My grandma made homemade tortillas for us. We asked her to write down the recipe. - Add flour. Look at the bowl. - Add water. Mix. Look again. - Pinch of salt - Add Crisco or Manteca. Listen to the bowl. Look again. Flatten the tortillas and put them in the iron skillet. Eat.
My grandma did not put all the necessary ingredients in the recipe. And almost always name the recipe grandma’s best ______________.
when asked for her collard green recipe my grandaunt said "you just season it! ☺️"
Mine always looked like the state of Texas 😜
😂😂😂 I have several recipes like that! I can share if you like!
Please do, Wendy! 🥰
I can’t believe you are giving away a secret family recipe 😂
And I bet they are the best tortillas ever
Manteca! Dizzy Gillespie!
This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing!
I just went through a box of my English raised mom’s recipes that she collected and wrote over the years. Some have no ingredient amounts, oven temps or length of time to cook/bake. And if cans of ingredients are listed they’ll be referenced as No 2 can. I don’t know what that means.
so that's what I'm doing wrong , I forget to LOOK at the bowl , I'm such a dope. I tease and mean NO HARM. I love homemade tortillas so much , I bought an authentic tortilla press so i could make my own at home . they still come out misshapen and weird looking, but the taste is all that matters.
And DAYAM they were good!!!
Grandma's just know. I miss mine.
Mine included: place hand directly on skillet to check heat level.
My grandma's bread recipe starts with 5 lbs of flour and has things like "handful of oil" included in it. My mom tried so hard to get it written down and she has a passable version with standard measurements but man it ain't the same.
"That is the way"
My mother showed me how to make nutroll having me measure everything out. Nuts were done with a hand grinder. When it came time to mix the dough it had to be worked by hand. Adding flour at a time it was ready when it came off my hand.
Sounds like my 🇲🇽mother: salt - oil - pepper 🌶️ - vanilla - spices - water - wine - cinnamon… “al tanteo” (=guessing, tasting and mainly feeling it) 💃🏻
I can’t even begin to describe my jealousy and one day I will make them but I think they still won’t be as good bc I’m I dunno …not a person who had the family secrets. My family’s food is Celtic and terrifying.
Good cooks don't measure
What does the bowl sound like?
I'm guessing that when there's enough fat in the dough it makes a certain sound when you mix it.
❤️🩷💜
My Grandma-in-law shared her famous score recipe with me and it part of it equates to: 'Mix liquids in a glass pitcher with a metal fork until the tone of fork on glass changes to a hallow sound'
Scone
My mother used to hand make biscuits. She showed me how the flour feels when crisco is mixed with the flour correctly.
Yup that’s about it. Enjoy
Saving this for later!
I understand completely. That’s exactly the way this grandma cooks.
Exactly how my grandma would have described making paratha and roti 😅
My mil’s sausage roll recipe: mix up some bisquick
All my Grandmom’s recipes were like that 🥺 Sauce: four cans tomatoes, four cans paste, brown garlic . Add mint. Make meatballs. Add. Simmer until done. Damn I miss her
My southern SIL would say “just fix it up” to my recipe requests.
Your Lita was an artisan. Now go make them 1000+ times and maybe you'll get close . I got much of the same fromy momma.
Isn’t Manteca just butter in Spanish?
From Recipes dot net: While manteca and lard are both made from pork fat and serve similar purposes in cooking, there are some differences between the two:
Lard is manteca. Butter is mantequilla.
I'm definitely not much of a measuring type,especially on things I've made a lot 😆
Recipes aren't for the experts. They are to help beginners to get to the point they can modify the recipe to their taste.
I had a similar experience with my granny years ago when I tried to find out whta the recipe was for clootie dumpling. I gave up. I still don't know.
For the non-Scots, 'clootie' comes from the muslin cloth (cloot) that the dumpling is wrapped in before being put in a pot of water to cook. Often silver coins wrapped in greaseproof paper would be added to the mix before cooking. The dumpling would then sit in front of the open fire to dry off.
Sounds like my mom’s recipe. She never measured a thing and her tortillas were always perfect
I have a few of those recipes passed from my great grandmother
My grandmother would say “feel it, then you know”….ah, no I don’t know 🤷♀️
All the best cooks cook like this….
Sounds like my Omi in Germany 😂
Legit
Love it!! My ex German mother in law gave my daughter her recipe for applesauce. Apples. Pot. Some water. Boil. Mash. She died at 103.
