RANT: recipe reviewers who can’t cook

[vonfirmath]

18 hours ago, skimomma said:

While we are ranting, can we also complain about the recipes that have 20 pages of descriptions and videos that you have to scroll through to get to the actual recipe?!?!  Does anyone ever read that stuff or watch the videos?

I too modify pretty much every recipe.  I double the onion, garlic, ginger, and spices in most recipes.  I don't even think about it anymore.  I halve the sugar and will swap ingredients with reckless abandon.  I also almost never use measuring devices.  Luckily, I never leave recipe reviews!

I read the stories and watch the videos for a recipe I really want.  (One I remember in particular is Pioneer WOman Chicken Spaghetti) It can be helpful to an indifferent cook in figuring out exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by vonfirmath

[Sneezyone]

1 hour ago, marbel said:

Oh yes. I'm tired of hearing/reading that real cooks don't need recipes.  Ugh, I am  a real cook - I cook a lot, for myself, family, and guests, thousands of meals over the past 40+ years. (Well, not guests for a long while now.) I love using recipes;. Sure, I can cook some things without one, but my range is bigger when I have recipes to follow. I love finding a new recipe that sounds good (and is from a trusted source) and following it to see if it's a keeper or not. (That doesn't mean I never modify - like others, I'll add or cut back on seasonings, etc., when I know an amount is off for my/my peoples' taste.) I love when a recipe gives me an opportunity to use an unfamiliar ingredient without wondering if it's going to go well in the dish. 

Goodness, yes. I modify all the time to suit my family’s tastes. Even with my eggplant variant, if you know you love the oily fried taste, up the EVOO so you get more of that. My DH needed something leaner for weight reasons. 🤷🏽‍♀️ I’m always looking for new/unfamiliar ingredients when I shop. I’m miffed with myself that I didn’t do more with the peeled and ready to eat jackfruit in Middle East grocery stores. I also, shamelessly, miss fully functional butcher and deli counters that grind meat and grate or slice cheese to your specs.

Edited March 31, 2021 by Sneezyone

[Arcadia]

22 hours ago, Sneezyone said:

. I’m thinking about fish sauce in Vietnamese or Thai food, Chinese cooking wine which tastes nothing like sake or mirin.

Chinese cooking wine has a few types, the most common on supermarket shelves is huadiaojiu/shaoxingjiu (yellow wine). For dishes that need the high alcohol content white wine, we sometimes substitute with brandy.

https://guide.michelin.com/sg/en/article/dining-out/video-cooking-with-chinese-wine

“There are two main categories of Chinese wine: bai jiu (white wine) and huang jiu (yellow wine). Bai jiu is a clear grain alcohol distilled from fermented sorghum, glutinous rice, wheat or barley. It is a strong distilled spirit between 40 and 60% Alcohol by Volume (ABV). On the other hand, huang jiu or yellow wine is fermented, not distilled, so it maintains the grain’s colour and is less alcoholic at under 20% ABV.”
 

[Sneezyone]

20 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Chinese cooking wine has a few types, the most common on supermarket shelves is huadiaojiu/shaoxingjiu (yellow wine). For dishes that need the high alcohol content white wine, we sometimes substitute with brandy.

https://guide.michelin.com/sg/en/article/dining-out/video-cooking-with-chinese-wine

“There are two main categories of Chinese wine: bai jiu (white wine) and huang jiu (yellow wine). Bai jiu is a clear grain alcohol distilled from fermented sorghum, glutinous rice, wheat or barley. It is a strong distilled spirit between 40 and 60% Alcohol by Volume (ABV). On the other hand, huang jiu or yellow wine is fermented, not distilled, so it maintains the grain’s colour and is less alcoholic at under 20% ABV.”
 

The shaoxingjiu is the only one I’ve used before. I will have to look for recipes for the other.

[ieta_cassiopeia]

A review message saying "I did this mod and it didn't work" is useful. After all, every recipe could potentially be someone's first, and some people really don't have a good sense of what substitutes work when.

