Vague terms in recipes

[Ce'nedra]

Ok I haven't had any response when I posted this question in the Australian thread yet and I'm pretty desperate so I'll repeat it here lol.

I've had the Kylie Kwong: Heart & Soul cookbook for awhile but can't even get a start on cooking some of the dishes simply because I have NO idea what she means by "1 quantity"! What does that amount to? What IS 'quantity' (in terms of measurements)?!

She uses the term in several recipes, for eg the 'red-braised beef chuck with chinese marbled eggs' (which I'm dying to try btw).

I urgently need help!

[prasantrin]

I did a brief google, and it seems to refer to ingredients that are other recipes. For example, for the Red Braised Beef, she calls for "1 quantity red braising stock". The red braising stock is another recipe, so I would guess you would make a full recipe and use the full amount for the Red Braised Beef. If she said "1/2 quantity", you would only need half the recipe of the red braising stock, for example.

[Ce'nedra]

Thanks for your help

Although for the red braising stock, the recipe makes 6 litres! That sounds a bit much for one meal...I'm really confused now

[prasantrin]

I did a little further searching, and I think I was right.

If you look at her red braised beef chuck recipe here, it has the full ingredients printed out and the liquid ingredients comes to well over 6 litres. And the quantities of the ingredients are similar as the ones in the red braising stock over here. Finally, the red braising stock can be traced back to the red braised brisket recipe which calls for 1 quantity of the braising stock.

So it seems that she wants a heck of a lot of liquid in her braising recipes.

I have to admit, after seeing your and Dejah's braised dishes in the Chinese forum, I really wished I could do some braising right now. But with temps of 35C inside my house, it's not going to be happening soon! And I have a really big craving for brownies, but no baking, either!

[Ce'nedra]

prasantrin: thanks alot for your time and effort

You are entirely right! Spot on! That is exactly what she meant -wow, what would I have done without you?! Surely never ever open the book again

And yes, that's a hell lot of stock Which is why I initially assumed that there could be NO way she actually meant 6 litires by that '1 quantity' haha!

Aww you are lucky...I can't wait for summer here! Winter is supposed to be well and over but it's been FREEZING for the last few days

Maybe you can take advantage of making some gooood bbqs -boy, do I love bbqs

[Shel_B]

This morning I was reviewing some recipes and realized that there are a number of terms and descriptions that are not clear to me. Perhaps someone can help define them.

How big is a "small," "medium," and "large" saucepan?

What is the difference between mince, dice, and chop?

How large are the pieces of a fine, medium, and rough or coarse chop or dice?

When a vegetable is made into matchstick-sized pieces, how big are the pieces?

Maybe there are others with similar questions.

Thanks!

[Paul Kierstead]

When a vegetable is made into matchstick-sized pieces, how big are the pieces?

About the size of a match stick?

[deepfryerdan]

This morning I was reviewing some recipes and realized that there are a number of terms and descriptions that are not clear to me. Perhaps someone can help define them.

How big is a "small," "medium," and "large" saucepan?

What is the difference between mince, dice, and chop?

How large are the pieces of a fine, medium, and rough or coarse chop or dice?

When a vegetable is made into matchstick-sized pieces, how big are the pieces?

Maybe there are others with similar questions.

Thanks!

Small would be 2 quarts or smaller, Medium would be 2 to 4 quarts, and large would be 4 and above. It's definitely subjective but that's what I go buy generally.

Chop is a rough cut, 1/4" to 1/8" pieces, dice is a little finer being 1/8" to 1/16", and mince would be the finest or smallest at 1/16" or less.

The different sizes of "fine, medium, and rough or coarse chop or dice" would depend on the former measurements I gave you.

And matchstick-sized pieces are matchstick-sized pieces: about 1/16" by 1/16" by 1"

[Shel_B]

Small would be 2 quarts or smaller, Medium would be 2 to 4 quarts, and large would be 4 and above. It's definitely subjective but that's what I go buy generally.

Chop is a rough cut, 1/4" to 1/8" pieces, dice is a little finer being 1/8" to 1/16", and mince would be the finest or smallest at 1/16" or less.

The different sizes of "fine, medium, and rough or coarse chop or dice" would depend on the former measurements I gave you.

And matchstick-sized pieces are matchstick-sized pieces: about 1/16" by 1/16" by 1"

Thanks! Is there some place where these definitions can be found?

Edited July 27, 2011 by Shel_B (log)

[deepfryerdan]

Not that I know of. It's just one of those things you pick up on the job. Like a pinch of salt as opposed to a dash. There isn't a real measurement.

[Dakki]

Subjective measures like "small" and "large" also drive me nuts but we have to accept that in most cases there's going to be little difference between using a 250g onion and one that weights 275g.

I generally agree with deepfryerdan's sizes except for the matchsticks. I actually grabbed a vernier and a (wooden) match and it comes out to 58mm x 2.2 mm sq., or roughly 2.3" x 1/12" sq.

EDIT: And then there's the huge "kitchen" matches, waxpaper matches, matches from matchbooks, etc.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Dakki (log)

[Norm Matthews]

OMG I am so embarrassed. I am 67 years old and never ONCE got out a ruler and measured my matchstick cuts. I must have been doing it wrong for decades. Shame on me for being so sloppy.

[Dakki]

Well, of course you didn't. It would be pretty hard to measure out 1/12" (much less 1/16") using a ruler.

