Do you have a signature dish? And what is a signature dish anyway?

"If you love to cook, chances are you have a signature dish—the one thing you’re known for cooking or baking that you can make with your eyes closed, that nobody else can make quite like you can, that you always feel great about serving (and eating!)" Sur la Table

I suspect that to my family spaghetti and meatballs is my signature dish. The above is not mine, but it's the closest that I found to my version. Because it is a version. It's not 'my' dish either in the sense that I invented it - who knows who invented spaghetti and meatballs - or in the sense that I made it from scratch one day. It's actually Robert Carrier's recipe. And indeed the meatballs themselves are still exactly as Robert Carrier described in his recipe. I haven't strayed from that at all. I guess what varies is the tomato sauce in which I cook them. And this varies every time I make it depending on what leftover sauces and gravies I might have in the fridge, what herbs I have to hand, whether I have any leftover wine and whether the tomatoes are fresh or tinned. I even sometimes throw in some mushrooms. So if this is a signature dish it's an ever-changing one.

It's a signature dish only in the sense that it's something my family likes me to cook. If you like it's just their favourite meal. The first cookbook I made for my sons was based around their ten favourite meals. They had left home and I thought I should pass on how to make these things along with some lessons about cooking in general. The meatballs recipe was one of the ten.

So when I think of my mother's cooking I now find myself asking what was her signature dish? Well a favourite was rabbit stew - and I do remember this one. But whether she would have regarded this as a signature dish I have no idea.

Obviously I have no photos of my mother's rabbit stew but it looked a bit like this, only waterier.

And then there are other audiences - if you ask my neighbours what is my signature dish they would say baklava. When we have neighbourhood parties I am always asked to bring this.

And I have an actual photograph of mine. But of course it's not mine. The recipe in this instance is from Tess Mallos. Mind you I have varied it a bit. In her recipe she has one layer of nuts in the middle of the dish whereas I do a couple of layers, sprinkle on the nuts, do another couple of layers, sprinkle on the nuts and so on. So I suppose in a sense I have made it mine, but I'm sure that what I do is not original either.

The inspiration for this article was from a piece in the Weekend AFR, which was talking about restaurant signature dishes and their importance to their continuing business. I gather some famous restaurant has just withdrawn a dish that they have been making for years and years which has prompted outrage and walkouts. I guess restaurants and their chefs are highly competitive and high-end dining has its egos. But it seems to me that if your business depends on a signature dish, then really you have made a rod for your own back. I can imagine how boring it must be to churn out the same dishes over and over again. Surely one could establish a reputation for consistently turning out something new and exciting. Our local high-end restaurant Mercers does this - they change their menu seasonally - as many restaurants do - and there are some - like some small hotels in France where they change the menu daily. A bit like mum in the kitchen.

And it's not just the high end that depends on a signature dish. What would MacDonald's be without the Big Mac?

"Repeat custom is the basis of McDonald's business model, as it is for any restaurant." Oliver Thring - The Guardian

And perhaps the repeat custom is even more important for the lower end of the market. Surely people are not repeating the high-end experience that often. Do people dine at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck or our own Attica on a regular basis? Maybe they do - it's not a world I am familiar with. And if they do and if those restaurants depend on a signature dish, then I think it's their own fault. I mean would you want to go to the same restaurant all the time and eat the same dish? If you went occasionally maybe, but not on a regular basis. It shows a certain lack of imagination both on the part of the chef and the part of the customer it seems to me. Especially with high-end dining, for it seems to me that the high-end chef should always be experimenting, making something new, changing the world - like an haute couture designer.

I always smile when we dine at Paris Go with my sons - they always have the Steak Béarnaise. I think they have the Béarnaise sauce - steak anyway. And at any Indian restaurant it's always Butter Chicken. My husband has also been a bit upset by Melissa's removing his favourite warm honey chicken salad from their menu. And he's almost talking himself into thinking the whole place is not the same just because one dish has gone. So perhaps it is important.

The AFR article was really on the side of the chefs it seems to me.

"What the customer wants is not always what the chef/owner wants - or is able- to give them." Necia Wilden - AFR

But as I said, I think it's their own fault and there are other ways to tempt people back. MacDonalds though is a different proposition - and all of those fast food places. And even they try something new every now and then. KFC is going to offer something vegetarian I believe.

And whilst a signature dish might be so interesting - snail porridge, or bacon and egg ice-cream à la Heston, anyone? Are you really going to keep going back for more? Surely you would be looking for him to come up with something else just as astounding? So yes, if it's kept on the menu it might entice yet more people to try, but also if you invented something equally astounding the result would be the same and in addition the people who had come for one amazing thing might come back to try something else that was equally amazing. Of course this is a different kind of pressure for a chef, but surely that's what these top end chefs do?

But back to home signature dishes. I would very much like to think that I have dishes that are unique to me and that these might be my signature dishes - a beetroot and smoked salmon quiche that I put together in an inspired moment springs to mind. My husband loves it. But when I looked into it I found that there are oodles of recipes out there for basically the same thing. So - no I don't think I have a true signature dish. Something uniquely me. That's what a signature is isn't it? Until someone copies it.

This article too is not unique - lots of them out there with basically the same title and more or less the same content. There truly is nothing new under the sun. Except perhaps for snail porridge.