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The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

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Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#71

Post by pipio21 »

Specially in America, with only recent History of course family recipes are adapted from books.

On the other hand my family(in Europe) holds recipes that are more than one hundred years old. Most books recipes came from taking the knowledge of grandmas on villages on places with culinary History.

Those books serve as text books over which modern cuisine has evolved.

But is a kind of food that most Americans will consider strange. They are sophisticated stews that take forever to make or have flavor that they are not used to.

When I went to China the hardest thing to get used to was all the flavors of their food, which is very rich, but most Westerners do not know it(note:Chinese restaurants have very little to do most of the time as real Chinese food is not commercial in the West).

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#72

Post by ghostDancer »

carlmr wrote: post #51

I bake a few cakes regularly. Most of the recipes can be found online, but I usually have found some tweaks that make them taste better (subjective). So I make notes of them in my little book. I think most recipes are derivative. You have to start somewhere when you make cornbread. So why not start with a standard recipe. Then you substitute some ingredients because you're missing something at home. You find it eithe…

The little book is the real secret weapon of a baker. Where you put the details that make the recipe stand out or adapt to your preference.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#73

Post by [deleted] »

wayanon wrote: post #58
blahedo wrote: post #17

I can do them one better: my family has a meta -secret recipe. It didn't used to be secret, but it became secret through no effort or intent of our own. For a long time, decades at this point, my mom has been known for the brownies she brings to events (and, by extension, that my sister and I bring to events). People would rave about them and demand the secret, which my mom, my sister, and I would all freely give out…

Your mother could walk into a boardroom job at any Fortune 100 company.

[deleted]

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#74

Post by macNchz »

DamnYuppie wrote: post #8

This brings back some great memories. My mom made fantastic home made jams. All through my childhood family members and friends would clamor for her jams she made at Christmas. This year I finally got her to give me her recipe....it was basically the recipe on the packet of Sure Jell :-/ She did note that the important part was to by fresh fruits for the jam and not frozen so I guess there was that. Regardless it was…

To be fair, if the jams are canned it’s important to make sure you have the right amount of sugar and acid to make it safely shelf stable. I make jams every summer to give to family and friends and I still follow the recipes in the box of Pomona’s pectin. The thing I’ve been perfecting over the years is finding the best fruit at the farmer’s market and then processing it (peeling/blending/cooking) it in a way that yields a pleasing jam.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#75

Post by [deleted] »

white-flame wrote: post #3

My mom made the best pie crust anybody who ate it ever tasted. Her recipe came from a Crisco label. One of the steps specifically said to slowly stir a liquid into the mix with a fork. Everybody else who attempted the recipe used a spoon and didn't get anywhere near the proper texture. So her difference was simply that others wouldn't follow the directions exactly.

[deleted]

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#76

Post by hycaria »

todd8 wrote: post #67

My wife and I have a the simplest, silly "secret" recipe. Many of her girlfriends don't work and some are really amazing cooks, but my wife who works full time doesn't feel like she has time to bake cookies or make three-bean salad or whatever. She simply knows the best places to pick those things up around town, transfers the food to plastic containers for transport, and labels it with a piece of tape that simply sa…

That sounds kinda shallow. Why bother with faking, as obviously no one cares ?

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#77

Post by culot »

lulmerchant wrote: post #43
DoreenMichele wrote: post #32

The best cooks I know all have an excellent sense of smell and rely heavily upon it to get the timing right. Try putting that in your official recipe.

My mother in law has taught me a bunch of her recipes, and a lot of them have a step that she describes “...until it has a smell”, like “fry the spices until they have a smell”, which is actually a specific aroma, but I have no idea how to write down an aroma in my notes.

We need to develop a stink-line-based notation system for aromae.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#78

Post by pnutjam »

heleph wrote: post #50
blahedo wrote: post #17

I can do them one better: my family has a meta -secret recipe. It didn't used to be secret, but it became secret through no effort or intent of our own. For a long time, decades at this point, my mom has been known for the brownies she brings to events (and, by extension, that my sister and I bring to events). People would rave about them and demand the secret, which my mom, my sister, and I would all freely give out…

Good on your mother for persisting until she got to the bottom of the brownie mystery! It’s a bit of a pity the company tampered with such a successful recipe! My brownie recipe is from a cookbook and I tried a lot of variations on it and then had to concede that the person who wrote the recipe got it just right. I make it with high quality chocolate and butter and then am very careful not to over bake it and they tu…

I recently discovered that you can cut moist brownies with a plastic knife and avoid them sticking and falling apart.

For those moments you just can't wait for them to cool, although, even cooled a good moist brownie tends to stick to the knife.

Your welcome.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#79

Post by Afton »

wincy wrote: post #47
elvinyung wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally accidentally shilling for SE right now, but I learned a bunch of really cool tricks for cookies from an analysis about the different variables in cookies [1] that basically let me basically "build" my own secret recipe. Stuff like browning the butter before mixing it into the dough, resting dough overnight, using precise mixes of egg/flour, using chopped chocolate instead of chips, etc. [1] https://sweets.ser…

Kenji López-Alt alt has a really good book too called Food Lab, taught me all about sous vide in a cooler (which led me down the road to making steaks that are better than you get at a restaurant every single night).

Agreed, that book is great. I keep pushing off getting a real sous vide setup because the cooler is 'good enough'.

Last year I went to a fancy steak house in Las Vegas, and my thought was that I prefer my own steak. I was surprised, since I assume that restaurants have access to better cuts and can age it better. I mean, it was a fine steak, but I preferred my own.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#80

Post by andreareina »

unwind wrote: post #45
albeebe1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a specific step is what makes my wifes whipped cream stand out. It can't be the ingredients.

Uh, you're not being very clear but I feel I have to say this: some people add sugar when whipping cream, more or less automatically. It's not at all strictly necessary in order to, you know, whip the cream, but it will affect both flavor and texture. If you like your sweets, you're probably going to think that the cream with added sugar tastes better.

Or salt.
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