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

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

All of the above.

[leonie_alastair]

It's an interestingly written recipe. The tone is geared toward the beginning cook (caramelized onions take time, don't rush this process) but there is very little actual instruction given. As a new cook it would have driven me crazy not to have a sense of how long each step would take. Now I don't need the timings but I find the recipe's 'relax it will be ok,' attitude rather annoying. But the meal itself sounds yummy - you'll have to let us know how it turns out!

[ratcreature]

I cook decently because I have been doing it almost daily for over two decades (as long as it's vegetarian, as I became vegetarian before truly starting to cook), but usually not fussy stuff nor with exotic (to me) incredients. It's just not worth the bother, and I still find vague instructions annoying. There should be at least a time range how long you should expect a step to take, along with a description what the results are supposed to be like at the end (e.g. whether it should thicken significantly or not).

Like, if I tried this recipe, which I won't because I'm not going to track down tamarind paste, I wouldn't know what to except from said tamarind paste which I have never cooked with or identified in a restaurant dish, so how am I supposed to know how much simmering it needs before it approximately tastes as it should just by taste testing?

[anelith]

Since I'm not a good cook, and get anxious when confronted with unfamiliar situations, this kind of recipe is quite helpful! I like the completeness of the instructions about how to caramelize the onions. I also love it when recipes have comments (as this one does) that might add helpful tips. There was one that said something about adding a pinch of sugar if you don't care for the sourness. I might make this!

[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.