November 22, 2018 - 10:21am
"red pepper"
This one drives me absolutely NUTS! A recipe that calls for a "red pepper"! As far as I know, any pepper turns red if it's left on the plant long enough to ripen. You have to specify what kind of pepper! "Red" is not a kind of pepper. A red pepper could be a bell pepper or a jalapeno. Quite a difference.
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I do not see what the problem is. Red pepper is a dried ripe pod of mild to medium hot (weaker than Cayenne) chili pepper. Used whole or as flakes.
I agree with you on this. I see recipes and watch chefs say "add some red chiles" or a dash of chile pepper and I think "hmm, for red in my cupboard right now I have jalapeno, habanero, fresno, thai and more"
Not only would the choice make a big flavor difference, the range in heat is all over the Scoville scale!
Thanks. With the information that you've provided, I could create a flow chart with arrows, branches, I's and o's, etc.
LOL ! Somehow this reminds me of, one time in a skiing forum, somebody from England said that, before the plane lands at Malargue, Argentina, the pilot will make a pass over the airport to chase the goats off the runway. I believed him! I got a window seat 4 rows back from the wing and had my camera ready as we were landing. I was disappointed to not get a shot of scurrying goats. On the ground, I looked around for the goats and noticed that the airport was completely fenced. Eventually, I got it. The guy was from England and he was making fun of Argentina! Now, when I think of it, the very idea of a guy chasing a herd of goats with a Boeing 737 is pretty hilarious!
Yep, got stung this week with a recipe from MIL. A free standing "no-soak" great dried fruit cake. The kind with a little batter and tons of dried fruits and nuts.
It didn't turn out. To put it nicely it is a big rubber eraser stuffed with fruit. I showed her the hand written recipe and the loaf to solve this puzzle. Thank goodness it was baked in the Pullman pan with the lid on or it might be a true fruit brick baked open on a sheet pan.
Um...the investigation:
Did I play with the dough long enough squishing it with my fingers? Well, the dough could hardly be called squishy, more like hard chunks in thin batter, hardly something that could be shaped let alone stand up. Consistency was way off. No eggs? No eggs. Fats? No fats. Soaking? No soaking. You've made this before? Just a few days ago.
Oven temp? Check.
The recipe...enter the devil. A major difference was that "25 dried prune-plums" translated to 250g (in a running decigram list of fruit) was supposed to be the soft boxed type and perhaps only 25 pieces. I put in almost a whole dehydrator batch of very dry prune plums pieces! And the next mistake was the baking powder, listed as "1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 baking powder." So instead of one teaspoon there should have been one package (or about three teaspoons or one tablespoon) of baking powder. You had to see the list of ingredients to try to figure out the recipe and even then, logic didn't apply. I managed to flub it up big time. Should have gone with my instincts and changed the recipe. But this was the first time! And she brought me the recipe and gave me the figs! Oh and don't forget, we went over the recipe the day before baking! She said not to cut up the fruit, whole figs and whole nuts pieces. So I didn't chop but I did trim off stems, wash the figs and the raisins and let them drain. She is a very nice Mil and I love her, I'm sure she didn't "set me up," not with intent.
Meanwhile I stand ready with a sharp knife to cut the loaf into tiny cubes and add some moist dried cranberries, orange zest and a new better batter to glue it all together just in case I can no longer chew or bite into the fruit cake.
... is the methods section of the recipe. There, you often find the evidence that there's something wrong in the ingredients list or at least your interpretation.
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