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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)

#501

Post by ghaff »

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.

Cook's Illustrated Best Recipes goes into a lot of the background techniques and rationales. They have an online actual cooking course as well, A number of Alton Brown's books. Cooking for Geeks from O'Reilly. There are quite a few books and sites out there that go into techniques for different foods. Of course, there are also specialized examples as for bread baking.

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

#502

Post by tester89 »

bruckie wrote: post #110

Recipe writers are still lying about cooking time in 2023. I signed up for a Hello Fresh promo recently to get some new meal ideas, and it's making me feel like the slowest cook on the planet. I reliably exceed their stated prep and cooking times by 100-200%. Tonight's "40 minute" recipe took about 70 minutes, and that was with a family member helping out with some of the prep and cooking. I wonder if they collect an…

IME Hello Fresh and Gousto were always double their quoted time. 40 minutes was almost always 80 minutes. There is just one exception, namely that Gousto's 10 minute recipes are actually 30 minutes, but that's explained if you notice that they're often 15 minute recipes and they're lying and claiming they're 10 minutes (they have 5 minute, 10 minute and then 20 minute recipes, but no 15 minute recipes, which suggests that they round down for 15).

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

#503

Post by bittercynic »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #118

For the same reason devs lie about installing arch linux without any problem. When you are good at something, you don't realize how much you do anymore. This article is unrelated, but has a good explananation of the problem in one section : Why not tell people to simply use x https://bitecode.substack.com/p/why-not-tell-people-to-simpl...

They might differ on what's a problem, too. I've installed arch a few times, and there were some things I had to do, but I wouldn't say I had problems. It was generally a pretty enjoyable experience.

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

#504

Post by misja111 »

guerrilla wrote: post #472
misja111 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This won't work. Together with fat, juice is released as well. As long as there is liquid water, temperature won't go over 100C so you're effectively boiling your meat and not browning it. Searing your meat only goes at temperatures that are high enough to immediately evaporate any escaping liquid.

It definitely works in a cast iron pan. Just try it.

You mean, use a cast iron pan at high heat? Yeah that definitely works, it's standard practice in professional kitchens to do it like that.

But at low heat it will not. Or well, eventually your meat will brown, but first your steak will have boiled for a while so you'll never be able to serve your steak rare or medium rare.

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

#505

Post by astura »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #143
bruckie wrote: post #110

Recipe writers are still lying about cooking time in 2023. I signed up for a Hello Fresh promo recently to get some new meal ideas, and it's making me feel like the slowest cook on the planet. I reliably exceed their stated prep and cooking times by 100-200%. Tonight's "40 minute" recipe took about 70 minutes, and that was with a family member helping out with some of the prep and cooking. I wonder if they collect an…

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…

This makes perfect sense for a commercial kitchen- when I worked in one we had separate cutting boards exclusively used for raw meat.

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

#506

Post by silverlake »

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…

From what I’ve read and seen, many cookbook authors test their recipes repeatedly in home kitchens. Most have testers or volunteers to ensure they make sense and work. By contrast I have some books that are restaurant recipes they purposely did not modify for home use. They are ridiculously complex and interesting.

For example, here America’s Test Kitchen: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/5237-join-our-c...

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

#507

Post by conductr »

bell-cot wrote: post #450
lldb wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly a cookbook, but the manual for our weber gas grill has proved shockingly useful in cooking most meats to near perfection. Has tables for thickness, cuts, etc.

Weber is a long-term premium brand. Hence plenty of skin in the game. I've had similar experience with manuals (or web sites) for cooking/kitchen products from similar brands.

This reminds me of When my great grandmother became unable to cook and decided to pass her recipes along, it turned out that half of her “traditional southern food” classics had been from some old southern living cookbooks or the back of a Betty Crocker box somewhere.

She made a cookbook of her recipes we all enjoyed for years and years and she included some of the original cutouts and index cards from probably the 50-60s or so. There’s also a lot of steps that you’d expect from a grandmother “cook until done” and “add some spices” to some of them.

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

#508

Post by huhtenberg »

jterrys wrote: post #485
huhtenberg wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Audiences want fast. Audiences don't want long segments of monotonic action with predictable outcome. No need to show how to slice a kilo of onions. It doesn't sound like the chef videos you mentioned suffer from this, but your "want fast" generalization is off the mark.

He doesn't waste time mincing onions, at most he'll showcase how to do one with proper technique. He has entire videos dedicated on how to chop vegetables and prepare meat. His videos take a long time because he doesn't bullshit the cooking process. You watch him stir until he's at the right consistency to add other ingredients, you watch him go through the entire process for literal 30 minute meals because that's wh…

Yep, that's how I read your original description and I'd watch the heck out of that if I had time. I was just commenting on the "they want it fast" remark.

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

#509

Post by Pxtl »

therealcamino wrote: post #390
than3 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's just not true. Every generation has its own version of this. In the 60s-70s, it was The Joy of Cooking. In the 90s it was How To Cook Everything. Based on the replies there are some candidates for today.

For me it was the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. For example, the section on cream soups is a detailed explanation of the process of making any cream soup, with a table of details and variations for each vegetable. I assume they didn't test every variation, but the first part obviously showed enough first hand experience to teach understanding not just rote repetition.

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

#510

Post by TeMPOraL »

shakna wrote: post #342
capableweb wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me save you a few characters in the future friend: In both Firefox and Chrome (probably Safari too) there is a page number at the top of the page when you open the PDF. Here you can manually type in a number. Open up the PDF and enter "65" and it'll take you directly to the page you enter.

Well, they do both use PDF.js [0]. [0] https://mozilla.github.io/pdf.js/

Using that knowledge we can improve on the instructions upthread.

Just open this link: https://weber.mizecx.com/knowledge/s3/retrieve?path=knowledg...

which is the original link, with "#page=65" appended. At least on Firefox, it will lead you straight to the page in question.

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