Thank you for this post! I’m sitting here reading the brodo di carne recipe and completely mind boggled by the fact that 6 quarts of water simmered for 24 hours will yield 9 quarts of brodo! What a joke. I’ve been so fascinated by this book which I just purchased but to now seeing such basic flaws is really unfortunate. Likewise I’ve been studying the wild boar ragu recipe. He calls for 5-6 torn sage leaves and 5 whole juniper berries. That’s a serious amount of sage and big pieces of it at that. Not a single one of which is in the picture and would normally be pretty atypical (at least at that size) in a finished ragu. Then whole juniper berries are usually used for marinades - not frequently tossed into a meat sauce whole so you’d think at a min they’d be ground. The more I read this the more that things all seem quite off! Frustrating. But your parting comment is probably true - this will never get corrected and seeing as how it wasn’t even so easy to find probably says it all…
I'm glad this was useful to you! Your observation about the sage and juniper is a great one, and also exactly the sort of thing I'd look for when I was an editor at Serious Eats. Inconsistencies like that in recipes are a sign of poor quality and a rushed editorial process, and what makes the whole thing even more vexing for me is that that cookbook won an IACP award that year. I'm pretty sure that the judges who cooked from that book either cooked recipes far simpler, or just didn't spend enough time actually reviewing individual recipes. The book is a total mess. It also completely shook my faith in Katie Parla, an author whose work I no longer read or purchase.
So upsetting but I'll just use it as a loose guide which to be honest is often how I use recipes. I'll read a bunch of different versions and then tie my own recipe together. Question for you on this "miracle" brodo. I started out with 9 quarts of water. Its obviously reducing rather considerably and i'm only 6 hours in even though i have this at the lowest simmer (its a rather wide stock pot). You had mentioned you topped up the brodo over the course of the cook (i'm also impressed with how you got that color...). Wouldn't topping up just walk back the concentration I've been achieving through the reduction or no? Any advice would be very much appreciated!
It's an intense experience, and one that we definitely enjoyed doing, even if the recipe had major problems. I'm a fan of cooking "projects" in general and I already have a couple of other big ones planned for this fall/winter.
Thank you for this story. As a person who loves to cook but not quite sure how, I have found myself in a similar situation. Not to the extent of three days, but enough hours for sure. When using a book or a website it is definitely taken for granted that the person on the other side knows what they are doing. It is not always the case. But you could see what was going wrong and attempted correction. I kept wondering what I did wrong as I scraped inedible goo and gristle into a trash can. Thank you for this post.
In the future I'll be writing separate entries talking about how to tell if a recipe blog, or a cookbook, is going to be reliable. There are definitely telltale signs, if you know how to look for them. Stay tuned!
I doubt it’s inedible, but I imagine it won’t look like it’s supposed to and instead of being a really nice smooth bring green it’s going to be very flecked and have chunks of spinach in the dough. If you want to be really sure it tastes right, cut off a couple of small pieces (such as from an uneven edge, if you have one) and cook them in a small pot of boiling water. That way you can taste the dough for flavor and texture without either throwing it all out or committing to the rest of the project without knowing how it will taste. Let me know how it turns out!
Took your suggestion....it’s fine. Not as deep a green as the book, but now I know. I noticed the book was cheaply made too and I found recipes to be a little vague. Glad I’m not the only one, as I read reviews on Amazon too. I’m a Lidia fan myself. Thanks for saving me from making another batch of dough!
Thank you for this post! I’m sitting here reading the brodo di carne recipe and completely mind boggled by the fact that 6 quarts of water simmered for 24 hours will yield 9 quarts of brodo! What a joke. I’ve been so fascinated by this book which I just purchased but to now seeing such basic flaws is really unfortunate. Likewise I’ve been studying the wild boar ragu recipe. He calls for 5-6 torn sage leaves and 5 whole juniper berries. That’s a serious amount of sage and big pieces of it at that. Not a single one of which is in the picture and would normally be pretty atypical (at least at that size) in a finished ragu. Then whole juniper berries are usually used for marinades - not frequently tossed into a meat sauce whole so you’d think at a min they’d be ground. The more I read this the more that things all seem quite off! Frustrating. But your parting comment is probably true - this will never get corrected and seeing as how it wasn’t even so easy to find probably says it all…
Thanks again.
I'm glad this was useful to you! Your observation about the sage and juniper is a great one, and also exactly the sort of thing I'd look for when I was an editor at Serious Eats. Inconsistencies like that in recipes are a sign of poor quality and a rushed editorial process, and what makes the whole thing even more vexing for me is that that cookbook won an IACP award that year. I'm pretty sure that the judges who cooked from that book either cooked recipes far simpler, or just didn't spend enough time actually reviewing individual recipes. The book is a total mess. It also completely shook my faith in Katie Parla, an author whose work I no longer read or purchase.
So upsetting but I'll just use it as a loose guide which to be honest is often how I use recipes. I'll read a bunch of different versions and then tie my own recipe together. Question for you on this "miracle" brodo. I started out with 9 quarts of water. Its obviously reducing rather considerably and i'm only 6 hours in even though i have this at the lowest simmer (its a rather wide stock pot). You had mentioned you topped up the brodo over the course of the cook (i'm also impressed with how you got that color...). Wouldn't topping up just walk back the concentration I've been achieving through the reduction or no? Any advice would be very much appreciated!
I've made Lasagna many a time in my life but I've never heard of anything like this. Wow!
It's an intense experience, and one that we definitely enjoyed doing, even if the recipe had major problems. I'm a fan of cooking "projects" in general and I already have a couple of other big ones planned for this fall/winter.
Thank you for this story. As a person who loves to cook but not quite sure how, I have found myself in a similar situation. Not to the extent of three days, but enough hours for sure. When using a book or a website it is definitely taken for granted that the person on the other side knows what they are doing. It is not always the case. But you could see what was going wrong and attempted correction. I kept wondering what I did wrong as I scraped inedible goo and gristle into a trash can. Thank you for this post.
In the future I'll be writing separate entries talking about how to tell if a recipe blog, or a cookbook, is going to be reliable. There are definitely telltale signs, if you know how to look for them. Stay tuned!
any info about when it might be coming or did i miss it somehow?
Crap....I wondered about the foamy spinach and eggs....is my dough inedible??
I doubt it’s inedible, but I imagine it won’t look like it’s supposed to and instead of being a really nice smooth bring green it’s going to be very flecked and have chunks of spinach in the dough. If you want to be really sure it tastes right, cut off a couple of small pieces (such as from an uneven edge, if you have one) and cook them in a small pot of boiling water. That way you can taste the dough for flavor and texture without either throwing it all out or committing to the rest of the project without knowing how it will taste. Let me know how it turns out!
Took your suggestion....it’s fine. Not as deep a green as the book, but now I know. I noticed the book was cheaply made too and I found recipes to be a little vague. Glad I’m not the only one, as I read reviews on Amazon too. I’m a Lidia fan myself. Thanks for saving me from making another batch of dough!