Giving Greek Cooking My Own Style

[toniiv]

I have been cooking more and more Greek foods at home and one thing I noticed is that traditional Greek cooks tend to have their own, unique style. It doesn't seem like something a person can teach. How do I get the foods to have my own style?

For example, I watched someone cook once and they weren't following a recipe. They grabbed spices and ingredients with such confidence! Any advice on how I can become this way when cooking Greek?

 

[k_tsoukalas]

A great tip I learned once is that to cook in this freeform way, one has to get away from the "recipes" mindset. Rather, think of cooking as a series of methods. An example is making fasolada (Greek green beans). If you follow a recipe, you will only ever make fasolada. If you realize you can use the same method for different vegetables... suddenly you can see that you can make the same dish using green beans, artichoke hearts, okra, zuchinni, potatoes. It is the same method no matter which vegetable(s) you chose, but if you look at recipes for these, the all have different names!