Things About Recipes That Annoy Me - Part 1

It’s easy to spot a well-written recipe: easy-to-understand ingredients list with helpful substitute information for those ingredients that might be difficult to find; clear instructions on how to prepare the ingredients; and a logical timeline and specific information on how to cook and then combine the ingredients to create a beautiful dish. But what about all those recipes that don’t meet these requirements? Here are the things about recipes that annoy me the most!

I get my recipes from a lot of different places: cookbooks, food and wine magazines, favorites that friends and family send me, online sources like America’s Test Kitchen, and even newspapers with food sections like the Washington Post and the NY Times. What’s amazing to me is that even though almost all of these recipes have been tested over and over, and run through editors and reviewers, many remain either poorly written or are difficult to execute for a variety of reasons. These end up being the recipes that annoy me the most!

Some of the things that annoy me about certain recipes are somewhat trivial but represent significant irritations and challenges that can negatively affect the outcome of the dish. Here’s my list of things about recipes that annoy me.

• Recipes that use raw, uncooked eggs. I’ve got serious issues with recipes that call for raw eggs in the final product – think Caesar salad dressing and beef tartare with a raw egg yolk placed on top of the raw ground beef. It’s unsafe (the potential for salmonella poisoning might not be high, but it is real) and unappetizing as well. No recipe should include ingredients that can make you ill, and there are plenty of substitutes they can include that are safe and taste the same.

  
  

• Recipes that call for “no-boil” lasagna noodles. This might fall in the trivial category I mentioned earlier, but I have tried numerous recipes that call for “no boil” noodles and not a single one has worked out well. These noodles are supposed to save significant time by avoiding the boiling process, but my experience is that the end product is always mushy and slightly tough pasta. Just boil the damn noodles and be done with it!

  
  

• Recipes that call for marinating protein for less than 30 minutes. Marinating protein such as chicken, pork, beef, and fish results in a richer, more complex and tastier dish. But with few exceptions, it takes time for the marinade to do its job – breaking down fat in the protein to make it more tender, and infusing the flavor of the marinade into the protein. Too many times, recipes call for marinading for 30 minutes or less, which will make little difference in the taste or texture of the protein. Instead, recipes should specify at least an hour, and considerably more for larger cuts of meat, for marinade time. The only exception to this rule is for delicate protein such as fish fillets where the marinade includes a considerable amount of citrus – in that case, a shorter marinade time (i.e., less than 30 minutes) is sufficient to ensure the citrus juice doesn’t “cook” the fish and result in a mushy texture.

  
  

• Recipes for homemade pizza that specify using a pizza peel. I have yet to find a pizza peel that actually works well when trying to release the pizza from the peel and onto a pizza stone in the oven or on the grill (even when I use flour or corn meal). It always ends in a frustrating and messy transfer for me. There is a much easier method that works flawlessly each time: prepare the pizza dough and build the pizza on a large piece of parchment paper on a cutting board. Then transfer the pizza with parchment paper to the stone. Let the dough cook and set for about 3 minutes and then pull out the parchment paper and discard while baking the pizza until it’s ready. Quick, clean, and easy!!!

  
  

• Recipes that tell you to overcook your protein. I handle and cook raw protein like chicken and pork with fastidious care, making sure to not cross contaminate in the kitchen and also ensuring that the protein is cooked to a safe temperature (this is less of an issue with beef or fish, which is less prone to contain harmful bacteria). But I bristle when recipes call for cooking chicken to 165 degrees and pork to 155 degrees before taking them out of the oven or off the grill – doing so practically guarantees a dry, tasteless, and tough piece of protein. That’s because the meat continues to cook after you remove it from the heat, adding five or more degrees as it rests. Instead, I aim for removing chicken from the heat at 157 degrees and pork at 145 degrees to ensure the final product is moist but also safe to eat – just make sure to let it rest for 5-10 minutes so it gets up to the proper temperature.

  
  

• Recipes that call for hard-to-find ingredients. I’m all for trying new and unusual ingredients that I haven’t ever tried before – they are fun to experiment with and open up the aperture on new and different flavors and experiences. But it annoys me when recipes call for one, or often times multiple, ingredients that are impossible to find in even the most well-stocked grocery stores and gourmet markets like Whole Foods, Fresh Market, or Balducci's. In many cases, the recipes will specify a website where you can order the item, but I really dislike shopping for recipe ingredients online (and especially on Amazon). If you must include impossible to find ingredients in the recipe, at least provide a suitable, easier-to-find substitute that one can find locally.

  
  

• Recipes that include a small amount of an unusual ingredient. It’s annoying when a recipe calls for a hard-to-find or unusual ingredient, but even more annoying when it calls for using only a small amount of that ingredient. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve went out in search of an unusual spice or jarred sauce called for in a recipe, and then only used a teaspoon or less of the ingredient. Not only did I likely pay a premium for it, it’s almost a certainty that this item will sit in either my pantry or refrigerator for a year or more without me touching it. It’s even more likely I’ll be throwing it away during one of my periodic cleaning sessions because I’ll never use it again. The answer in this case is, again, to include a substitute in the recipe that has broader uses in the kitchen and that you are more likely to use on a regular basis.

  
  

• Recipes that require unusually expensive ingredients. Continuing on the ingredients theme, I also usually avoid recipes that require really expensive ingredients, with a few exceptions. Those include special occasion dishes (like prime rib roast for example), or a favorite dish that simply wouldn’t be the same without the ingredient and for which there is no substitute (like a dish that includes dried morel mushrooms, which are really expensive but have an entirely unique and delicious flavor that makes it worth the price). I recently tried a mushroom orzo recipe that included 2 oz. of dried porcini mushrooms in the ingredients list. All well and good, until I discovered that these mushrooms came in 0.5 oz. packages costing $9 each (for a grand total of $36 just for the dried mushrooms) – ridiculous. The recipe also called for 16 oz. of other fresh mixed mushrooms which weren’t cheap either. And while the dish was good, I’m confident it would have been just as good using cheaper fresh baby bella mushrooms at $4 per 8 oz. package. Bottom line – price should play a role in recipes, especially those that are relatively basic like a mushroom pasta recipe.

  
  

Stay tuned for next week when I finish off my list of things about recipes that annoy me!