Einstein in the kitchen

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

So said the great American inventor Thomas Edison. Having tried nearly 3,000 filaments before landing on a successful one for his light bulb, he obviously knew what he was talking about. Similarly, when it comes to inventing recipes, trial and error is usually involved.

Granted, some recipes result from inspiration. Whoever first added a little coffee to brownies to enhance their chocolate flavor likely did so through inspiration, not experimentation.

This genius recipe requires only one pan because every ingredient is boiled together.Submitted by Tom Harte

Sometimes a recipe results from a happy accident. The 17th century French pastry cook who first added butter to already rolled dough (some say he meant to add it earlier) was surprised he invented puff pastry.

Most of the time, however, a great recipe is the result of continued tinkering and testing. Thus, it took dozens of trials before America’s Test Kitchen arrived at the best formulation of Texas Sheet Cake.

However discovered, not every recipe is a genius recipe, which according to food columnist Kristen Miglore, is one that changes the way you cook. It may break the rules, introduce a new technique, employ a shortcut or invent something never tried before.

Chicken and waffle salad is a clever reimagining of the traditional dish. Submitted by Tom Harte

Maybe it puts an ingredient to unexpected use, like Regan Daley’s parsnip cake, or dispels a myth, like Ina Garten’s no-stir risotto, or re-imagines the traditional, like Better Homes & Garden’s chicken and waffle salad. Consider the following high IQ ideas.

Reverse Creaming. Rather than creaming butter and sugar, this cake mixing method calls for beating butter into the dry ingredients first and then adding eggs and liquid. It’s easier, quicker and improves a cake’s crumb. For details see Rose Levy Beranbaum’s “The Cake Bible,” whose every word I take as gospel.

Wonder Dough. There’s little to pie crust, but it takes practice to perfect. Stella Parks’ recipe anyone can master because it calls only for pinching cubes of butter into flour, not working them in, a precise amount of liquid and folding the dough like puff pastry. She also suggests using sugar rather than dried beans as pie weights. You can still use it to bake with. For details see Kristen Miglore’s “Genius Desserts.”

The inadvertent genius of this souffle is that it does not require separating eggs, let alone beating the whites, yet it still works.Submitted by Tom Harte

One Pan Pasta. Martha Stewart popularized this counterintuitive recipe. Every ingredient, including dried pasta, is boiled together in the same pan for ten minutes or so. It is eminently customizable. The basic recipe is at www.marthastewart.com .

“Whole Foods.” Some recipes direct you to whir an entire lemon or orange, seeded of course, in a food processor instead of squeezing out the juice and zesting the rind. My favorite is an old lemon walnut bread from Sunset magazine. It’s on page 255 of my book, “Stirring Words.”

Simplest Souffle. Souffles aren’t hard to make, but they require separating eggs, beating the whites and carefully folding them into a bechamel sauce. When she was just married, Jacques Pepin’s mother did not know this, so she just mixed everything together. It worked! The recipe is at www.foodnetwork.com.

Sleight of Hand Crepes. Crepes are demanding to make, even if, like me, you have a professional crepe griddle. But if you cheat and use an egg-coated flour tortilla, no one will be the wiser. The recipe by Kenny Shopsin is in Kristen Miglore’s “Genius Recipes.”

Miglore has published three book-length collections of genius recipes, but you can also find them in magazines, newspapers, online, from friends or create them yourself. They’ll make you feel like Einstein in a toque.

Sleight of Hand Crepes

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This recipe is adapted from Genius Recipes by Kristen Miglore, and may be the most ingenious I know.

• 1 extra large egg
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream
• A few drops of vanilla
• 6-inch flour tortilla, preferably thin
• 1 tablespoon butter

Whisk egg, cream, and vanilla in a wide bowl. Place tortilla in bowl and rotate it to cover the bottom with egg mixture. Heat butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat until bubbly. Place tortilla, coated bottom down, into pan and spread remaining egg mixture over top and cook for one to two minutes until bottom is light brown. Flip tortilla and cook another minute until top is speckled with brown spots. Remove from pan, add your choice of filling and fold or roll to serve. Makes one.

Tom Harte’s book, “Stirring Words,” is available at local bookstores. A Harte Appetite airs Tuesdays at 7:42 a.m. and 5:18 pm on KRCU, 90.9 FM. Contact Tom at semissourian.com or at the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699.