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Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

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Re: Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

#11

Post by kevinconroy »

kaji88 wrote: post #8

I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"

I've found that part of the problem is that there's a very bad user experience with recipe formats. They assume that one will get all ingredients out first and will only start to follow the instructions once everything is ready. Almost no one does that all of the time.

The back and forth reading that you have to do results in errors because you lose your place, skip a step, add an ingredient in the wrong order, etc. That really impacts the results. In this vein, I've been working on a format that lets you just go top to bottom with much better results. Would love to hear your thoughts.

http://www.makebetterfood.com/recipes/

Re: Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

#12

Post by jack-r-abbit »

kevinconroy wrote: post #11
kaji88 wrote: post #8

I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"

I've found that part of the problem is that there's a very bad user experience with recipe formats. They assume that one will get all ingredients out first and will only start to follow the instructions once everything is ready. Almost no one does that all of the time. The back and forth reading that you have to do results in errors because you lose your place, skip a step, add an ingredient in the wrong order, etc.…

Your format is most certainly NOT for me. I am one of those people that do get all ingredients out first. I also get all my required measuring instruments out ahead of time. I also read the entire recipe so I can plan my steps. A normal recipe format is ideal for me. Your format is confusing to me. But everyone does things differently. I'm sure your format has an audience. Good luck.

Re: Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

#13

Post by sliverstorm »

kaji88 wrote: post #8

I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"

It really is a skill & a set of knowledge. You can't expect to be good without practice (sometimes lots of practice).

At the beginning it is things like mistaking whipping cream for heavy cream, not knowing what "browned" looks like, or other "rookie" mistakes that basically translate to "not actually following the recipe".

As you get more ambitious, you start to tackle things like baking that require an intuition for how much to knead, how sticky is too sticky, etc.

Or you start to try recipes that run many things in parallel. Last time I made chicken sauteed in butter, each step was easy enough, but suddenly they have to be done in parallel and the sauce has to be done before the chicken and the potatoes need to be ready at the same time and everything has to happen fast... That was the moment I felt I really understood "cooking", when the timer for the sauce timer was beeping and the chicken was smoking and the potatoes were getting cold.

Re: Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

#15

Post by fensterbrett »

kaji88 wrote: post #8

I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"

http://www.cookingforengineers.com

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/forums/index.php

Re: Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

#16

Post by rickdale »

kaji88 wrote: post #8

I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"

I agree 100%. Check out the 4-Hour Chef if you get the chance. After going through that and practicing cooking I find that I am better at discerning information about recipes and cooking overall.

Re: Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

#18

Post by noonespecial »

kaji88 wrote: post #8

I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"

Recipes are to cooking as sheet music is to playing music. Just being able to read it is not really enough to know how it should sound.

Re: Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

#19

Post by jghn »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #12
kevinconroy wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that part of the problem is that there's a very bad user experience with recipe formats. They assume that one will get all ingredients out first and will only start to follow the instructions once everything is ready. Almost no one does that all of the time. The back and forth reading that you have to do results in errors because you lose your place, skip a step, add an ingredient in the wrong order, etc.…

Your format is most certainly NOT for me. I am one of those people that do get all ingredients out first. I also get all my required measuring instruments out ahead of time. I also read the entire recipe so I can plan my steps. A normal recipe format is ideal for me. Your format is confusing to me. But everyone does things differently. I'm sure your format has an audience. Good luck.

In fact, it is much better to do what you describe. My cooking life became much easier once I learned to get a proper mise-en-place going. By the time I actually turn on a burner or anything like that, everything is fully prepped and ready to go in a pre-measured container.

Re: Early Modern Recipes (1600-1800) in a Modern Kitchen

#20

Post by jerf »

kaji88 wrote: post #8

I am not much of a cook but everytime I cook, recipes never work. Sometimes, it seems like that if you follow the receipes measurements exactly, your food almost never tastes like what you expect. There always needs a bit of human discretion. As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective. You can see them cook and get a feel of what "cook meat until brown" really means, or what is a "sprinkle of green onion"

"As such, I find video recipes to be far more effective."

My path to learning to cook was to watch nearly the entire run of Good Eats, picking out recipes that seemed like fun, but more focusing on using the knowledge and skills to do my own thing.

The host of Good Eats and I appear to have radically different tastes, so, ironically, whenever I've actually made one of Alton's recipes from the show that taught me how to cook, neither my wife or I have liked them. Perhaps some I simply messed up, but certainly not all of them. But with what I learned from that show I've become at least "decent". Couldn't cook in a restaurant or anything, but I can perform one of the higher skills of home cooking, "see what's left in the pantry -> make something from what you have -> get requests for the 'recipe'".

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