Published Recipe Discrepancies

[BreezyCooking]

Anyone besides me find this annoying???

I've gotten used to it while trying many Martha Stewart recipes, but just came across it again while trying a new Rachael Ray recipe for tonight's supper - "Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms".

One of her listed ingredients is:

"1/3 cup grated Parmigiano or Romano, (2 handfuls)"


Now I'm sorry, but I don't care how small your hands are. There is no way that 1/3 cup comes even remotely close to two handfuls of cheese. That's just ridiculous. Two handfuls are more like two cups.


While I've been cooking enough to realize this & can sort of "go with the flow" as far as the cheese, Ms. Ray is supposed to be speaking to the masses - as does Martha Stewart with her "everyday" recipes - & this sort of thing shouldn't be tolerated.

Some of these famous "cooks/chefs" need to step back from their bank accounts & start paying more attention to the recipes bearing their names.

Am I alone in this, or am I just being too picky?

 

[Katie H]

I've seen it, too, Breezy and fortunately, like you and I who are experienced cooks, we see the discrepancies and can act to correct them. A less experienced cook would not necessarily catch the inconsistencies, wind up with a failed or bad-tasting dish and end up frustrated. That's unfortunate.

I've received several issues of Martha Stewart's Everyday Food and have been less than impressed with it. I've cooked some of the dishes and, frankly, was quite disappointed.

 

[GB]

I enjoy the way RR does that actually. Don't forget who her show is aimed at. She is talking to people who most likely do not cook often and feel intimidated by the process. They work and need to get dinner on the table as quickly as possible. They have families and would rather be spending time with them then washing dishes.

Rachael is basically saying that it really isn't that important to measure these things exactly. If you use a 1/3 cup of cheese then the recipe will work. If you use 2 cups of cheese it will still work. There is no reason to stress out about it. There is also no reason to dirty up a measuring cup. Reach in and throw in some cheese. How ever much you use it fine.

 

[BreezyCooking]

GB - I definitely agree with the premise.

But there's a HUGE difference between 1/3 cup of cheese & 2 handfulls. If the recipe had read "1/3 cup or a palmful or even 1 handful I wouldn't have a problem - but TWO handful's of cheese vs. 1/3 cup? All that's doing is confusing new cooks bigtime.

And I made the recipe tonight - adapting it bigtime. And I have to say that two handfulls of cheese would have been WAY too much. The stuffing would have been GLUE.

 

[GB]

And I made the recipe tonight - adapting it bigtime. And I have to say that two handfulls of cheese would have been WAY too much. The stuffing would have been GLUE.

That is your opinion and for you it is 100% correct, but I can promise you will complete confidence that there are many out there who would disagree and think that 2 handfuls was great or that 3 would even be better.

 

[GB]

Just for the heck of it I just pulled out a handful of shredded cheeses and measured it. It was a moderate handful. Not as much as I could have grabbed, but not a small handful either. It came to a hair over 1/3 of a cup.

 

[SurvivorGirl]

I enjoy the way RR does that actually. Don't forget who her show is aimed at. She is talking to people who most likely do not cook often and feel intimidated by the process. They work and need to get dinner on the table as quickly as possible. They have families and would rather be spending time with them then washing dishes.

I completly agree with you on this one!

 

[BreezyCooking]

I'm not saying that if you like more cheese in your stuffing that that's a bad thing. All I'm saying is that it's wrong to equate 1/3 cup to 2 handfulls. Unless the cheese is tightly packed, it's way overstated.

Believe me, I LOVE toying with recipes, & do it all the time. But to say that 1/3 cup of grated cheese is the equivalent of 2 handfulls is misleading.

 

[GB]

That is just the thing though. She is not saying they are equivalent. She is saying it doesn't matter. She is saying that you can use 1/3 cup or you can use 2 handfuls and you will still have an edible end result.

 

[Caine]

Well, just get a bowl full of grated cheese and try to grab a handful and see how much it amounts to. Grated cheese will run through every opening it can find in your little fist. I bet you don;t get much more than 1/3 cup.

As far as Martha baby, she has been known to purposely leave an ingredient or two out of her posted recipes so you can't duplicate it.

 

[wysiwyg]

BreezeCooking,
I agree with you 100%, asking for precise measurements is not being too picky at all.
I haven't watched Miss Ray's show or read any of her books because I think she is just the product of clever advertisement, mass media & marketing and has little to do with cooking. How come a mid-30's girl has her own TV cooking show, got several books published and endorses from knives to pans with no formal cooking training or real life practice?
I am no fan of Emeril, Mario Batalli or Wofgang Puck either, but at least I respect these guys since they proved they can cook.
I personally prefer to follow the advise of the Julia Childs or Jacques Pepins of the world.
Sorry about the venting LOL.

