Errors and Improvisations

How bad can it get? Unless you confuse the sugar with the salt (or vice versa), or believe in the latest fad and put bananas in a red wine sauce meant for grilled salmon, you can recover from almost anything. If a soufflé falls, just scoop it out, put it in a buttered gratin dish, pour on a little cream, or custard if it’s a sweet soufflé, shove it under the broiler, and call it your grandmother’s pudding.

Above all, trust yourself. There are some things in recipe writing that are impossible to describe succinctly, such as when a pan is too hot, either with oil in it (for toasting dried chilies) or not (when toasting spices). “Heat until the pan is hot but not smoking” is imperfect because the moment you know with certainty that the pan is hot enough is when it is too hot and the oil has already begun to smoke. Learn to recognize that moment when the oil is getting ready to smoke, when it just starts to shimmer and move around in the pan. If you misjudge, simply take the pan off the heat for a minute. Trust your instincts and you will be fine.