Things in recipes that amuse you

just_Tomek wrote: »

earlnabby wrote: »

hmhill17 wrote: »

One I found the other day was a crockpot recipe that had me cook everything and then put it in the crockpot. Not just sear the meat, but brown the onions, combine and cook sauce components, blanch some other stuff. Do they not understand the purpose of crockpot cooking is to toss it all in and leave home?

Some meats do better if they are seared first but otherwise, I agree.

My crockpot lasagna does need to have the meat/tomato sauce made first but that is an exception. It uses no-cook noodles and cooks up nice in 8 or so hours. I make the sauce the night before and put together in the morning.

ATK did a test regarding the searing of meat. Might be worth a read if you think that

Their results are exactly what I said:
"Another way to add flavor with a minimum of fat is by browning roasts on the stovetop before adding them to the slow cooker, which we take advantage of in a few recipes where this made a big difference."

True, I didn't specify what I meant by "some" but it wasn't necessary to make my point.

just_Tomek wrote: »

Another thing that never makes sense to me....
"add a bit of butter to the pan"....... and the cook dumps half a stick of butter in. WTF??

That!!! ⭐☝️

mikesphoto wrote: »

Unclear instructions, or someone who simply didn't reread what they wrote.

One of my favorites:
From a tres-leches recipe: In a medium bowl combine egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl.

And in a similar vein, recipes that include an ingredient that they never tell you to add.

thanos5 wrote: »

i know this isn't what you meant by this thread, but it makes me laugh that there is grape jelly in the recipe i use for meatballs.

Its funny you mentioned this, its supposed to be the go to item for the best tasting meatballs, I plan on trying it.

FriendlyNeighborhoodEngineer wrote: »

"fold in the cheese"
Wha?

What are you making that you saw that? When a recipe says to "fold" there is generally a good reason (usually so you don't break down the air bubbles that lightens the batter). My guess would be a cheesecake??

BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »

This is not so much in a recipe, but of a recipe. Also it doesn’t amuse me, it makes me cross!

Finding a recipe online which has been written/developed by someone who is not American, i.e. is given in grams, ml, etc and seeing a bunch of people complaining that they either had to convert it (oh the horror!), demanding the originator convert it to ‘regular’ measurements for them and just generally criticising the entire recipe because it’s not done in cups.

I realise I’m probably offending a bunch of people here with this, so apologies if I do...but there are people in the world who are not American and the entire rest of the world does exist, eat and cook.

It ridiculous to complain about either way, but I always see non-Americans complaining about recipes not being in metric.

ceiswyn wrote: »

mikesphoto wrote: »

Unclear instructions, or someone who simply didn't reread what they wrote.

One of my favorites:
From a tres-leches recipe: In a medium bowl combine egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl.

And in a similar vein, recipes that include an ingredient that they never tell you to add.

Or use ingredients in the instructions that aren't in the ingredient list.

bookgrlph wrote: »

When I write out recipes for my own recipe box, I leave out most of the instructions because I automatically know what to do. I'm sure my kids will love that in the future! 😂

reminds me of back when my roommate first moved in. She had never been shown by her mother how to cook. She could follow a recipe, but usually had lived off boxed meals and frozen dinners. I was raised by a farmer's daughter and taught to cook when I was young.

The roommate was home from work before I was, and was usually responsible for dinner. She'd insist that I write out the recipe for whatever I wanted her to make. That was hard! I was used to just going by sight and taste on the spices, and trying to figure out exact cooking times was not fun. She hated when she'd ask me how long to cook something and I'd just shrug and say "cook it till its done!" lol She's has since moved out though we're still good friends, and she's still not keen on cooking anything she considers elaborate.

The only recipe conversion that annoys me is that sometimes I'll find older recipes from the UK that give oven temperatures in terms of "gas marks". Mostly it just offends my sensibilities as an engineer, because it's an arbitrary scale that doesn't directly relate to any real, physical unit.

JetJaguar wrote: »

The only recipe conversion that annoys me is that sometimes I'll find older recipes from the UK that give oven temperatures in terms of "gas marks". Mostly it just offends my sensibilities as an engineer, because it's an arbitrary scale that doesn't directly relate to any real, physical unit.

But...but...what if you have a gas oven? They still work using regulo marks, not with a Celsius or Fahrenheit scale.

I grew up using a gas oven and there are still occasions where my brain goes back to ‘that cooks at Regulo 5 - so that’s 190°C’ 😂