I make a pretty good rice stir fry. It’s a simple recipe that I made up one day when I saw we had a lot of veggies and leftover rice. My secret, very little soy and ‘way too much‘ hoisin sauce, sesame oil, garlic, and fresh ground pepper. And, a home made pepper sauce that is a family recipe my sister makes for me. I’m not a great cook, but I do some creative things at times and this is one of those times.
When I say ‘way too much‘ of something, I don’t mean drown in the flavour, but I notice that recipes always seem to be conservative with flavours and they try to find some kind of artistic balance. I say screw that when I’m being creative in the kitchen. Most recipes don’t add nearly enough garlic. Most recipes sprinkle black pepper. Most recipes that use sesame oil measure it in teaspoons or at most a couple table spoons. If you saw how much of these I add, you’d think I was ruining the dish… but none of these tastes are overpowering, and my dish is not boring or bland. It has kick, it has zest, and it sends my family back for seconds.
I make a few family concessions. My wife likes way more cilantro than my daughter, so I use a small amount in the dish, but have more chopped for my wife and I to add to the plate. My wife doesn’t like beef in it so I cook a side pot of beef in a similar sauce for my daughter and I. We each get our own version of the dish.
The point is, I really go crazy with certain ingredients, and I think that is seldom done in recipes you find in books. Some flavours deserve a good overdose, others you have to be careful with. Garlic, go nuts. Rosemary, be gentle. Fresh ground black pepper, double the recipe’s suggestion. Dill, be reserved.
Yes, you can have too much of a good thing, but more often than not a recipe simply won’t give you enough of the good stuff, and that’s how I go ‘off book’ on a recipe. That said, my brother-in-law shared some good advice with me recently. He said that the first time he follows a recipe he does it exactly as it is described. That way he can judge what earned it a place in the recipe book, before he gets creative. Good advice. Don’t try to fix something that isn’t broken. But if you taste a recipe and it needs more garlic, well then the next time you cook it, go a little garlic crazy.
