatoes reads: "Boil the potatoes or steam them, peel and mash them." Write down, "Boil or steam potatoes. Peel, quarter and then mash." Update the language for today's cooks.
3. Write down the ingredients and amounts needed for the recipe. If no ingredient amount is listed, then find a comparable modern recipe and copy the amount. In the antique recipe for mashed potatoes, a quantity of 2 lbs. is given.
4. Update antique cooking methods for modern electric and natural gas stoves. When a recipe lists, "moderate oven," then the temperature is 350 degrees F. When a recipe lists, "gentle fire" or "gentle heat," then that means to cook at a medium-low temperature on the stove.
5. Calculate the exact time the recipe needs to cook. Some recipes give vague cooking times, since most antique kitchens did not have clocks or timers. Either find a comparable or research approximate cooking times for the recipe's ingredients.
6. List all of the cooks' tools needed in the recipe. Hand mixing can be replaced by a stand mixer and finely chopped ingredients can be put in a food processor. If a dish needs to simmer for more than two hours, it can be put into a modern crock-pot.
7. Write down the updated recipe. List the ingredients first and then the method. Add the exact cooking times and temperatures. Incorporate the cooks' tools as well. The recipe is now ready to try.
Tags: modern recipe, Write down, antique recipe, cooking times, cooks tools, antique cooking, methods