Cooking for Engineers
cookingforengineers.com
cookingforengineers.com
My favourite example of this is the schematic for the "meat lasagne" recipe, which is at the end of the instructions and before the comments:
Side note: bechamel lasagne is usually called lasagne al forno and I think it comes from Bologna. In many other parts of Italy they don't use bechamel in their traditional lasagnes, and they often do use ricotta and mozzarella.
So like a snapshot of Italian culture as it was a few generations back like how Quebec is a snapshot of historic France and Newfoundland is a snapshot of england
It's not a really strong identity, we don't cultivate the ancestry like Americans do, so unfortunately I don't speak the language, neither do most of the ~30M italian descendants in the south. The deeper into the countryside you go though, you start hearing old dialects of italian (and german).
I make lasagna using bechamel sauce as well, but you'll also find videos with chefs that add mozarella (or other cheeses) to their bechamel sauce. So a traditional recipe can be sabotaged at every stage of the process!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_cucchiaio_d%27argento
https://www.phaidon.com/store/food-cook/the-silver-spoon-978...
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/5006077 (The translation into English was a small miracle)
> As an example, I made the carbonara in this book which calls for (among other ingredients) ... "4 cloves of garlic" & "1/4 cup dry white wine" & "2 Large Eggs".
> Upon further research, an authentic Italian carbonara has no garlic, no white wine and only the yolks of eggs.
> I have found several recipes in this book already which are not true to the original recipes. Granted, this may not worry some people, but please bare in mind that if you are looking for true authentic Italian recipes ... look elsewhere. This book will not give it to you.
Wikipedia can be helpful for translating the dish name. They'll either list the name directly, or you can switch to the version of the article in the dish's home language.
Difficulty: this is less useful for Indian dishes because they'll almost always include ingredients an American won't have in even a stocked-for-Indian-dishes kitchen. Usually a great strategy for European dishes, at least, though.
They are 100% authentic Italian by definition, but if you are looking for THE singular authentic Lasagna recipe you aren’t going to find it. Even within Italy there are huge regional variations, and the practice is continually evolving to this day.
I really like this chef’s outro (another lasagna video: https://youtu.be/zXZq6crD6WI) Basically he says “This is how I make it and honour my region and my ancestors, but you should make it however you like, and experiment, because it means the food is alive”.
0: https://www.phaidon.com/store/food-cook/the-silver-spoon-978... 1: https://evanfunke.com/orderamericansfoglino
you can generally put all British, German or US cooking "evolvements" put into this category. thankfully the recent "fusion" cooking doesn't involve anything related to these evolvements, only the good asian and central american kitchens.
At the very bottom of the page...
> Tabular Recipe Notation Patent Pending (Michael Chu)
There's a thread for it in the forums -
http://www.cookingforengineers.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24...
Apparently, he tried to patent it - but in various patent searches I haven't found anything.
The thread goes on until August 2021 with occasional activity - but no information on the patent.
And for what it's worth... the person who created it hasn't been active on the php forum for the site since 2017.
That way, I can prepare things directly into bowls (or directly into pans) together.
I also call out which one needs to go first if there is one. For example, softening butter in the microwave needs to happen first, because it's a combi microwave and oven and I'll need it as an oven later.
Recipes themselves can't be copyrighted.
https://copyrightalliance.org/are-recipes-cookbooks-protecte...
> Recipes are usually not protected by copyright due to the idea-expression dichotomy. The idea-expression dichotomy creates a dividing line between ideas, which are not protected by copyright law, and the expression of those ideas, which can be protected by copyright law.
> ...
> Recipes can be protected under copyright law if they are accompanied by “substantial literary expression.” This expression can be an explanation or detailed directions, which is likely why food and recipe bloggers often share stories and personal anecdotes alongside a recipe’s ingredients.
I'm pretty sure this is just for SEO hacking
Hmm... feeling an itch...
I still ate 'real food' when going out and at the work canteen. But having to never think about food at home is great. I also felt great, having those 3-5 portions of huel a day gave me significantly more energy and I felt like a brain fog was lifted (that I wasn't even aware of before).
I've been traveling around for the past ~6 months and I really miss it. I know this kind of reads like an ad, but I have no association with Huel at all. Just a very happy customer.
Im the complete opposite but I totally get your point and respect everything you said.
Everything you listed as a positive is a negative for me. Cooking isn’t a waste of time, it’s an opportunity to be creative. I get a lot of pleasure from making a good meal, both a sense of accomplishment but also the pleasure of eating good food. It’s also a time to spend with family. Eating the same food every day, and a texture-less shakes at that, sounds awful. So many of my family memories are around the table.
