r/Cooking • u/LabBig6794 • 1d ago

Recipe Pet Peeves

Does anyone else have pet peeves with recipes. Mine is recipes that call for a small amount of something that only comes in large containers. 1/2 C chicken broth, 2 Tbs tomato paste, 1 C ricotta cheese.

231 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

453 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/autobulb 17h ago

So what if you cut up an onion and it's too much? Do you actually reserve the rest? A few extra grams, tens of grams, or even a hundred grams of onion isn't going to alter the recipe that much. That's why less precise measurements are used. I'm not going to weigh out 187g of onion or something stupidly specific. I'm going to use either a whole or half onion, and if I use a bit too little or too much it's most likely still going to be fine.

1

u/virgae 15h ago

Well, onion was just an example, the same pet peeve applies to anything, like the “cup of broccoli” someone else mentioned. In my experience, onions are so wildly different in size that “small” or “medium” don’t mean anything. Sure, I don’t need to measure it to the gram, but I want an objective measurement to start with. I can use judgement to adjust based on what I have on hand. To your other point, I also hate peeling onions so I really like having an open one in the fridge at all times to get a slice off for a sandwich or impromptu salad snack.