Things in recipes that amuse you

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Replies

  • nikkit321
    nikkit321 Posts: 1,485 Member
    Keep mixing until it feels right. If I've never made it, how do I know if it "feels" right??
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,931 Member
    ..."stir it anti clockwise"... It might be a bad translation from Cantonese.

    Is the issue the words anti clockwise? - which as poster pointed out, is the normal term in many places. Not mis translated at all.

    Or the fact that it had to be stirred in that direction only? - which I agree does seem weird.
  • BarbaraHelen2013
    BarbaraHelen2013 Posts: 1,940 Member
    TeaBea wrote: »
    My mother's recipe for banana pudding says, "Butter the size of an egg". That's 4 tbsp in modern stick butter.

    LOL!

    My mother had a recipe that called for 4 melted 5¢ Hershey bars. Wonder what size they were back then.

    Yes! This is something that’s tripped me up a few times when wanting to make a recipe of my Mum’s that I remember from childhood. ‘Small tin of...’, ‘packet of...’ Sometimes I even remember when the product was sold in more sizes than it is currently, but I have less of an idea what the relative weights of the different products were. In these cases I have to do the ‘mix until it feels right’ as mentioned above!
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,553 Member
    ..."stir it anti clockwise"... It might be a bad translation from Cantonese.

    Is the issue the words anti clockwise? - which as poster pointed out, is the normal term in many places. Not mis translated at all.

    Or the fact that it had to be stirred in that direction only? - which I agree does seem weird.

    Seems weird indeed, although I have a cousin who is a research scientist specializing in manufacturing processes for pharmaceuticals who once told me that for certain chemical reactions, liquids have to be agitated in a very specific way.
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
    Cook until done.
    DO NOT OVERCOOK.
    :#:#:#:#

    My sister actually called me the other night and said "I just put a roast in the oven, how long should I cook it for?" That was the entire question.

    My response was "Until it's done." I mean, how am I supposed to know if you aren't going to give me weight, temperature, etc.? And no, she doesn't have a meat thermometer.

    My pet peeve is always recipes that say use "a heaping tablespoon of" - my heap may be larger than their heap.
  • AliNouveau
    AliNouveau Posts: 36,287 Member
    Not sure if it's been mentioned but i have a cast iron cookbook and with every recipe it says

    "using potholders..." this is usually in a recipe to something that has been in the oven

    Is this really something we need to be reminded of this??? it always makes me giggle a little
  • corinasue1143
    corinasue1143 Posts: 7,467 Member
    TeaBea wrote: »
    My mother's recipe for banana pudding says, "Butter the size of an egg". That's 4 tbsp in modern stick butter.

    LOL!

    My mother had a recipe that called for 4 melted 5¢ Hershey bars. Wonder what size they were back then.

    Omg! Hershey pie! I LOVED it as a kid. Have the recipe, can’t get it right. Either too much or too little.
    4 5-cent Hershey bars, a bag of marshmallows, a carton of cool whip. So easy, so hard!
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,553 Member
    earlnabby wrote: »
    acpgee wrote: »
    ..."stir it anti clockwise"... It might be a bad translation from Cantonese.

    Is the issue the words anti clockwise? - which as poster pointed out, is the normal term in many places. Not mis translated at all.

    Or the fact that it had to be stirred in that direction only? - which I agree does seem weird.

    Seems weird indeed, although I have a cousin who is a research scientist specializing in manufacturing processes for pharmaceuticals who once told me that for certain chemical reactions, liquids have to be agitated in a very specific way.

    And here I thought it was something only learned in Hogwarts Potions class. Interesting.

    He told one amusing story where his lab was hired as consultants by a drug company that could synthesize a certain medicine in a vat containing about 1 litre of liquid. The synthesis involved controlling air pressure, gradual change in temperature and a very specific agitation pattern. For months they tried to reproduce the synthesis in larger containers to no avail. In the end, to scale up for industrial production they just had to use 500 little 1 litre containers.
  • hmhill17
    hmhill17 Posts: 283 Member
    AliNouveau wrote: »
    Not sure if it's been mentioned but i have a cast iron cookbook and with every recipe it says

    "using potholders..." this is usually in a recipe to something that has been in the oven

    Is this really something we need to be reminded of this??? it always makes me giggle a little

    As someone who has grabbed a hot pan handle that was recently out of the oven, sometimes we need reminders. Though I did start putting the pot holder glove over the handle instead of on my hand for things like that.

  • I have a few of my mom’s recipes and my favorite instruction she gives is “bake until done”. It always cracks me up because...1. Duh and 2. Still not enough info! I usually end up calling her to find out the timing which come to think of it is probably the genius part of the instructions on her part!
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
    nikkit321 wrote: »
    Keep mixing until it feels right. If I've never made it, how do I know if it "feels" right??

    These are the kinds of instructions i give my husband when he’s cooking lol :D he asks me how nuch oil and I say “quite a bit” he gets so mad at me hah
  • Motherofship
    Motherofship Posts: 122 Member
    "Stiff peaks"
  • debrakgoogins
    debrakgoogins Posts: 2,034 Member
    Seeing Pancakerunner’s thread in Food & Nutrition about Angel Food Cake I went to Pinterest to have a look at recipes for it. What did I find?

    “Two Ingredient Pineapple Angel Food Cake”.

    The two ingredients: Angel Food Cake Mix & a tin of Pineapple 🤯🤯🤯🤯

    That recipe is delightful. I used to make it for my kids.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,931 Member
    just_Tomek wrote: »
    errickar wrote: »
    "Stiff peaks"

    Really?


    Yes I've seen that in recipes that have beaten egg whites , eg lemon meringue pie.- beat until standing in stiff peaks.

    I haven't found it confusing - but I guess it could be if you don't know what stiff peaks refers to.