I get that people see shopping as a waste of time but I enjoy exploring grocery stores and specialty markets, trying out new products and flavors. The other day my wife and I went shopping with our daughter, we got some beer to enjoy while walking around, my daughter got a slice of pizza. The staff in the bakery section was decorating a cake, she thought my daughter was cute and gave her a little cup of frosting and some Easter cake toppings. As a 3 year old it was the greatest experience of her life.
The time investment for a balanced meal for 4 is only slightly more than the time investment for a balanced meal for 1. This results in a high time cost per person when cooking for one.
However, I've gone a slightly different way than powdered meal replacement. I've signed up for two different prepared meals (one gives me lunch, the other dinner) that cuts the lunch to "microwave some fairly good food for 2m" and the dinner is "put this raw food in these aluminum trays, scan the barcode, come back in 13 to 20 minutes.
It competes fairly well with going out to eat and while more expensive than other instant dinners, tastes better and has more variety.
.....I wouldn't end it all, of course. But life would feel so empty. What do you do with your life that's worth avoiding one of the simplest pleasures?
Unlike the grandparent, I cook all my food. I care a lot about what I’m putting in my body.
That being said, I don’t get great enjoyment out of it. Sure, I try and make food that tastes good. If I have to eat, I’d rather it taste good.
But if I could opt out I would.
> practice the meditative process of creation that is cooking
I do not find it meditative at all, the actual cooking process is tolerable, but all the pre-work(shopping/managing ingredients) and post work(cleanup) is not worth it. The reward of delicious food does not outweigh the annoyance I get from those things.
If I ate my favorite meal 150 days in a row I would start to almost feel ill looking at it. I just need more variety.
This is definitely something I’d be interested in, but I’m worried about the lack of variety and it’s probably not ideal for people who lift weights regularly (even when supplementing with whey etc).
Nope, I kind of regret not doing something like that to compare before/after. I'm from the UK, you can't just go to your doctor and ask them to do random blood tests if there's nothing wrong with you. They'll politely tell you to go away. Getting them done privately didn't feel worth it, I had little faith in the DIY ones being accurate and getting it done at a clinic was too expensive last time I looked.
> Did you take any vitamin/mineral supplements?
I took vitamin D supplements, before and after. But that's because we get no sun in Scotland :(.
But keep in mind it’s all marketing for oats and vitamins.
The first step should be birdfood. Eat like a bird. Trail mix basically. It is super easy to concoct your own nut mixes buying things in bulk.
The next step would be to eat fermented food like yogurt and kimchee.
The next would be overnight oats, possibly combined with the yogurt and or trail mix from above.
And finally would be raw greens and canned fish/bivalves and hard boiled eggs and hard cheese.
Any sort of outdoor hiking, camping, wilderness preparedness diet can be adapted to indoor living.
No cooking involved, minimal fridge space, some variety in texture, and anytime you need a snack or feel hunger you can pretty much eat till your hearts content. You can also combine greens, trail mix, eggs, canned meat and cheese to arrive at salad.
Wardons in Syrup. Take wardons, and cast in a pot, and boil them till they are tender; then take them up and pare them, and cut them in two pieces; take enough of powder of cinnamon, a good quantity, and cast it in red wine, and draw it through a strainer; cast sugar thereto, and put it [in] an earthenware pot, and let it boil: and then cast the pears thereto, and let boil together, and when they have boiled a while, take powder of ginger and cast thereto, and a little vinegar, and a little saffron; and look that it is poignant and sweet.
-- from Harleian MS. 279 - Potage Dyvers, circa 1430
It helps a little to know that Wardens are a variety of pear.
The recipe has been recast in modern terms in the book Take A Thousand Eggs and is a nice poached pears in reduced wine syrup.
The descriptions are similarly open to interpretation.
Give yourself a few tries with any new recipe. You'll find they always need tweaks, especially for anything that's complex.
Recipe writing (and recipe following) varies a lot. For some people a recipe is a formula, very precise. For others it’s a rough guide of an idea that should be adjusted.
When I started cooking I had a very scientific approach, as if it were like chemistry class in high school. It felt like if the recipe wasn’t exact then it would be garbage, which is far from the truth.
Also, there’s a trap where some things are hard to define and are better left to the senses and judgement.
When a recipe says “cook for 30-40 minutes” some people feel trapped — which is it, 30 or 40? “Oh no, I cooked it for 45, it’s going to be awful.” Or “I cooked it the time that the recipe stated and the skin came out soggy.”
- Prepare for 10 minutes
- Cook for 8 hours
Servings: 4
That's about my level of self-control with chocolate chip cookies.
1 tsp (US) is 4.928922ml. 1 tsp (UK) is 4.859917ml. 1 tbsp is 3 tsp. 1 cup is 16tsp (of the same variety).