Wow! ❤️
At least your mother in law said boil, my Pennsylvania Dutch grandfather said cook the shit out them, when we made applesauce! Lol
😅
I just bought some corn flour to make my own tortillas. What does granny mean by listen to the bowl?
My grandma’s pie crust was the same, told me you can feel it and then you know it’s right. I was lucky she was around long enough showing me ‘til I could feel it too.
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I’ve always called this “grandma knowledge”. They got taught by their moms who got taught by their moms etc etc so it’s all cooking by feel They’ve done it so many times over the years they just know what it’s supposed to look like It’s so impressive, any cook would do well to follow your example
My mother would make Irish scones this way. Seemed like she could go from start to delicious finished product in 15 min.
My Mom gave me some recipies just like this❣️
KFC's "secret" 11 herbs and spices: 11 Spices – Mix with 2 cups white flour * 2⁄3 t salt * 1⁄2 t thyme * 1⁄2 t basil * 1⁄3 t oregano * 1 t celery salt * 1 t black pepper * 1 t dry mustard * 4 t paprika * 2 t garlic salt * 1 t ground ginger * 3 t white pepper And one tablespoon of MSG.
BTW, this was written on a note found in one of Colonel Sander's cookbooks after he died. I've tested it personally and can 100% confirm that this is the same recipe used by KFC. So… just wanted to put this out there in case anybody needed to make their own KFC. :)
We appreciate you.
And the best part is KFC can't do anything to retract that knowledge, as that would confirm the accuracy of the recipe and thus violate their own trade secret. lol
Am I right to assume that the ‘t’ refers to teaspoon? I’m guessing so as you’ve specifically mentioned tablespoon for the MSG, but just want to be sure. I did look it up but am none the wiser. Thanks. cookroomkitchen.com/what-does-t-...
The Colonel's original note used a "t" as a measurement, without clarifying if he meant teaspoon or tablespoon (hence why I copied it verbatim). When I tried the recipe out for myself, I used tablespoons, which appears to have been what Sanders meant.
Thank you 𝐬𝐨 much for the response, I really appreciate it. I shall try this.
Just an FYI, the recipe prepares quite a lot of seasoning. So, be sure to have a container on-hand to store the remainder of what you don't use. Good luck!
Thank you again, that’s good to know.
this is how a druid explains casting a spell
Hey!! That’s my grandmas recipe!!! 💞
Makes perfect sense!
Listen to the bowl... how wise... 🙌🏾
I learned how to cook rice from my Chinese roommate in college...first, you have to wash the rice to honor it and release its spirit... I think about that to this day, as I wash my rice.
Similar experience with my Hawaiian ex mother in law who proclaimed I wasn’t marrying her son without perfecting rice in a pot, not rice maker. The one instruction that stands to this day… after rinsing rice you use enough water up to your index finger knuckle from top of rice. Perfect!
That's exactly how she taught me! And again, to this day, I pride myself with making a perfect pot of rice...no rice makers!
Amazing how those century old techniques stand the test of time. These people’s ancestors (in my MIL case maybe her) didn’t have stoves or rice makers. So it’s really a survival skill.
Oh I like that! 🙂
It’s the secret recipe!
That’s similar to my mom’s recipe except she also adds “More Crisco. More. More. More…”
My grandmother said "if you have to measure you don't know how to cook." Because cooking wasn't just informational like a recipe it was a deep knowledge of how food works.
❤️❤️❤️
Just like my grandmother's recipe for anginetti
🙄🤨🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 exactly …. Not one measurement, just a pitch, a handful or in chingo !!
It’s true! I make sourdough bread. My recipe is simple. Add enough flour to the sponge to look and feel right. Add enough salt to taste right.
Old cooks don’t have to measure. They know!
Exactly how my Grandmother cooked!
I love the "Listen to the bowl" 😍🥰
But different bowls have different sounds. Glass. Plastic. Ceramic. Metal. And then there's size. Imagine if there's a sudden loss of the speaking tortilla bowl. How long would it take to understand the sounds of its replacement.
I do too!
Our family has Grandma's potato dumpling recipe. She could only tell us how to make a 10 lb batch. "Stir it till it feels done" was a direction. 💕 At least "when they float they are done" for the cooking made sense!
☺️
That’s how I do recipes… and my kids do 🤦🏻
Love those kind of recipes. They know how it feels, but cannot give you the amounts to put in there because they never measure.
Same happened when I asked my mom to teach me before I left for college. “Just keep adding more until it feels like this.”
