Soul food: Following recipes exactly is a delicious way stay sane in lockdown

Most nights I cook like anyone else, casting a hopeful eye over the contents of the fridge, flipping through the mental library of recipes in the hopes that the aforementioned fridge contents yield a semi-balanced meal.

I cook fast and with confidence, and my professional training as a chef means that the food always tastes good, but recently these meals leave me full — but unsatisfied.

The feeling was even worse when I was following a recipe. After a cursory glance at the ingredients and method, I used to take off with preparations, adjusting quantities and flavours, usually adding more acid and less sugar, imposing myself on the recipe, losing the spirit of what the author was trying to show me in the results of my efforts.

With last year's insular, lonely feeling now having crept into the sanctuary of the kitchen, I thought about what recipes really offer us. When we're learning to cook they're a lifeline. If you're baking, they're the law. Really, what all recipes and their creators are offering is a kind of friendship. They are the kindness of sharing something delicious. A chance, if you resist the urge to impose your preferences on a recipe, to experience another culture. They are the intimate portrayal of another's life.

Someone once described cooking a recipe as being the physical manifestation of the idiom "to walk a mile in someone's shoes". That's true, but the vaulting joy for me more closely resembles borrowing a beautiful dress and seeing yourself momentarily anew.

Through the practice of honouring recipes by following them exactly, I've fallen in love with cooking and eating all over again.

When the craving for roast potatoes hit, I turned to Ottolenghi's Flavour, to find my way. (Get some recipes from Flavour, here.) His recipe for roast sweet potatoes with a fragrant tomato sauce fortified with cardamom and lifted with lime made me feel positively pre-pandemic. Standing over my stove, smiling insanely at a casserole dish, I felt the carb-laden comfort-eating coma of 2020 lift. Following other people's thoughtful instructions turned out to be the directions I needed to get back to myself.

To preserve your sanity, should you feel the need for a project of your own, here are a few suggestions when choosing recipes:

Recipes in cookbooks are usually more reliable than those on the internet, which are often not tested properly, if at all. Pick a volume by a cook whose food you admire and immerse yourself in the details. Look for recipes which are written to be followed precisely. While there are many recipes written to be flexible, a project like this requires deliberateness.

In cookbooks is the opportunity to taste a place; a passion from somewhere far more thrilling than your own kitchen. Aside from the obvious benefit of getting to eat something delicious and learn new techniques, cooking from recipes in well-curated volumes allows you the chance to challenge your culinary framework, to enter other cultures respectfully, to participate in a much more significant way than merely as a restaurant diner.

If you're going to be sourcing your recipes on the internet, look for recipes that have reviews so that you can troubleshoot potential problems before you waste your time and ingredients.

For baking, I like the long-standing blog Smitten Kitchen, whose author Deb Perelman deep dives on Google search results and produces meticulously written recipes for home cooks.

I also love J Kenji López-Alt, whose brilliant website Serious Eats will teach you not only the crucial how of cooking, but also the why. Understanding the science of cooking allows you untold freedom to bend the rules to your liking.

Finally, pick recipes that sound surprising in some way. Unusual flavour combinations, or a technique that you're unfamiliar with can make even the most mundane ingredients come alive. Remember to read the recipe through fully before setting off, and to resist the urge, however tempting, to make changes as you go. When sitting down to an unusual meal you've created yourself, remember that taste evolves, just as we do, through connections, openness, a respect for others and a willingness to share what we know and try what we don't.

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