not that kind of test

[domarzione]

This is the recipe I'm making for dinner tonight: Spicy Chickpea and Sour Tomato Curry with Noodles. (Yes, it's 9pm and I'm still making dinner.)

I am, to be completely immodest, a very good cook. I consider the recipe oddly written, but extremely easy to follow. The oddness throws me a little, though, which is why I'm putting it up here.

The first step is 'caramelize the onions' in a lot more words. It has a description of what's supposed to happen, more or less, but no sense of how long it should take beyond "a while" and leaves the end state at "browned to your liking."

The second step has the similarly unhelpful "let the sauce simmer."

I know caramelizing onions takes a half-hour or so and what kind of brown it's supposed to be and I have a good sense of how long a simmer it would need for the flavors to meld, since that's the point of that action. But if you are not familiar with these processes or if you are just starting to stretch your culinary wings, does this kind of instruction make things easier or just anxiety-inducing because it's so laid-back and vague?

Comments

[kiratael]

That's a lot of words, especially since the ones I would have needed would have been "it takes half an hour, go get a book you can hold with one hand so you don't get bored". So, I'm leaning towards anxiety-inducing.

I do best when I either know what the recipe is supposed to taste/look like when complete or there are specific time/temperature instructions. I'm thinking of the time a roommate bought collard greens by mistake, in place of kale. Or the time I tried to make mochi without ever having eaten it or seen a picture.

[domarzione]

I think it's very brave of you to do something like try to make mochi without any context. I mean that completely seriously and without irony. It might have been a less-than-success, but darn it, you tried something out of your wheelhouse because the idea interested you. We should all do that.

[kiratael]

Aw, thank you.

The first time I ended up actually eating it was after I finally ended up in Japan and my neighbor took me to the dedication of a new shrine, where they were throwing mochi from the roof. Major culinary "AH HA" moment. So much squishier than anticipated...

[domarzione]

Next up: go to an Asian supermarket and get the mochi filled with ice cream. (I recommend red bean and green tea.)