I put milk in my tortillas. Makes them fluffier. I like fluffy.
Grandma’s took the oath.
Lol…. Love it!😊
Makes perfect sense (my grandma taught me when I was 10 lol)
My mother bless her heart cooked like that. Best food ever
Seems like the way most people actually cook in Mexico (from what I saw living there for 7 years). No "measuring cups," no written-out recipes. I do like the "listen to the bowl" line. And actually, it's the way I mostly learned to cook growing up. Does it look right? Is it thick enough?
Grandma just dropped the Elden Ring boss fight tutorial of tortilla-making.
Thank you.
I asked my grandmother to write everything down. She did, bless her, but it's in 4 languages because she couldn't remember all the English words, and WTF is an Oka?! (Turkish weight, I had to look it up, thanks Ottoman empire).
great grandmas everywhere: depending on the dish, the ingredients may change ...but the recipe remains the same
This is how my French Canadian grandmother wrote recipes too. 😂
This is basically how I cook dinner every night with a few more ingredients.
I found a recipe that my mom transcribed after watching my grandma cook. Such classics as "measure by hand?". It's gonna take some trial and error to find out if it was a teaspoon or tablespoon. I want to be grandma level cook one day.
Keep cooking, you'll get there. It helps to make the same thing over and over until the recipe is written in your bones.
Total grandma recipe. Same here from my Romanian grandmother You use a pinch of this and some of that.
True story: Growing up in NY, during the winter, my Romanian grandmother would store food out on the fire escape to keep it cold.
"But not too much, just enough to give it flavor!" 😅
same, but i fold the butter in before the water
Thanks for sharing!!! 💗
I grew up on government cheese and flour tortillas made by my grandmother every morning for breakfast
Me too! Or hot dog wrapped in tortilla. 🫶
It's just that simple. 🥰 "Add milk until you can almost see it" is our catch phrase from grandma recipes.
Yes! My mom wrote down her recipe for scalloped potatoes. It calls for "adding milk until you can see it." She even specified which of her Corningware pots to use.
Or “boil corn until you smell it”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 I felt that!
😜, my MIL would say “just a handful “ she was 4’8” with tiny little hands ❤️
Yep, sounds like my Wife The Baker, who I asked repeatedly to tell me/show me how exactly she made her perfect pie crust or biscuit. Eventually, I gave up and became the Family Cook and left the role of Family Baker to her. Partnership! 😉
lol 😂 that’s how my mother would teach us all the Italian recipes, but somehow she left something out of those recipes..they never tasted the same, I think Italians like to keep secrets when they cook,I think if we actually learned she would feel replaced,and we would miss Sunday dinner
Sure my grandma left ingredients out when I asked for the recipe. Still can’t make the bread dumplings without them falling apart. As to her sarma (cabbage rolls), my mom claims there is no garlic or onions in the meat. Grind pork & beef, adding 1 small onion & 3 cloves of garlic. Tastes like hers.
Italians ALWAYS leave out 1 ingredient on purpose This is 100% true 🤣 In fact, it made me giggle watching that Stanley Tucci travel/cooking show in Italy because the old ladies in Italy did the same thing, lol!
I think there is a lot of truth to that! My Mom was Ukrainian. She taught my ex how she made her cabbage rolls but unfortunately my ex made them "too good". Mom never did show her other recipes after that! 😂
Peak ethnic grandma! I love it so much!
Same with Italian meatballs. It's the way it "feels" between the palm & fingers.
A classic family recipe.
Listen to the bowl like we listen to the Sandia 🍉👀
Love it...
This is the way. It took a group of us to get my mom's tamales recipe.
Oh nicely done! 😍
Same with my brother-in-law's mother. She would gather the women to make the masa, but never permitted any of them in the kitchen while she was cooking the filling. When she died each of the girls got a beautifully-handwritten recipe for the filling, and they are now framed in 4 kitchens :)
You don't use Masa?
My Dad measures things in “coughs” as in “how far you can drag this nutmeg/etc over the grater in the length of a single cough”
Oh wow! 🫶
lol - isn't that how everyone makes tortillas?
I am a bad cook..that sounds easy for me who needs easy...
Hahahahaha! Only difference between this and Indian frybread is a little baking power, and they're thicker 'cause you fry them in oil.
This is the way IJS.
That only helps people who have already done it 10,000 times and don't need a recipe anyway.