And so on, while the rest of the food is burning/sticking/melting.
Plus, a "stick" of butter is not sold in Germany. What they have is more than two sticks joined side-by-side.
The other problem is that density of things can vary wildly. Flour can be 30% different in density depending on how you scoop it ( scoop it into the measuring cup vs scooping with the measuring cup).
And of course problem number three is not converting your measurements before you start cooking, just like it's a problem not to mise-en-place your ingredients first. (If you mise-en-place, you've probably got the correct measures of ingredients already).
Notably, for a lot of ingredients, recipes don't even try. "4 eggs" is always approximate since eggs aren't the same size. Recipes with peppers always mention you need to play around and use judgement because both size and capsaicin amounts vary quite a bit from batch to batch.
If it was cooking for machinists, every measure would come with a specified tolerance
I see many websites do the conversion as 1/2 lb -> 226,79 grams but guess what, I am not going to the butcher and ask for 226,79 grams of meat. Just like I won't do 14,79 ml of oil (1 tbsp) (well, I just use a teaspoon in this case but you get the idea).
Labels are clearly converted from F but with some non-perfect formula, 700F is actually 371C not 374C for example. Still trying to figure out the formula used.
the difference between 38℃ and 94℃ is 100.8Δ℉ rather than the 100Δ℉ that was probably there in the original markings. It's the closest you can come to the correct values though, 93℃ is off by 1Δ℉
They then assumed 100Δ℉ = 56Δ℃, and applied that to the rest of the dial.
That means the values on the dial are off a bit, and should be: 38, 93, 149, 204, 260, 316, 371, 427
Seriously, virtually any ingredient can be off by as much as 5-10% and often more, it won't matter THAT much and if it does, you can adapt.
"Add one small onion"
Oookay...how big is that? How much of a difference in flavor will it be if I add more or less? What if I barely like onion? If I add more, will it cook enough to not change the outcome significantly?
It does take experience to guess whether it will matter or not, so if you're getting started it's nice to be given a clue (like weights).
Also, adaptation assumes that you're going to be trying the recipe again to get it right for the next time. Some people may do that, but there are so many great recipes out there that a lot of people (myself among them) will just go find some other recipe if one doesn't turn out well.
Go to the store and look at the onions. Categorize them as large/medium/small. Now you know what a small onion looks like.
Additional precision doesn't help here because onions aren't all the same. Two onions of identical size will contribute varying amounts of sweetness and pungency based on their freshness. The effect of your knifework and cooking temperature will make the outcome vary as well. "Add 200g of diced onion" is false precision. It looks more precise but it actually doesn't change the reproducibility of the dish at all.
> How much of a difference in flavor will it be if I add more or less?
Is onion a main ingredient like in onion soup? Probably a meaningful amount. Is onion just part of the overall mix? Probably not much of a difference. This isn't something that a recipe can tell you. This is something that learning to cook tells you. There is an entire genre of books that teach this "what makes recipes taste the way they do" concept but they aren't recipe books.
Yes, but not an intractable amount of experience. There are very few ingredients for which inaccuracy of measurement yields a clear "pass or fail" to the dish. In most cases, you would just make a mental note to add more or less of whatever ingredient it was next time.
Accuracy-sensitive ingredients that come to mind are usually powerful spices like asafoetida, saffron, cloves, garlic. Or, in baking, leavening agents (which can usually be compensated for with time and temperature). There's not a lot of them.
From our first time baking this pie recipe, all other pumpkin pie is dead to us. The pumpkin we bought in NZ turns out to be superior to sugar pumpkin or butternut squash. It is Japanese winter squash or kabocha.
If using this recipe with kabocha, cut the sugar by 1/3 to 1/2. It doesn’t need much.
But there's still so many unsolved problems at the moment, especially around object recognition. Maybe in a few decades.
Once that's solved, I imagine there will be a lot of engineers tinkering at home with their robots, sharing code for say cooking the perfect steak, the best coffee, and a general recommendation engine that can predict what you'll probably like.
Can't wait. I don't get excited about cooking, but coding cooking machines gets me going.
The recipe: https://cfx.lu/recipes/fondue
In particular, it was important for me to focus on the liquid densities, as a person that wants to attempt this recipe for the first time probably has no reference on what the ideal density of e.g. a cheese fondue is, so I wanted to add videos and pictures to showcase it.
I started late (late 30's) but it's never too late and this site started me on the road. Now I do the majority of day to day cooking. My wife does most of the baking.
edit: Came back to say https://www.joyofbaking.com/ is/was a site I made a lot of recipes from too.
"You shouldn't have called it "cooking ro engineers" - you should've called it "cooking for men"."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745687 (93 points, July 2011, 27 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79856 (20 points, November 2007, 12 comments)