Cooking isn’t just a hobby or something you need to do to survive — it’s also science. Recipes can be more flexible than formal science experiments, but changing what you put in something can make a huge difference in many ways. Measuring is surprisingly important when cooking (especially when baking!), and not just for flavor. Here are three other ways measurements can impact your final result.
Table of Contents
1- Methods
Depending on what you’re making, changing measurements can lead to you needing to change how you cook the dish in the first place. A small amount of zucchini in a stir fry, for instance, might not change the way you approach stir-frying. Zucchini gives off a lot of water, however, and increasing the amount means you need to adjust how you cook the rest of the dish. You may need to cook in batches, or you could salt the zucchini beforehand to draw out excess moisture.
Too much water can reduce your pan’s temperature, making it harder to get your food browned properly. Because stir-frying generally requires high heat and quick cooking times, the time it takes for the water to evaporate may pose a problem for the rest of the dish. That much water can dilute the dish’s flavor, too, making it less satisfying in the end.
2- Texture
Your dish’s final texture can vary greatly if you change ingredient proportions. You might see it in a fried chicken coating, for example; if a recipe wants the coating to be two parts flour and one part corn starch, swapping the amounts will change the way the chicken crunches.
It’s even more important for baking, though. Each ingredient can change the outcome of your bake. Extra baking soda can make a quickbread rise more, for instance, but too much can lead to a bitter taste. Adding extra flour may result in a tougher bread or cake. Adding an extra egg to the cake batter, especially to boxed mixes, will not just add protein and unsaturated (beneficial) fats; it’ll make the cake fluffier, too.
3- Nutrition
Perhaps the most obvious way (other than flavor) that measurements will affect a recipe is in the dish’s nutritional value. If we continue with the stir-fry example, adding more zucchini will add more of the vegetable’s nutrients to your meal. Changing the measurements of other ingredients in response, too, will change things. You might find yourself removing fatty protein, taking away some of the food’s fat content, and reducing its calories.
Be mindful when you modify measurements, though — differing proportions can also impact how filling your meal is. A stir-fry where extra zucchini is substituted for beef may have less fat than how the recipe is written, but it will also be less filling.
This is particularly important when it comes to oil. Oil is a great way to conduct heat and get color and flavor to your food. In small amounts, barring any health conditions, some oils can even be healthy. When you’re cooking, though, you might find yourself reaching for your oil more than once. As a result, you inadvertently add extra fat, throwing off the nutritional value of your dish.
Though cooking is a science, it doesn’t mean you can’t experiment yourself. Whether you’re changing proportions to make a meal healthier or trying to create a new recipe of your own, differing measurements can make a huge difference.