Es verdad
This feels more like a diary of actions more than a recipe. That said, my mom does the same and I just watch and repeat steps as best I can 😂
I hate to say it but this is exactly how every since one of my recipes are like.
Gotta love Grandma 😍
Corn tortillas are easy. Flour tortillas, on the other hand, are hard.
It's like my chapati reccipe, I made terrible ones until I threw out the carefully measured recipe and just went for it.
Yep, every family has one of these. Ours is kugel
Some of my old family recipes just list ingredients, no indications as to what to do with them! Sometimes you can work it out, sometimes not!
Got it. I'm gonna use it.
This is how my Venezuelan mom taught me how to make arepas. Thanks, mom.
Try to measure how much she puts in or weigh the bowl on a food scale. Record her making the recipe and use it to make them. Sometimes humidity and the ingredients being used can differ, and that can change the amount of water or a liquid ingredients used .
This!
Can totally relate. We have a recipe from my aunt that we literally titled, “Tortillas More or Less.”
I have a church cookbook with a few recipes with instructions like "mix and bake in the usual way."
🤣 every adhd person and every person who takes things literally would have absolutely no idea what that meant.
More like if you're not part of the oral tradition
Sounds like half of our Oma’s recipes. We asked how she makes her potato pancakes and it is by feeling the mixture to see if it is too wet or dry.
Don’t forget baking powder, it helps them rise and cook much better. I used to make them every night as a kid when I helped my mom make dinner, and then with my own family, now nieces and one grandson makes them.
I’ve tried making corn tortillas and I think it boils down to “after 1000 or so you’ll start feeling it”
INSTRUCTIONS UNCLEAR, SKILLET LODGED IN RECTUM.
I can do this to make scratch pancakes and basic white or wheat breads
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Poke it with a fork.
And I'll bet that's a recipe that's been handed down through generations.
Sounds about right! 😆
The true definition & originator of IYKYK
Listen to the bowl. I love this
This is basically my grandmother’s biscuit recipe
Lol she just kinda forgot to mention the 50 years of experience. Love that!
This is why my mom and I started doing video cooking sessions. Technique and interaction is so much more than the ingredients for good cooking.
Gotta love a grandma!
My Grandma passed along a turkey stuffing recipe that calls for two loaves of bread from a bakery that hasn't existed in 40 years.
That one’s easy if you remember what the bread looked & tasted like. I’ve had to find substitutes for some things & they come out very close, if you can get a close match to the original
Listen to the bowl? Is that literally or in some metaphysical way like find the bowl within? Either way it's cool.
Add very hot water.
I just made a custard this weekend with my grandma’s recipe that called for “scalded milk”.
Sounds like milk that has been boiled so hot that it forms skin over the top.
Sounds about right.
I skipped ahead to the Eat. 😁
So special ❤️
I do this with pancakes.
You have to know how to look
sounds about right, actually :)
That’s the recipe!
It’s… accurate.
I remember how hard it was for me to write a recipe down, such discipline. I’d have to shake the salt in my hand, then measure it, so I could write it down.
LOL.
I have grandma recipes that read a lot like this.
we tried to write down my mom's recipe once but she kept sneaking pinches into the bowl 🤣
Sounds like my grandma’s biscuits recipe! 😂
Nice! 🫶
Actual conversation with my Cajun mother about making gumbo: Me: How much water should I add? Mom: Enough. Me: How much is enough? Mom: It shouldn't be too much. Me: How will I know when it's too much? Mom: Add water till it's right, then stop. Me: Thanks, clears it right up.
Too much water in gumbo is fixed easily with a little more cooking time. It's difficult to overcook gumbo.
Throw in more okra.
Hehe cute don't forget to look!!! I wonder what you do when your vision is impaired. Perhaps ask her what it should feel like and make it with her. Enjoy the time you are given to the fullest. No regurts. I had fun with that receipt was all like:
Love this!too bad she didn't mention all the kneading & hand rolling of the masa balls- assuming flour & not corn.my mom made flour tortillas- she always said it was a trap cuz once people know,they want you to make them all the time.
Brilliant.
My late MIL made the best Thanksgiving dressing I’ve ever had. She was on hospice due to cancer. The night before her last Thanksgiving, she asked her daughter and me over to make it with her. No recipe, only “You’ll know when it feels right.” Hubs says each time, “oh, you made my mom’s dressing”
How wonderful you got that opportunity 💕
😂😂😂😂I hear ya! Sometimes when I do chores for people they pay me with baked good cause they have no $$. When I ask for the recipe, THIS is exactly what I get. I love the way these old gals cook, they know by the sound, sight and love.
