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Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

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Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#281

Post by denton-scratch »

dflock wrote: post #32
pbj1968 wrote: post #20

Sifting flour. Sautéing spices “to release the flavor” and then adding them to stew where they’ll simmer for an hour or more. Pretending “restaurant quality” is anything besides twice as much butter and salt as you’d dare use at home. “One tablespoon of olive oil” to brown absurd amounts of meat at high heat. Once you start recognizing recipe BS, you see it everywhere.

Sifting flour is to get the weevils out ;)

I think it's supposed to be to incorporate air.

I only sift flour if I'm making scones, it seems to make a difference. I'm not a cakey person, I don't bake cakes. It's cake bakers that tend to care about sifting.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#282

Post by johnnymellor »

groestl wrote: post #212
djxfade wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go on...

Never been tested once: Bacon-Wrapped Mozzarella Sticks Ingredients: - 12 slices of bacon - 12 mozzarella sticks - 1/2 cup all-purpose flour - 2 eggs, beaten - 1 cup breadcrumbs - 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder - 1/2 teaspoon paprika - Vegetable oil, for frying - Marinara sauce, for serving Instructions: Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Wrap each mozzarella stick with a slice…

Midjourney's rendering looks pretty tasty: https://pasteboard.co/NBhdMl3AsAAR.png

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#283

Post by OJFord »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #72
explaininjs wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder to what extent it’s attempts to game the auto-nutrition facts. That said, is anyone actually measuring a tablespoon of oil? I just pour a glug of a size proportional to the ingredients and adjust as needed.

Everyone has to start somewhere. If you take a university student who has just left home and never cooked for themselves and tell them "just pour a glug proportional to the ingredients"...that's pretty close to useless for them, especially since they don't yet an intuition for what things you can freehand (and how much you can freehand them) and which things you shouldn't. After all, you (probably) wouldn't ever say…

> After all, you (probably) wouldn't ever say "I just open the Morton's salt and pour a glug in" because getting salt wrong even by relatively small amounts has a big impact on the final dish.

Not GP and I wouldn't phrase it quite like that - but I definitely would. You can give a rough indication, but salt should be added to taste.

(Unless we're talking about baking, where for one thing you can't taste until the end anyway. In that case yes of course measure, still to taste, but the feedback loop is longer.)

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#284

Post by Agentlien »

jterrys wrote: post #246
isaacfrond wrote: post #131

My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…

I'm not really surprised. There's a youtube channel called Chef Jean Pierre. He is a retired Chef that used to run a restaurant since the 1970s, has cookbooks, was featured on PBS, etc. (Some say he has a more colorful past with his cooking school/restaurant business in Florida, but I don't know much). Either way. He's got the consistently longest cooking videos on youtube. He explains that long videos don't do well.…

I'm an amateur who enjoys cooking and does it once a day in order to feed my family.

One of my biggest learnings is that no matter what I do it takes quite a while to cook a meal. Huge complex meals can take hours to prepare, but even a simple meal usually takes me half an hour - because that's just the time it takes to grab the ingredients, boil water for pasta/rice/potatoes/..., cook and present it. The time it takes to cook a meal is largely determined by the duration of the longest step. All the rest is done in parallel, with more complex recipes simply requiring more multitasking. So cooking a simpler meal often makes for a less stressful experience and simpler flavours, but often doesn't save much time.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#285

Post by BerislavLopac »

than3 wrote: post #208
henrikschroder wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if I needed more fuel on the fire of my burning hatred for recipe collections. Everyone who is interested in cooking should do themselves a favour and buy a proper cookbook. Something that starts with the basics, and works itself up to full meals. It should have cheat-sheets for basic ways to cook all your staples, here's all the ways you can cook a potato, with times and temperature. Here's all the ways you can s…

No such book actually exists. There's a french book that covers basic/common procedures and a reader's digest book but those are about it; and they definitely are not beginner oriented.

Oh I see what you did there. Ward Cunningham would be very proud. ;)

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#286

Post by Lutger »

isaacfrond wrote: post #131

My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…

This is probably why I often just browse the ingredients of a recipe for inspiration and sometimes even don't read the instructions. Most recipe books are not very good. Not trying your own recipes is, respectfully, just fraud and I would not call those books high quality.

Its like buying expensive things, a higher price doesn't always translate to higher quality. Sometimes it just looks like high quality, is marketed and priced as such, but it falls apart when used. Sometimes it does however, and it takes some experience to be able to discern between the two.

And there are actually high quality recipe books that are more than just inspiring, sometimes they are unpretentious and you know it because the recipes 'just work'.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#287

Post by cnity »

com2kid wrote: post #234
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same experience with Marley Spoon. I always make sure I prepare everything in advance but the actual recipe wants you to do some of the cutting and dicing while stuff is already cooking and they often have impossible timing. For example, they will have you fry the meat for 2-3 minutes, clean and chop a boatload of vegetables and add them after those 2-3 minutes pass. Sometimes they even do this during a st…

Cutting board covers, a rubber mat that lays on top of your cutting board, cut all your meats first, toss it in the sink, swap knives, cut all your veggies. Saves 5 minutes or so of prep time, well worth it IMHO. Also you can just throw it in the dishwasher and not worry about scrubbing a wood cutting board and possibly damaging it with moisture.

What's the difference between a cutting board cover and just using another cutting board?

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#288

Post by x-complexity »

groestl wrote: post #196
kevsim wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta say, not really looking forward to GPT generated recipes rendered by Stable Diffusion.

"Generate me a recipe with mozzarella and bacon" "Certainly! Here's a delicious recipe that combines mozzarella and bacon: Bacon-Wrapped Mozzarella Sticks" Do you want to hear the rest?

I can already feel my arteries clogging from the name alone.

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#289

Post by kuu »

underratedbug wrote: post #55
crtified wrote: post #31

After looking at the recipes in question, I suspect that some of these writers are merely using the term Caramelized in a loose, informal (or, if you prefer, "technically-incorrect") sense. When what they more-precisely meant is lightly softened, translucent - a state of onionhood used in no shortage of recipes as an intermediary step during the cooking process. The writers are therefore perhaps guilty of casual synt…

This is so clearly true I wonder if the author intentionally “misunderstood” the situation so they could rant. Bonus points for commenters years later making the same “mistake”. No, they don’t really mean caramelization. No, no one else cares.

There are almost 300 comments in this post, I would say someone else cares :)

Re: Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)

#290

Post by senectus1 »

isaacfrond wrote: post #131

My sister in law writes recipes. She has a recipe column in a newspaper and wrote a few high quality recipe books. I saw them in a bookstore. So she's reasonable successful. Her pieces are charming, her recipes inspiring. The thing is. At a birthday party when I was talking to her, she confessed to me that she never actually tries her recipes. When it's time to do a new piece, she sits down at her computer and makes…

This does not surprise me in the slightest.

Lately I've been hunting recipes online for FODMAP compatible meals. Some of the recipes are just weird/wrong or poorly written.

Last night I was following a recipe that listed 8 eggs in the ingredients but in the instructions only telling you to use 3...

So many other weird things as well... non standard measurements or putting things in the instructions that dont show up in the ingredients, or instructions with completely unrealistic timeframes (like the caramelized onions). Also.. the number of FODMAP recipes that have major no no foods in them like Garlic or Onion :-$

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