 

[BreezyCooking]

Thanks!!

Heck, with my own recipes I frequently use terms like "dollop", "handfull", etc., but I certainly wouldn't do that if I were publishing a recipe for the masses. And if I did, I certainly wouldn't equate a "handfull" with "1/3 cup". It just doesn't work that way. I don't have large hands, but they certainly hold more than 1/3 cup of grated cheese - lol!!!

To be honest, while I don't care for Ms. Ray's personality, I do have one of her books & so far the recipes I've tried have been good - so that's all I care about - lol!!!! As far as Martha Stewart, it's been long known & printed that many of the recipes in her books (& I do have nearly all of them) need "tweaking". One gripe I have in particular is any recipe that calls for a marinade. Her marinade ingredients versus the amount of meat to be marinated are always sorely out of whack. My advice to anyone using a "Martha" marinade is to double the marinade ingredients or cut the amount of meat in half.

 

[keltin]

When I read two handfuls, I wasn’t thinking of two massively full handfuls as if I were holding a softball, I was thinking more like a “palm full” . Just enough so that you can still completely close your fist and not have cheese poking out of every opening. Two of those make 1/3 of a cup for me.

 

[kitchenelf]

OK, like keltin stated (as I was already thinking this) the two handfuls are pouring cheese, or scooping it and placing it in your palm, not digging into a bowl and grabbing as much as you can in your fist. I can guarantee you that a palm full, or a handful as RR states, for me would be about 1/4 cup. The whole point of her cooking this way is to prove that cooking is not so scientific.

It's just a way of relaxed cooking. It's a way to not get so stressed out with measuring every little thing. I like her approach on doing things this way.

 

[Andy M.]

I have to go with the precision in recipes philosophy. It's easy to make a recipe when the measurements are not open to interpretation and the instructions are precise and correct.

This does not prevent you from winging it and changing the amounts. It just makes it less stressful for beginners.

GB, how does anyone know RR is saying the exact measurement doesn't matter unless she states that in the recipe?

If measurements in recipes are precise and instructions are complete, even beginners will not have questions and will be able to prepare the dish as intended.

I have no problem with addressing recipe or ingredient variations in footnotes to a recipe. I often do that, stating key substitutions and offering helpful added instruction.

Grated cheese is a perfect example of the opportunity for wide variations. One cook may measure 1/3 cup packed and another may measure it loosely placed in the measuring cup. A vast difference. You can say it doesn't matter, but the person reading the recipe may not know that and believe they may be ruining the recipe and will have an under- or over-cheesed recipe as a result.

 

[kitchenelf]

Breezy - totally off topic (sort of) - Check out this recipe. It DID take more than 30 minutes but it was worth it! I also added more liquid and reduced the sauce a LOT more, made it hotter, added more lemon zest and soaked that wonderful liquid up with some grilled bread. It is a wonderful recipe!

 

[keltin]

Breezy - totally off topic (sort of) - Check out this recipe. It DID take more than 30 minutes but it was worth it! I also added more liquid and reduced the sauce a LOT more, made it hotter, added more lemon zest and soaked that wonderful liquid up with some grilled bread. It is a wonderful recipe!

Oh wow, that sounds incredible. I'll be making this soon!

 

[BreezyCooking]

Hey - thanks for that link Kitchenelf - recipe saved & looks absolutely delicious.

Like I said before, while I'm not a fan of Ms. Ray's show/personality, I've enjoyed many of her recipes & have one of her cookbooks. In fact, since I'm a "cheese whore" at heart, I personally didn't mind the extra cheese in my original complaint. I just felt it was misleading to new cooks. If she had said "a half handfull", that I wouldn't have had a problem with - lol!!!! I just found it hard to equate a full handfull of cheese with 1/3 cup.

 

[Barb L.]

I watch Food Network, and when I want to try a certain recipe, I always read the reviews - making notes to the changes they have mentioned from watching the original show. It really does help.
Paula Deen made a strawberry short cake today, using 1 small 3oz. jello - recipe- (3 tbls.) -!

 

[auntdot]

I go with Andy's approach in that when we write down a recipe we list the TNT and then add comments either in parens or as footnotes, depending upon the length.

If we use a large onion instead of a small we would state that probably in ().

But I believe most recipes should be very specific and then give variations as lagniappe, but not to confuse the reader.