Downgrading the recipe because of this (in isolation) does not. Review the recipe as it stands, or be forgiving of it if that's not possible. Also, if possible to add information about substitutions without a scored rating, something that is programmable but may not be available on all cooking review sites, that would be ideal in this instance.

Experimentation with recipes is a legitimate style, but sticking closely to recipes is a good style too, and a more advisable one for cooks that haven't yet developed their own personal sense of what "a pinch of this" or "a handful of that" means.

[TexasProud]

On 3/30/2021 at 12:46 PM, Terabith said:

On the other hand, I, a person who is a terrible cook, would love to see recipes written and reviewed for people who can't cook.  Like, spell out all the things, like the fact that the chicken needs to rest, and what exactly that means.  Tell me ALL THE THINGS in the recipe.

 

Yes, LOL, I think of myself as a good cook and I had no idea a chicken had to rest.  What does that even mean????

[Lady Florida.]

On 3/30/2021 at 1:39 PM, Sneezyone said:

 

Don't downgrade a recipe if you added a full can of canned tomatoes to a recipe that calls for ONE FRESH TOMATO because your 20 min. boiled chicken was dry. There’s no way your chicken was tender and shreddable after 20 minutes. That takes 20 minutes of cooking time AND 20 minutes of resting off the heat and in the cooking juices. If you need to sub for a red bell pepper, use orange or yellow, both are sweet and colorful. Swapping a sweet red pepper for a bitter green one isn’t tasty. Geeze, people, you cannot expect the same flavor profile or results when making such drastic changes.

 

Even those who CAN cook but make major substitutions then downgrade the recipe because it was completely different annoy the heck out of me. Either make the recipe as written and review it, or if you make changes don't try to review the actual recipe. Geez people! 

[marbel]

19 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

Even those who CAN cook but make major substitutions then downgrade the recipe because it was completely different annoy the heck out of me. Either make the recipe as written and review it, or if you make changes don't try to review the actual recipe. Geez people! 

I agree with this and am just using this post as a jumping-off place.  

I am starting to wonder if some people just have to comment on blogs/review recipes they haven't made or have made completely differently because... they want to be listened to. I imagine in some cases it's people who have their own blogs who comment on a lot of blogs to generate traffic coming back their way. But it might also be people who just want to say something, anything. Maybe also people who want to look smarter/more sophisticated/a better cook?  I don't know. 

Like, you know how there will be questions on Amazon about a product?  And so often an answer will be "I don't know, I bought this as a gift" or whatever. In other words, a useless comment.  I mean, I get email from Amazon every now and then asking me to answer a question on a product; I don't interpret that as "Margaret! We need you to answer this question!" It's not personal, but some people seem to think they have to answer even if they really have nothing to say.

I have left reviews for recipes I have cooked as written, almost always good ones. Because a recipe that works as written and is delicious, that's worth something to me. If a recipe doesn't work, well, there's always the chance I messed something up!

ETA: I also wonder if fandom (is that the right word - being a fan) is an element of comments. Like, if I comment a lot on a blog, maybe the blogger will get to "know" me.  Even if I'm just saying "ooohhh that looks delish!"  Again, I don't know, just musing. Bloggers are really minor celebrities, or potential celebrities, eh? 

 

Edited April 1, 2021 by marbel

[Sneezyone]

3 hours ago, TexasProud said:

Yes, LOL, I think of myself as a good cook and I had no idea a chicken had to rest.  What does that even mean????

