Recipe failures: What are you going to do different next time ?

Question

I find there can be what I call recipe sabotage . You follow the recipe to the tee and it comes out terrible or nothing like it was supposed to .
Last weekend I followed a recipe from a well known bbq expert . I have barbecued plenty of times . low and slow with wood . Remove membrane from ribs . I never do this . cook at a higher temp ,never .Wrapped in foil way to long. Any way they came out mushy , and burned . I know what I am going to do next time . Go back to my old way .
So to the point of the question . Any recipe for cooking or baking you will do different next time . Or what you have learned . Let's hear them all . No more sabotage .

Answer

Since I rarely follow a recipe "to the tee," I can't really claim sabotage. More often, bad choice/screw up on my part. Let's look at last night. I pulled a package of meat out of the freezer and departed for work. Decided during the day to make a massaman type curry in the pressure cooker. Subbed what I thought were meaty neck bones for the stew beef in the recipe. Sauce was delicious, meat very hard to eat with bones falling apart, etc. Complaints from the non-paying customers. After dinner, I picked off the meat that remained and mixed with the curry sauce for today's lunch. Great recipe, next time I'll use boneless meat or a chuck roast where the bone is easy to remove before serving.

Answer

I am "recipe-obsessive" when I make something from a recipe for the first time. I read it over and over again. I even fall asleep thinking about certain recipes when I am planning a dinner party. That said, after 40+ years of cooking, I can spot a bad recipe easily. Sometimes I like a recipe, but I find that one step is questionable, but I still go ahead and make it. Most of the times it turns out well; but when it doesn't, but I know the recipe still has potential, then I do that particular troublesome step the way I know it should be done. So, in answer to your question, I either amend the recipe to the way I know it should be made or I ditch it completely.

Answer

I'll follow a new recipe as written the first time, even if I think it's a little off. If I think it's worth repeating, I'll take notes on what I think I should change.

I can't tell you how many times, though, I've followed directions against my better judgement/experience and had the above-mentioned non-paying customers tell me I should have followed my instincts instead.

Answer

My first year of baking was sabotaged by a lousy cookbook. When I decided I wanted to start getting into baking, I bought a huge book entirely of desserts, from the discount pile at B&N. Everything I made from it was terrible; cakes and cookies were dry and chalky, frostings were insanely sugary and usually goopy messes. I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong -- at that point I was already well seasoned at cooking. I wondered if perhaps some people just *cannot* bake, and I gave up on ever having homemade desserts. Thankfully my SO did not want to give up so easily, and gifted me a new dessert book. After 5 or 6 raving successes, I finally realized that all those weaponized cupcakes I'd been churning out weren't my fault after all :D.

Answer

Way back I was guilty of ignoring anything with the word (optional) next to a listed ingredient or skimming the baker's notes. I stopped doing that and my fails changed dramatically.

Answer

Just looked at my terrible grammar . What are going to do different next time . Ugh . It's, What are you going to do different next time ? How did I miss that . I was able to edit .

Answer

I am the kind or person who skims the recipe and then misses an important thing. Usually I miss how long the recipe actually takes. Since I bake so seldom now, I have be really careful when I want to make a pie or cake. I choose simple recipes for those because I don't bring a lot of concentration to the process. 

Just last night I cooked brown rice in the micro and forgot to set the second cycle on half power. I did manage to salvage the rice, but again, I'm not paying enough attention. 

The last stupid mistake I made was with beef stew, which I had not made in ages. The meat was cut small and I cut the potatoes and turnips large. The flavor was excellent, but I was disappointed in how the final product appeared. At least it tasted really good.

Usually I can't blame the recipe for a disappointing product. Usually it is the cook.

Answer

a recipe failed miserably?

what "second time" ?

Answer

In my quest to banish canned Enchilada sauce from my pantry, I recently made the Chile Colorado (red sauce) from the El Charro Café cookbook. I was skeptical, because it calls for dried chiles, some spices, water...and that's about it. 

It was incredibly bitter, bearing out my worst fears. I was able to rescue (barely) the Chile Colorado con Carne that it was the liquid for with the addition of some beef broth and tomato paste. 

This may be how the sauce is made in Tucson, but next time I'll use a recipe that calls for the addition of some tomatoes or chicken broth, maybe both. Screw this purity business! I'd rather open a can than eat that dreck again.

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Recipe failures: What are you going to do different next time ?

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