1. Poor grammar that renders it unclear on which food items one should be performing a particular action (e.g. "brine chicken and chop cilantro, then combine with diced garlic") -- drives me nuts.
2. Vague or nonexistent amounts. I know many cooks, myself included, like to muck with spice ratios and intensities, but I've seen recipes that have simply said "Add ginger" or "combine with leeks" without specifying how much or how many. I mean, at least give me a recommendation I can ignore if I want more or less of X than you suggest.
3. This is idiosyncratic, but I dislike the paltry amount of spice/heat many American recipes specify. I almost always treble or quadruple anything that contributes astringent intensity or heat to a dish. But that's just me, I s'pose.
Yes, good ones! Or, somewhat similar to your first and second items, I hate when a recipe puts an ingredient in their list, then never tells you where to include it. The onion, when do I put the onion in??
It does amuse me when recipes use "chili powder" to add spiciness. To me, most chili powders are really only for flavor, not heat. Reach for the cayenne if you want heat, man.
This isn't so much a case of catastrophically bad writing, but it annoys me that many people seem to think that you have to cook so much separately. I'm a big fan of dishes that incorporate two or more food groups, and I love stir-frying, and SO MANY of the recipes I find for stuff that is basically chicken or beef stir-fried with something else are very weird about cooking the meat first, taking it out, cooking the vegetable or starch or whatever, and only then putting it all together
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Yeah, amen. If the recipe explains very well *why* you should separate the components, I'll sometimes take their advice. But the difference is usually subtle enough in the end that it doesn't matter unless you're in a cooking competition.
I hate multiple-bowl recipes. I'm famous for not sifting the flour and baking powder together first in a separate bowl (gasp! shocking, I know).
I once mixed up a batch of brownies from a recipe on a box of cocoa powder: Cocoa, flour, eggs, butter, baking soda, salt. It's lucky I let the kids taste the batter before I cooked it; after they were done making faces, one of them pointed out "These might be better with sugar
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Yeah, the ones where you have to read them over and over remind me of those annoying assignments in school, where they purposely tried to trick you by telling you to read the whole thing first, and then throwing in some surprise at the end that negates the whole exercise or something. Both for assignments and for recipes it's unfair. There's only so much short-term memory the brain should be expected to hold.
Yes! I use one tsp of adobo sauce from a can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce about once a month. The rest of the can will not keep until the next time I am likely to use it. What do I do with it?
Actually, that one I can answer. Put the rest of the chilies in a ziploc freezer bag, and freeze them. Small amounts slice easily off the frozen block when you need a little bit more. I've kept frozen chipotles for, like, a year that way. :)
Oh yes, I hear you on that. I've ended up with many rarely-used spices that way. I may need the garam masala, the tarragon, or the turmeric once or twice a year, but does that really justify buying the whole bottle of it?
My complaint is that you have failed to film yourself trying to shred a tomato and post your efforts on the internet for the amusement of the rest of us.
Molly must try harder in the kitchen, this level of disappointment cannot continue ;P
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2. Vague or nonexistent amounts. I know many cooks, myself included, like to muck with spice ratios and intensities, but I've seen recipes that have simply said "Add ginger" or "combine with leeks" without specifying how much or how many. I mean, at least give me a recommendation I can ignore if I want more or less of X than you suggest.
3. This is idiosyncratic, but I dislike the paltry amount of spice/heat many American recipes specify. I almost always treble or quadruple anything that contributes astringent intensity or heat to a dish. But that's just me, I s'pose.
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It does amuse me when recipes use "chili powder" to add spiciness. To me, most chili powders are really only for flavor, not heat. Reach for the cayenne if you want heat, man.
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I hate multiple-bowl recipes. I'm famous for not sifting the flour and baking powder together first in a separate bowl (gasp! shocking, I know).
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Cookie?
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Recipes that use a tiny amount of some really obscure ingredient annoy me. What do I do with the rest of the kumquat?
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Molly must try harder in the kitchen, this level of disappointment cannot continue ;P
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