Similarly most pre-metric measurements, whereas ‘a slice’ or ‘a knob’, or ‘a little’ leave it to the experience of the chef. And let’s not forget, that in the context of this thread most f not all posters are home chefs not pro chefs, nor cookery writers nor (thank God) gastro-influencers.
I’ll have you know I worked my way through university as an exemplary fry chef at the canteen in a meat pie factory in Reading, I think they were Warburtons -can’t really remember.
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Perhaps you could answer the question that has been exercising the minds of a certain portion of the population for many years now.
“Who ate all the pies?”
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I am very curious if anyone still shares recipes. Does anyone still use cookery books. Are recipes now consulted on the Internet?
And - if so does any one keep track of recipes they like. Do you dog ear a favourite recipe in a book, keep a list of useful URLs or are you more old fashioned with a set of handwritten notes.
We have loads of cookery books taking up space filling up cupboards gathering dust. Need I say more. I cook a few favorites of mine but Mrs Corona is a vegetarian so just opens packets of shite made in factories whilst collecting books on how to make real food albeit vegetarian.
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I have a number of recipe books, but they’re all starting points for ideas, not a final destination. I only follow a recipe if I don’t know what I’m doing.
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I think I do much the same thing.
If you modify a recipe to your liking, do you remember it for next time, make a note of it, start from scratch again or never have the same recipe twice?
I have some favorite ones that I use. Generally classic chefs - Madhur Jaffrey, Claudia Roden, Elizabeth David, etc but also a couple of modern chefs like Anna Jones. We annotate them to our taste. And my old filofax has been repurposed so if we do find an recipe we like (friends/internet) we try to write it down. But my favorite is an old french reference book that just has lists of combinations - so if you want to know what is in (eg) a sauce gribiche it will tell you and then you work out the recipe yourself.
She was an actress 
You’re obviously too young! She taught a whole generation to cook indian food (ie without curry powder and ready mixed spices)in the 1980’s.
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Wish I was, still have her book and it was the first flurry into cooking indian, cant remember how many spice grinders I have worn out. Thats what is so good about indian I think, receipes passed down and then shared, so many regional and family variations 
I write down a recipe to pass it on but not for personal use. Every time I cook it will vary a little, although some dishes are more consistent than others. I also buy based on what’s available rather than deciding the menu first and then shopping to a detailed list.
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I tend to follow the Henry Ford maxim of “If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you have always got” (although I don’t think he had cooking in mind and intended his quote as a warning).
I save any recipe (that works for me) to a single Microsoft Word file. That way I can repeat it whenever I want. Of course if I make any changes for the better (by design or accident!) I simply amend that part of the recipe.
I have copied this paragraph from an earlier post because it is relevant.
I was watching a YouTube video of how to make Kouign-Amann by the chef of a very famous French restaurant. Interestingly, he talked about grams of flour rather than cups but when he added some milk - he added so many grams of milk (not millilitres) which immediately grabbed my attention because he was now singing from my hymn sheet. The clincher came when he said the recipe needed some salt so he added 5 grams of salt – not “a pinch” or “to taste” or a “sprinkle”. There it was in black and white, accurate, un-equivocal, five grams of salt.
The advantages of using Word are the automatic - indexing, searching for ingredients, sorting recipes or even whole sections. And to share a recipe (or even the whole file) with anyone who asks, requires just a simple click of a mouse.
I make currys all the time and just dump stuff in, sometimes they are amazing, sometimes just good, I should write down what I did for the amazing ones!!
Problem with that is you’re doing it after the event!
Better to figure out (discover for yourself) what each ingredient (particularly spices) contributes to the overall flavour and then proceed accordingly. Also at what point it’s best to add them, sometimes it’s at the beginning so they have time to mellow, whereas with others, such as pimenton, it’s better right at the end so that the spice’s contribution is very fresh.
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My Jigger arrived this morning. It has 4 different amounts marked 15, 25, 30 and 50ml. I have tested it against the egg cup bottom and it is clear that I have not been adding enough. 
Can’t test it tonight because I am eating at the bar with friends. I buy the aperos and my mate Eddie supplies the after dinner Cognac.
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That is not an ‘essloeffel’ that is a sauce spoon…
Eureka! Until Jane posted that picture, I had never come across the word “essloeffel”. But EVERYBODY knows what a gram is.
You have come accross tbsp - table spoon.
Essloeffel is the german word for tbsp.
In a german recipe it would be EL
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