Anyway, the point was about the length. I think "matchstick cut" should be closer to 2" than to 1", unless -I've- been doing it wrong.

And there's no need to get touchy about any of this. We're just trying to pin down what all those vague instructions really mean.

[Norm Matthews]

The thing I was trying to get across is that perhaps they are vague on purpose. Cooks have measured by instinct and approximation since forever. Maybe a few fractions of an inch or a mm or two doesn't really matter.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Tri2Cook]

What does it all mean ...

42.

This article from right here on eGullet may help with some of your specific questions. I grab a pan based on what I'm going to be putting in it and what I'm going to be doing with it (for example, the pan I grab may seem large for the amount I'm going to put in it if I'm, say, making caramel and know it's going to foam up when I add the cream to the hot sugar) so I can't be definitively helpful regarding naming the sizes beyond their actual size (2qt, 4qt, etc.). A "large pan" for a 2 cup recipe isn't going to be the same as a "large pan" for a 2 gallon recipe. I realize everybody knows that, my point is that it's a tough thing to write in stone.

[Lisa Shock]

HERE is a guide to the knife cuts with their modern American names, scroll to the later pages to see examples. Allumette is sometimes referred to as the matchstick cut. HERE is a list of the classic French terms for them.

[mkayahara]

The thing I was trying to get across is that perhaps they are vague on purpose. Cooks have measured by instinct and approximation since forever. Maybe a few fractions of an inch or a mm or two doesn't really matter.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that they were vague "on purpose," but rather that - as you observe - a few mm usually doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. That said, it takes time and practice to learn how many mm of variance will have an impact on what you're cooking, so having a solid understanding of the rough dimensions intended by "small dice" vs. "large dice" is useful nonetheless. Especially since, at least for me, my matchsticks are rarely all exactly the same size.

[threestars]

Very nice information that I got here! Thanks for every bit of information! I am just a newbie and still has a lot to learn!

[Chris Birkett]

I am not the type of person who expects every ingredient in a recipe to be detailed down to gram weights and such. However, some recipe books take vague measurements a bit far. When the majority of the ingredients are given in imprecise and subjective amounts, the result for the first-time cook can be very far from what the author intended.

One cookbook that is particularly bad for this is David Thompson's Thai Food. When I cook his recipes for the first time, I often find myself searching around on the internet for similar recipes to get an idea of what sort of ratio everything should be in. Why can't you just say a recipe is for 4oz of noodles, rather than "a good handful"? My interpretation of some of his ingredient descriptions has resulted in a sub-par product more than once.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Ingredients are not consistent and conditions like ambient temperature and humidity are not consistent, so greater precision in measurement doesn't always yield a more consistent result, and sometimes we aren't even being precise about the right thing, like making careful volumetric measurements in baking where measurement by weight would be more reliable and easier.

For things like pan size, I remember that we had a 12" Leyse Toroware cast aluminum skillet at home that I always thought of as "the large pan." Then I went to college and frequently served on kitchen duty for a community of around 50 people, so when I went home "the large pan" suddenly looked like a "medium sized pan," our largest metal mixing bowl was a medium-sized bowl, and I'd temporarily lost a sense of how much salad to make for four people.

[Toliver]

Regarding mince, dice and chop, you can find some answers in the eGCI "Basic Knife Skills" class (click).

[Norm Matthews]

In my opinion, weighing ingredients only assures relative consistency. It doe not assure that the recipe will be reliable or turn out better than if you measure by volume. It only assures that you will get the same results the next time as you did this time.

edited to correct typo

Edited July 28, 2011 by Norm Matthews (log)

[Alcuin]

I don't think you can write much of anything that doesn't require some good judgment on the part of the reader. Recipes that covered everything down to exactly what to do in every situation would be lengthy--I could see it done with big glossy pictures and everything, with something like 7-10 recipes in it though.

[patrickamory]

It's Julia Child versus Elisabeth David... the former really introduced ultra-precise measurements to cooking, while the latter left things deliberately vague because she believed that the best cooks learn by trial and error... by taste, smell, seasoning, intuition, changing & altering according to the season, availability of ingredients, the history of the cuisine, and many other variables. As David Goldfarb points out, it's impossible to be precise about many things - for example if you gave a certain weight in grams of minced garlic, that might not be right for a given recipe - is the garlic large and new-world? small and Asian? purple skinned or not? at what time of year was it bought? and how old is it? All these differences affect the flavor of the ingredient and how it eventually combines into the finished product.

There's room for scientific cooking and intuitive cooking. Personally, I love David Thompson for his "vagueness" - his recipes encourage experimentation and urge you to use your senses - especially your sense of smell and taste - Thai food requires endless rebalancing of seasoning to keep the bold flavors balanced and in check with one another. That doesn't make it the ideal cookbook for a beginner. I began cooking with Julia Child's The Way To Cook and that has much to offer too.

(Of course there's baking, but that's an entirely different ballgame.)

[Shel_B]

Subjective measures like "small" and "large" also drive me nuts but we have to accept that in most cases there's going to be little difference between using a 250g onion and one that weights 275g.

True, however, a recent example I came across was for mac 'n' cheese. The ingredient list called for a "package" of pasta. Well, packages come in various sizes, and over the past couple-three years, have been downsized. A 1-lb box of spaghetti looks the same today as one from a few years ago, bit the contents can be as little as 12-oz.

On a similar note, what is semi-sweet and bitter-sweet chocolate? What is the cocoa or chocolate content? Sugar content?

Thanks!