Is measuring important in cooking?
Part of our Ultimate Guide to Recipe Writing. Click to see more answers to your questions.
Visualize a bunch of parsley. Is your vision the same as mine? Before I can tell you what I see in my mind’s eye, you’ll need to tell me where I’m buying the parsley. The three supermarkets where I shop regularly carry different size bunches, and the bunches sold at the year-round farmers’ market are likely to vary in size depending on the farmer and time of year. I’ve seen recipes that call for a “bunch” of carrots (and how many carrots would that be, exactly?), “6 beets” (which can range from egg-sized to the diameter of a baseball), or “kernels cut from four ears of corn” (which yielded about twice as much corn as the recipe needed).
A “bunch” is descriptive, but it is not a unit of measurement. Nor is a splash, a dash, a pinch, a dollop, or a “rounded” anything. There are times when it’s fine to be vague, when the amount required is clearly “to taste” or is very small. A “shake” from a bottle of Tabasco is likely to yield a similar quantity each time around, and the variable amount in a “pinch” of salt or seasoning isn’t likely to be noticeable in a finished recipe. However, because bunches are arbitrary and the sizes and yields of fruits and vegetables can vary wildly, most items on an ingredients list should be in exact amounts.
If a variation in quantity of an ingredient is likely to have a noticeable effect on the recipe, its measure or weight should be given. Not “1 jalapeno pepper, minced” but whatever the quantity needed – for example, “1 1/2 tablespoons minced jalapeno pepper.”
