Strange India All Strange Things About India and worldStrange India All Strange Things About India and world


Illustration for article titled How to Spot a Foolproof Recipe

Photo: bbernard (Shutterstock)

The Grown-Up KitchenHow to Spot a Foolproof Recipe 1The Grown-Up KitchenWelcome to The Grown-Up Kitchen, Skillet’s series designed to answer your most basic culinary questions and fill in any gaps that may be missing in your home chef education.

By any definition, Hidden Valley Ranch dip is the ultimate foolproof recipe. If you gave a million people a seasoning packet, a 16-ounce tub of sour cream, and a spoon each, they’d produce a million perfect batches of dip. Now that’s consistency.

Sadly, most recipes aren’t quite as low-effort and high-reward—but that back-of-the-package reliability isn’t as rare as you’d think. Spotting a sure thing in the wild is actually pretty simple once you know what to look for and, more importantly, what to avoid.

Think like a recipe developer

You don’t have to be a professional recipe wonk to identify a foolproof recipe when you see one—it’s a learnable skill. The secret is knowing where recipes commonly go south so you can avoid them at all costs.

All foolproof recipes share these qualities:

  • No baking
  • Clear, obvious instructions
  • At least one mass-produced ingredient

If this isn’t the list you were expecting, trust me when I say that each point is there for a reason. When I need a recipe to to work for everyone, these are the core guidelines I use to develop it. I’d love to tell you why.

Ovens are assholes

Recipe developers know that ovens cause more fuckups than all other common kitchen equipment combined. Nearly everyone has one, but no two work exactly the same. Hot spots, unreliable temperature readings, and inconsistent heat cycling plague ovens of all kinds in unique, unpredictable combinations. Add in bakeware complications and it only gets worse: Glass, ceramic, and metal retain and conduct heat differently, which influences how a recipe turns out—and those all-important heat retention and conduction properties also vary from brand to brand. Fun!

Combining all these individual quirks introduces a brain-melting amount of variability to a given recipe. This doesn’t necessarily spell disaster—casseroles and baked dips are famously agreeable—but as a rule, new oven recipes are the opposite of foolproof. If you need a guaranteed slam dunk, look for stovetop, microwave, Instant Pot, or air fryer recipes instead.

Leave no room for misinterpretation

Murphy’s Law of Recipe Development states that any instruction which can be misinterpreted will be. Even if I’m not developing a foolproof 10-minute recipe, I try to write the instructions as if I am.

This doesn’t mean that foolproof recipes are all three lines or shorter. They can be as complex as you’re comfortable with. What matters way more is that the instructions make perfect, unambiguous sense to you from the very first glance. If you’re on your third read-through and still aren’t quite sure what the author wants you to do in step 4, move along—there are better options.

Shift your ingredient focus

Recipe consumers have a tendency to obsess over ingredient lists and absolutely nothing else. This usually takes the form of substitution questions, which are both valid and—please don’t yell at me—misguided. Some substitutions work better than others, but serious complications arise from equipment and technique, not ingredients. Everyone’s kitchen is stocked with different appliances and everyone’s brain works a little differently; if anything, ingredients are the only common denominator. For proof, look at any recipe developer’s Instagram stories: Every reposted dish was made with the same ingredients, yet no two versions are exactly alike.

Processed ingredients are the ultimate common denominator because they’re a known quantity. You know exactly what you’re getting every single time, and that’s what foolproof recipes are all about.

This doesn’t mean putting ranch or onion soup mix in everything. (But I’ll support you if you do.) Instead, find your version of ranch mix: A flavorful, mass-produced ingredient that makes everything taste better to you. Olives, anchovies, Better than Bouillon, jarred marinara sauce, Sriracha, instant pudding mix, and even Cool Whip all fit this description, as do countless others. If you look for simple recipes that feature those ingredients, you’re well on your way to delicious, foolproof success.



Source link

By AUTHOR

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *