Pet Peeves - Epicurian Division

I was reviewing the recipe for Lamb stuffed tomatoes that I was referred to in my thread on tomato recipes (by the way, we really liked it), and I decided to look at some of the comments. It reminded me that some people are born idiots, or perhaps they have idiocy thrust upon them. Regardless, I just love a review that gives a recipe one star out of five and the text is roughly something like this, “I left out the garlic because I don’t like garlic, I used only half of the ground pepper because I thought the recipe called for too much, and I didn’t have any turmeric. This recipe was terrible because the spices were too light.” Well moron, what did you think was going to happen when you left out half the spices?

In other recipes I have seen people make brilliant comments like, “I am a vegan, so I substituted ground eggplant with walnuts for the ground beef and tofu slices for the cheese, and this recipe was awful.” Of course it was, you idiot, it wasn’t designed for people like you. I once even saw a comment by someone who substituted every ingredient in a recipe, all the way down to the salt, which was removed because her husband had hypertension, and then complained that the recipe didn’t work.

There are very few recipes on Earth calling for two cloves of garlic that are actually good with only two cloves.

“two cloves of garlic? Don’t mind if i add 8” - my general motto

Missing ingredient in many recipes: user intelligence.

The quote that I like goes

“Some recipes call for one clove of garlic. This is wrong. No recipe should use one clove of garlic unless it is a recipe entitled How To Cook One Clove of Garlic. Even then, use two.”


There was a great Yelp review of my favorite local taco place which gave it one star complaining that there was an entire wedge of lime on top of the taco. How was she expected to eat that?

there are a handful of items where the fresh farm version is so much better and different that it’s essentially a completely different ingredient. garlic is at the top of that list. the garlic you get at a supermarket is so bland, dry, and lacking in flavor and aroma that you’d need 20x to make any impact whatsoever. i’m very serious about garlic.

Yaacov (or anyone who loves garlic): if you haven’t already done this - and if you have, I expect you’re doing it every season - when the fresh young garlic is available in the farmers’ markets, make garlic confit. Peel as many cloves as you have the energy to peel, cover in a small saucepan with high quality canola oil, and put it on your lowest burner setting, preferably on a diffuser, for about an hour. It should never get above the gentlest of simmers. The resulting cloves are sweet and delicate and pure, and can be thrown whole into every vegetable dish right at the end, smashed on top of toast, used in dressings…tons of uses. Store them in the fridge in the oil used for cooking, and use the oil as well for light sautees in which you want just a hint of garlic. We do 20-30 heads of garlic like this every season.

To the original question, comments often drive me crazy, for many of the same reasons that Jay mentions. There are also recipe quirks that drive me crazy. Notably, most recipes don’t want to admit that it takes as long as it takes to caramelize onions. They all say “sautee onions until light brown and caramelized, about 15 minutes.” Bullsh-t.

Same with instructions for reducing - it takes a lot longer than most recipes tell you.

I can also go off on plenty of restaurant pet peeves, like temperature issues. For instance, cheese shouldn’t be cold. I get that this is the land of lawsuits and regulations, and people get hysterical about refrigerating everything constantly, but cold cheese is gross. Sushi and sashimi also shouldn’t be cold.

This is a classic.

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Yep. Exactly. Julia Child tells the truth. So does David Chang in the Momofuku cookbook. Most everyone else lies.

Experienced cooks don’t fall for it, but lots of people are scared in the kitchen and will follow recipes to the letter. Their dishes will never come out right if those who write recipes continue to lie about things like this.

This. TOTALLY.

Check out Thomas Keller’s recipe for French onion soup:

FOR THE SOUP: Melt the butter and oil in a large heavy stockpot over medium heat. Add the onions and 1 tablespoon salt, reduce the heat to low. Cook, stirring every 15 minutes and regulating the heat to keep the mixture bubbling gently, for about 1 hour, or until the onions have wilted and released a lot of liquid. At this point, you can turn up the heat slightly to reduce the liquid, but it is important to continue to cook the onions slowly to develop maximum flavor and keep them from scorching. Continue to stir the onions every 15 minutes, being sure to scrape the bottom and get in the corners of the pot, for about 4 hours more, or until the onions are caramelized throughout and a rich deep brown. Keep a closer eye on the onions toward the end of the cooking when the liquid has evaporated.

I love onions and grill them with peppers for fajitas on a regular basis. I don’t cook them for 45 minutes – maybe 15. I don’t think I’d want them at that point. I guess onion soup is different.

My pet peeve is when people say, “sear it to seal in the juices”. That’s not what searing is for…

12 lbs of sweet onions, 10 sprigs of fresh thyme, salt, and 5 or so hours later.
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I made that Keller Onion Soup once. The veal stock was a bigger issue for me

I remember the day I learned this. In college cooking for some friends. Misread mom’s recipe that called for one clove of garlic and used one head. Turned out way better than mom ever made it.

i do a version of this but with olive oil and butter (fat and water soluble compounds work better here) and in the oven so you can just leave it alone on a low setting. easier than the stove top. glazed garlic with sherry vinegar, honey, and thyme is also an insane side dish.

I tried it with olive oil and, while good, prefer the version with neutral oil for a purer garlic flavor. Never tried adding butter. The sherry vinegar etc. glaze sounds fantastic.

Bingo! Also most store garlic has green making it bitter, blanching is critical.

I like to confit garlic sous vide. That way it is preserved and can be opened any time for over a year.

Or keep refrigerated, to prevent sprouting.

I have thought of doing this. I sometimes do duck confit sous vide, even though I don’t like the results as much, because I like how little fat you need for a big batch. But in the case of garlic confit, the oil used in the cooking process is a great side benefit so I want a lot of it.