If you cut into cooked meat immediately after pulling it off the heat, the juices will run right out. If you rest it, the juices can distribute throughout the meat. Nothing can save something that’s been cooked to death but I’ve found that if I let my boiled chicken (like for chicken salad) sit in the broth to rest and cool a bit it absorbs those juices too. So, when you cut it or shred it, it isn’t dry at all. It’s juicy and flavorful. The recipe I was working from a couple days ago called for this kind of chicken. Some reviewers even subbed canned chicken. Mind you, this was a recipe for arepas con pollo mechado. The reviews read like blasphemy. 🤦🏽‍♀️

Edited March 31, 2021 by Sneezyone

[gardenmom5]

reading at least a sample of the reviews (especially negative ones) can be very enlightening.  I've read a lot of negative product reviews which were about the shipper (which varied) - nothing to do with the item itself.   or - reading between the lines - they used it improperly and the item failed.  . . . hm . . there's a reason for that.

different people have different levels of cooking ability, and interest.  non-cooks leaving reviews that a recipe is "hard" can be helpful to other "non-cooks".  I always read the recipes (and maybe some reviews - I like all recipes as people might make changes I consider an improvement.  which I'm doing today as I am not satisfied with my cream cheese frosting recipe.), and after awhile, I'll get a feel for what's involved before delving more deeply.  I don't cook for fun, but I do appreciate a good recipe.  dh (loves to experiment in the kitchen) has been trying to make butter chicken. . . I told him I'm choosing the recipe next time.  (it was fine, more like a yellow curry - but NOT butter chicken!  though it beat the vegan butter chicken recipe I still laugh about.)

 

though my favorite reviews were about my favorite italian place. I had to look it up for something , and read some of the reviews.  two reviews - with only one review between them were definitely opposites.  the first one was blasting it for not being more like olive garden (yeah, the chain), and if they were they'd be better.  The next one was someone who travels to italy, and was craving real italian food - and how glad he was it wasn't like olive garden.

 

[TravelingChris]

On 3/30/2021 at 12:39 PM, Sneezyone said:

I know everyone has different skill sets and abilities. Some recipes are better written than others too, especially those posted on crowdsourced pages like Allrecipes. However, it’s really only helpful to me to see reviews from people who know what the heck they’re doing in the kitchen (and why).

Don't downgrade a recipe if you added a full can of canned tomatoes to a recipe that calls for ONE FRESH TOMATO because your 20 min. boiled chicken was dry. There’s no way your chicken was tender and shreddable after 20 minutes. That takes 20 minutes of cooking time AND 20 minutes of resting off the heat and in the cooking juices. If you need to sub for a red bell pepper, use orange or yellow, both are sweet and colorful. Swapping a sweet red pepper for a bitter green one isn’t tasty. Geeze, people, you cannot expect the same flavor profile or results when making such drastic changes.

There are probably lots of recipes that I’d try and love but for the bad reviews of challenged cooks. On a happy note, reviews that include these unfortunate details are much easier to discount. Rant over.

Now I change ingredients, etc (which almost always turn out very well anyway) but even if recipes are bad (with no substitutions, I tend not to write reviews.

[TexasProud]

47 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

If you cut into cooked meat immediately after pulling it off the heat, the juices will run right out. If you rest it, the juices can distribute throughout the meat. Nothing can save something that’s been cooked to death but I’ve found that if I let my boiled chicken (like for chicken salad) sit in the broth to rest and cool a bit it absorbs those juices too. So, when you cut it or shred it, it isn’t dry at all. It’s juicy and flavorful. The recipe I was working from a couple days ago called for this kind of chicken. Some reviewers even subbed canned chicken. Mind you, this was a recipe for arepas con pollo mechado. The reviews read like blasphemy. 🤦🏽‍♀️

Interesting. I mainly make casseroles though.  Would probably apply to husband who grills I guess.  And yes, I have used canned chicken because it is about to expire. ( It is part of our emergency supplies.)

[Sneezyone]

16 minutes ago, TexasProud said:

Interesting. I mainly make casseroles though.  Would probably apply to husband who grills I guess.  And yes, I have used canned chicken because it is about to expire. ( It is part of our emergency supplies.)

Yes, definitely grilled meats. I’ve used canned chicken too—in salads, sandwiches and sushi rolls in place of tuna. In canned form, the two taste indistinguishable to me—but I wouldn’t sub it in this dish where shredded chicken is basically mixed with sofrito or in chicken enchiladas or something. The chicken is kinda the star of the thing. It would really change the taste.

Edited April 1, 2021 by Sneezyone