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Looking at Cookbooks with A.
Apr. 9th, 2023 02:03 pmA. has been helping me out with some baking lately, and she has had some questions. Some of those questions are ones other people have asked me about, and mostly, they come down to, “How do you know that modification is going to work?”
I am rarely this unable to answer a question. I have very detailed specific answers to specific modifications, but when people are interested in the general answer, I’m flummoxed. I am _not_ going to braindump all the mods I have ever successfully made to recipes! It’s a lot! Currently, my answer to this question is sort of the story of my life told through the lens of things I have cooked, and that is also a lot, but is at least narratively of more potential interest.
Anyway.
I have mentioned to A. that cookbooks actually generally include some information for how to modify a recipe, so I got out one of the few cookbooks we still have in the house to show her how a general purpose cookbook is typically put together. We looked at the front matter, including the inside of the cover (front and back) and the explanations about assumptions and kitchen equipment and pictures of what “diced” means vs. “minced” and how to measure and all that stuff.
Then I wanted to show her how difficult it is for me to cook out of a general purpose cookbook without extensive modifications. (I also showed her Jane Zukin’s cookbook, and how that demonstrates that the substitutions visible in those recipes — milk free margarine for butter for example — made it clear to younger me that I could make those substitutions in any recipe. With the possible exception of hollandaise sauce.) We started paging through the appetizers, which always tend to have a good amount of cheese in at least some of them, but we were using America’s Test Kitchen as our sample cookbook (it is my husband’s and he likes the show), and we started just shouting Cheese! every time a recipe called for it. Butter and milk I can substitute around easily, but cheese is much trickier and the recipe is much less likely to survive in a recognizable form (or taste even remotely like the original). Sour cream has pretty successful faux versions, but I don’t like either the original or the ersatz, so I just don’t make dishes that rely upon that flavor. Ever. I knew I didn’t like this cookbook, but I was kinda shocked by how few recipes in that appetizer section I could have made in any form at all (and all the ones I _could_ have made were ones I already knew how to make).
Also, holy shit, their chicken satay marinade AND dipping sauce _both_ include ketchup. What a New England cookbook!
We then did roughly the same operation on Better Homes & Garden (my general purpose cookbook). We noticed that the If you don’t have this you can use that in a pinch for ATK is about 90% milk products substituting for other milk products. But BH&G only has a few substitutions of that nature. Also, I prefer BH&G’s solution for no cake flour.
I don’t really look at general purpose cookbooks any more, partly because google and partly because I’ve mined that vein pretty thoroughly. I am sort of curious now what a general purpose vegan cookbook would look like, tho. This probably calls for a trip to the library and/or a bookstore.
ETA:
Implausibly, ATK has a “Vegan Cooking for Two” cookbook that _might_ be really awesome. I have downloaded the sample and will look at it later.
ETAYA:
OK, well, I downloaded the sample, and it’s actually decent. Cookbooks being cookbooks, and this being a genuine general purpose cookbook, it’s mostly NOT recipes — it’s equipment and shopping advice and charts for what recipe will help you use up whatever thing you’ve got leftover (because this is a for-two book). They like the Braun Multiquick immersion blender and the Breville smart oven, so I have to give them credit there. I don’t love that they are pro-nonstick, but *shrug*. They have a generally chill approach to Will You Get Enough Protein. They have a straight down the middle approach to faux butter/cheese/yogurt/meat/etc. As one would expect from ATK, they are picking broadly available, non-crappy options for everything.
There’s a real chance I will actually buy a copy of this thing and read it; it seems to be good. (No, I’m not about to become vegan. Come on! I’ve been answering this question for 30 years now, and the answer now is the answer it has always been. Bacon.)
I am rarely this unable to answer a question. I have very detailed specific answers to specific modifications, but when people are interested in the general answer, I’m flummoxed. I am _not_ going to braindump all the mods I have ever successfully made to recipes! It’s a lot! Currently, my answer to this question is sort of the story of my life told through the lens of things I have cooked, and that is also a lot, but is at least narratively of more potential interest.
Anyway.
I have mentioned to A. that cookbooks actually generally include some information for how to modify a recipe, so I got out one of the few cookbooks we still have in the house to show her how a general purpose cookbook is typically put together. We looked at the front matter, including the inside of the cover (front and back) and the explanations about assumptions and kitchen equipment and pictures of what “diced” means vs. “minced” and how to measure and all that stuff.
Then I wanted to show her how difficult it is for me to cook out of a general purpose cookbook without extensive modifications. (I also showed her Jane Zukin’s cookbook, and how that demonstrates that the substitutions visible in those recipes — milk free margarine for butter for example — made it clear to younger me that I could make those substitutions in any recipe. With the possible exception of hollandaise sauce.) We started paging through the appetizers, which always tend to have a good amount of cheese in at least some of them, but we were using America’s Test Kitchen as our sample cookbook (it is my husband’s and he likes the show), and we started just shouting Cheese! every time a recipe called for it. Butter and milk I can substitute around easily, but cheese is much trickier and the recipe is much less likely to survive in a recognizable form (or taste even remotely like the original). Sour cream has pretty successful faux versions, but I don’t like either the original or the ersatz, so I just don’t make dishes that rely upon that flavor. Ever. I knew I didn’t like this cookbook, but I was kinda shocked by how few recipes in that appetizer section I could have made in any form at all (and all the ones I _could_ have made were ones I already knew how to make).
Also, holy shit, their chicken satay marinade AND dipping sauce _both_ include ketchup. What a New England cookbook!
We then did roughly the same operation on Better Homes & Garden (my general purpose cookbook). We noticed that the If you don’t have this you can use that in a pinch for ATK is about 90% milk products substituting for other milk products. But BH&G only has a few substitutions of that nature. Also, I prefer BH&G’s solution for no cake flour.
I don’t really look at general purpose cookbooks any more, partly because google and partly because I’ve mined that vein pretty thoroughly. I am sort of curious now what a general purpose vegan cookbook would look like, tho. This probably calls for a trip to the library and/or a bookstore.
ETA:
Implausibly, ATK has a “Vegan Cooking for Two” cookbook that _might_ be really awesome. I have downloaded the sample and will look at it later.
ETAYA:
OK, well, I downloaded the sample, and it’s actually decent. Cookbooks being cookbooks, and this being a genuine general purpose cookbook, it’s mostly NOT recipes — it’s equipment and shopping advice and charts for what recipe will help you use up whatever thing you’ve got leftover (because this is a for-two book). They like the Braun Multiquick immersion blender and the Breville smart oven, so I have to give them credit there. I don’t love that they are pro-nonstick, but *shrug*. They have a generally chill approach to Will You Get Enough Protein. They have a straight down the middle approach to faux butter/cheese/yogurt/meat/etc. As one would expect from ATK, they are picking broadly available, non-crappy options for everything.
There’s a real chance I will actually buy a copy of this thing and read it; it seems to be good. (No, I’m not about to become vegan. Come on! I’ve been answering this question for 30 years now, and the answer now is the answer it has always been. Bacon.)