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The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

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Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#141

Post by _cbsz »

Shivetya wrote: post #55
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.

it never ceases to amaze me the people who won't follow a recipe then complain it is not a good recipe. the number of people whom I led down the road of cooking; this is especially true for techies who seem adverse or even scared to try; is quite long and it came down to one thing. start with simple recipes. follow exactly. then work your way to complex items and personal variations but the key to understanding cooki…

> if you want to scare yourself later go play with browning butter

what's scary about browning butter? It seemed to work great for me on the first try. Whole kitchen smelled delicious, and so were the chocolate chip cookies I was browning it for.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#142

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

wincy wrote: post #46
emj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is while recipes are facts and can be freely spread, prose about how to make cookies is copyrighted. So you get lots of recipes but the important instructions are losts, and people get used to the idea that a recipe is just ingredients and easy to follow steps. The results is lots of recipes that are pretty easy follow, but as always when a design meets a user someone is going to misinterpret your fool pr…

My wife and I always hate reading recipes online. We finally spent like $50 and bought three of the most amazing cookbooks. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which explains how cooking works, Food Lab, and America’s Test Kitchen. I made a baked potato with a perfect inside and perfect crisp skin from the books, it involved like 4 steps of how to cook, like bathing them in a specific mixture of salt water, baking for 45 minutes,…

I should try that just to see if it's better than my old standby: poke potato a few times, microwave for 10 minutes, brush with oil and bake at 400F for 10 minutes.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#143

Post by emilecantin »

robotsonic wrote: post #97
bsder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than that. I have an amazing chocolate cake recipe--I'm SURE it's cribbed from some magazine, chocolate container, or something. I have stopped giving it out as people simply can't get it right. There are three classes of failure: The first class of failure is in not following directions. When it says "1/2 teaspoon", they mean it. Baking is like lab--small things often make big differences. "Helping" one of…

On the first class of failure, sometimes people take it a bit too far. I've watched people stress about how they level off their 1/4 tsp because if it's too heaped, it will be too much, or if there is a divot, it will be too little. As a percent error, there really isn't a real difference. Just the differences in brands and batches of ingredients will cause more error in your recipes than a slight miss-measure. There…

My wife sees me bake bread by weight (basically putting all ingredients in the same bowl, pressing "tare" between each), and still believes it's more work that way... (?!?!?)

Just try measuring 1 cup of butter accurately without making a mess.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#144

Post by fl0wenol »

My takeaway from this is whoever came up with the idea of including recipe ideas on/in the packaging of staples or kitchen products was a goddamn genius.

Because a common theme among many of these mistaken secret family recipe stories is that the concoctions are taken from those marketing materials, and I'd expect whatever they picked to feature would be tasty and hard to screw up to put that product in a good light.

If it's a hit with the family, they're making it frequently, and pretty soon the aunt or uncle or grandparent who makes it for the holiday gathering can do it from memory and so it's easy to assume they made it up themselves.

I bet if you were to ask that cook about their "secret" recipe to this day they'd make sure to emphasize that you have to use So-and-So brand chocolate chips for it to come out right; the very same from which they got the recipe in the first place, and without which it probably doesn't come out right (maybe intentionally)

Goddamned brilliant.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#145

Post by wink »

BlackLotus89 wrote: post #93
caf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in cooking you can fairly freely adjust ingredients and quantities to taste, but baking is science for hungry people.

From when qc was still readable http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1679

What do you think is wrong these days?

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#147

Post by tonyarkles »

IgorPartola wrote: post #115
dkarl wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primo Levi told a similar story about tracking down the source of a lacquer recipe when he was working at a paint factory. There was a point in the recipe where the instructions called for adding half an onion into the vat of lacquer. As a chemist, he was fascinated by this because he could not think of any way the chemicals in the onion, in that quantity, could affect the end product. He eventually found a retired e…

That's very clever. Reminds me of doing plumbing with copper piping and using bread to stuff the pipes before soldering them in order to not have the leftover water flowing to where you are soldering, making it impossible.

You're a genius. Absolutely. That's such a good solution! I had considered using a rag or something, but I was concerned about it getting stuck around a bend, as well as the awkwardness of rolling it up just right. If you overheat the pipe, the bread will just burn off harmlessly, and if it gets stuck, you could just turn the water on and it'll dissolve it or pop it out.

Thank you. There's an awkward pipe in my bathroom whose shut-off won't quite close enough. My wife will be so thrilled.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#148

Post by cwyers »

SirZimzim wrote: post #138
cwyers wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every blind taste test you'll find done in America of grocery store canned tomatoes has brands grown in California vastly outperforming imports.

Blind taste test of people near California?

Cooks Illustrated (subscription required) is based out of Boston, and they prefer the domestic brands:

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/taste_tests/231-canned-whol...

Splendid Table is based out of Minnesota, I believe:

https://www.splendidtable.org/story/the-6-best-brands-of-can...

Epicurius picks an Indiana brand, with California brand Muir Glen at #2:

https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/best-canned-tomatoe...

One of the issues is that supermarket imported Italian tomatoes tend to be packed in puree, not uncooked juices. If you're looking for fresh tomato flavor (and if you aren't, just buy crushed tomatoes), you want to buy an American brand that seals the cans at lower temps for longer times to keep the tomatoes fresh.

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#149

Post by JasonFruit »

beat wrote: post #136
Pulcinella wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll also add the recommendations I usually make. Anyone interested in learning to cook, Americas Test Kitchen Cooking School (And also Cooks Illustrated Cooking Science and Science of Good Cooking ) would probably be good for much of HN's audience. It is much more of a cooking "textbook" than most cookbooks. It explains what you are doing and why you do it instead of just a big list of recipes. There is also Moderni…

Certainly, The Cooking Gene is not just a straight cookbook - it's barely a cookbook at all. Instead, it's a history book more than anything, using the evolution of a cuisine to trace the cultural history of the African diaspora in America, and its broader impact on American culture. The appearance of certain foods, of ingredients and techniques, is a map of history. Fascinating stuff! (I got it on recommendation of…

So I'm making weird, postmodernist curries, pho, and tacos? Fun!

Re: The Dirty Secret of ‘Secret Family Recipes’

#150

Post by tonyarkles »

Shivetya wrote: post #55
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.

it never ceases to amaze me the people who won't follow a recipe then complain it is not a good recipe. the number of people whom I led down the road of cooking; this is especially true for techies who seem adverse or even scared to try; is quite long and it came down to one thing. start with simple recipes. follow exactly. then work your way to complex items and personal variations but the key to understanding cooki…

Making caramel and butterscotch were some of the most terrifying kitchen moments the first time. It was quite clear to me that the mixture I had going there was quite a bit hotter than the boiling point of water (the water had all cooked off). The thought of a sugar burn was concerning. But it all turned out ok, and we had some delicious syrups. Just had to be careful.
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