Sounds about right.
Very similar to my cornbread recipe, learned from my gran & then mom! 😁
Not only are my late grandma's recipes a family secret, they're also entirely unusable by anyone who hasn't stood side by side with her and cooked together 😂 it's a good thing I'm a learn by doing kinda person.
all my cousins huddled around my grandma when she was making family favorites to take notes/ video record bc the recipes basically just gave the dish name
A couple of my grandma's recipes have like, a singular number in them for one of the ingredients 😂
My grandma taught me the same thing. Hers, delicious! Mine? Crackers. Crackers every time.
OMG, your grandma is too cool. How cute what a gem.
Before my Italian grandmother passed away, I went over every weekend for a month because she never measured anything, so I just cooked with her and wrote down the ingredients and studied the sounds and smells and feel. Worked better than a recipe card for me!
my Italian great grandmother’s recipe cards had measurements such a pinch or a handful or a little. 😆
Except a pinch is an actual measure, lol! The rest 🤷🏻♀️
WHAT?!?! 🤯🤏
Lmao! I know! I learned it in cooking class in 8th grade. And when you take a pinch it's not the tips of your fingers but instead curl up your fingers like you'd make a fist and pinch with the length of your thumb alongside the middle section of your finger It equates to 1/16 tsp Totally legit!
Thank you!! I’m so happy to be in the good place where I can learn cool stuff from cool people!
❤️🥰❤️🥰❤️🥰❤️
There is no 1/16 tsp measuring spoon so that is typically still regarded as a "pinch" In fact I believe it can be generically used for any measure smaller than 1/8 tsp
A “Skosh”
I got my Mom’s recipe for raisin pie. The first ingredient is listed as “ a bunch of raisins.”
Clear as mud🤣🤣🤣🤣
I never got it right.. my mom taught my wife the art of making tortillas.. for a Czech she’s got the touch.. uses a rolling pin to flatten them not a press .. makes the lightest, best tasting tortillas .. just like my mom’s …it’s a dying art
Looks like my mother's recipes
100% authentic.
I've discovered that looking at the bowl and smelling is the best way to be successful with a dish... it's very good advice ahaha.
call lisabug's grandma to come over for a demo!
Measurements are overrated.
I get major anxiety if I don’t know measurements or have a recipe. Improvision is not my jam. I am not a great cook.
Uhhh I meant improvisation
Thank you & just like my grandma cooked!🤣
It’s how my grandma made her egg noodles. All from memory and perfect every time.
I learned to make bread in the 1970s from a couple of lady's in a small Newfoundland outport, very similiar. I still make bread, now mostly more measured & prescribed. BUT every now & then I indulge in the add flour look at bowl add warm milk.... etc, hands on method. Very satisfying.
Love all the comments, especially ones about sparse recipe directions. I get frustrated with on line recipes, way too many instructions. I'm in 70s any recipes iI keep I rewrite them in my own short sparse fashion. LOL.
That sounds like one of my grandma's recipes. 😁
I thought this was my mom! Chicken soup recipe. Put chicken in the soup Cook the chicken Add water Add spices to taste Taste the soup. ??????????
That is EXACTLY the recipe—I’ve seen it done! 😂😂
Me trying to share my bread recipes with my coworkers 😂
Lol. My mom was the same!
Sounds like my Irish mother’s recipes 🤣
There was a cake recipe from an old Mennonite cookbook that went viral a couple years ago. Preceding a basic spice cake recipe was “soak barbecue pork in club soda overnight.” They left out the step where you strain the meat out, so TikTok made it with the meat in the cake.
😂😂😂
👀
We probably own said menno cookbook. We’ll have to scour it for this gem…
So an ingredient was bbq pork infused club soda? 😭
There is a cookie made in China that uses pork-infused wine. American Mennonites in some states avoided alcohol. The soda would be completely flat the next day, and rich in bacon-like flavor. I used to buy pork cookies in Chinatown, spread peanut butter between two, and dip them in chocolate.
Very interesting thank you for sharing :)
wait. is this the Pork Soda that Glass Animals and Primus were talking about
OMG I love this so much!
My grandma had a recipe that read something like "1 cup flour dito sugar half cup milk" in sentence form, not a list. Took me *forever* to figure out how to measure out a "dito". 😁
And when you tell her your tortillas don't taste the same, she says, "What type of bowl are you using?""
🎯🥳🤣