Recipes should be straight forward, easy to read, and easy to follow. But even the most well-written recipe can cause a fair share of confusion.
We can't even tell you how many times we've blithely dumped a cup of sugar into our batter, only to realize that we were supposed to save half of it for later in the recipe. Or measured out some herbs and started chopping before it occurred to us that the herbs were meant to be measured after cutting.
Gleaned through years of kitchen mishaps, here are a few tips on reading the recipe:
It might be obvious, but it's worth saying: the order in which the ingredients are listed are the order in which they're used in the recipe. This is handy to keep in mind when you're getting organized for a big cooking project.
When getting those ingredients together, take a quick read through the directions. Sometimes ingredients (a cup of sugar, for instance...) will be actually be split into two different additions even if they're listed as one in the ingredient list.
Pay attention to grammar in the ingredient list. If the recipe calls for something like "one onion, chopped," that means that you measure out the ingredient (one onion) and then prepare it as directed (chopped). On the other hand, when recipes phrase it with the preparation before the ingredient, like "1 cup chopped walnuts," that means you prepare the ingredient first (chop the walnuts) and then measure it out (take one cup).
Read through all the directions before starting to cook. Sometimes recipes have a strange way of organizing things. When you read through all the steps, you can get a picture for how the dish should take shape and save some potential back-pedaling later on. You can also save some time by picking out steps that can be done ahead--like bringing a pot of water to boil or putting out butter to soften while you finish preparing other ingredients.
What recipe-reading tricks have you picked up over the years?
(Photo Credit: Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, via )
Read it all the way through at least once before you begin and checking that you have everything. I hate getting to a point and realizing that I don't actually have corn syrup even though I was SURE I did.
view Tiamat_the_Red's profile
I like to read through recipes and then try to simplify their steps. For example, with a lot of baking recipes, I simply group all the dry goods and write "blend" next to them, all the wet good and write "mix" next to them, then connect the two groups and write "just blend" next to them. It ends up looking like a flow chart, and it means I don't have to scan through so many steps. The Cooking for Engineers website does something similar to its recipes.Of course, not all recipes are that simple, but that's the general idea.
view OneWallKitchen's profile
Yes, I agree with Tiamat. Read it all the way through at least once (maybe more if it's complex) and then pull out all the ingredients called for in the recipe to make sure you aren't missing anything. This also helps if it asks you to use certain kitchen tools/pans etc that you may not have.
view tipperella's profile
Once I put 1/4 cup of salt into a batch of fudge. Oh! I was so mad myself for being careless. Later I was re-reading the recipe and it called for 1/4 cup of salt.
My tip? Make sure the ingredients, measurements, and proportions make sense.
view Fontessa's profile