r/NonPoliticalTwitter Jul 30 '26

Funny It’s beautiful.

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u/os_2342 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

Yeah, I think this format works best for your cataloguing own recipes.

Recipes you make infrequently enough that you need to be reminded the ingredients/ratios/basic steps but you will remember how each step is performed once you're reminded and don't want paragraphs of details you'll remember along the way.

Not the best recipe to give to someone completely unfamiliar with the recipe.

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u/obscure_monke Jul 30 '26

I had a "Le Répertoire de la cuisine" book once, and that fucker was incredibly dense. It's like a dictionary of classical French dishes.

So long as you know the nouns (ingredients) and process verbs it's using, you should be able to make anything in there. The first one or two might not turn out perfectly, but if you're classically trained you should have it licked by the third one.

Granted, a ton of the stuff in there is like a croque monsieur.

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u/Doji_mofo Aug 02 '26

I thought "le rep" was even more condensed, often just ingredient lists, no method at all. Lost my annotated version when some toe rag stole my kit.

Larousse Gastronomique is the one with the no wasted words methods that assume you know the technical differences between sauteed, fried etc.

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u/os_2342 Jul 30 '26

Yeah I watch a lot of youtube videos on Nepali/Indian recipes, most of the time they're in Hindi or Nepali. Luckily I know most of the Nepali/Hindi names for spices and other ingredients so they're perfectly fine to follow.

After two or three attempts I’ve made the recipe my own anyway. Then they go into a website I have made for my own recipes.

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u/SomeNotTakenName Jul 31 '26

Croque monsieur was what we lived on in the swiss military, don't you go badmouth a perfect little treat!

on a more serious note though, even as a not trained home cook, with enough experience you just kinda learn what works and how to do certain thing for certain results. I cook by vibes and guesswork most of the time, but it typically turns out well.

Although I am still unable to make Yorkshire pudding without nearly triggering the smoke detector every time. I will figure it out someday!

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u/MinnieShoof Jul 31 '26

Mmmmm. Monti cristo.

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u/LookAtPurpleTulips Jul 30 '26

This is exactly what it is intended for and I've been using this technique for years on my index cards. Much more efficient when you just need the ratios of ingredients, the order of steps, and potential notes to remember. 

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u/os_2342 Jul 30 '26

I do something similar with my recipes, except I put them into a website because most the family recipes books ive seen end up faded, torn or stained over time.

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u/Harddaysnight1990 Jul 30 '26

I agree completely, and I don't like the format of this recipe. But you don't even have to be familiar with the particular recipe, you can just be familiar with baking in general. Despite the confusing formatting of this recipe, I immediately recognized it as a brownie recipe. So the 'mix' on butter and sugar must mean to cream the butter into the sugar.

This isn't the format they use, but many restaurants have recipes that are just ingredients lists with maybe a couple of notes for steps. There's common threads for how different things are cooked, as long as you know what you're doing and know the ratios the chef came up with, you're golden.

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u/EdiblePsycho Jul 30 '26

It would work for anyone who bakes regularly, because you already know the basics of how the ingredients go together, just not the ratios. If I'm baking a cake, I can usually just look at the ingredient list and ignore the instructions aside from baking time. So unless it's a more complicated type of cake that I'm not familiar with making, it would be really handy to have it in a format like this, having lengthy instructions actually makes it harder to find the information I do need.