the thing that annihilates me about that recipe is just how little each of it actually matters - the curse of recipes is that they never focus on the things that are good to know when you want to make something. it's the same way that math education is conducted in grade school - there's no understanding of why, just "do this and this just like i'm doing" there's this fucked up sense where it's not about teaching at a certain point recipes are amazing as general guides for something you've never cooked before, but only as that, and after you make something once you should use your own experience and experimentation to make your own recipe based on what you like, for your personal use what in gods name is this monstrosity - why "european style butter"? why "fleur de sel"? what if i use some offbrand soft cheese, will that ruin the whole thing every step sounds like it was written by an insane person this is a pizza
http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ I have a friend whose husband is the house chef for Lord & Lady Ismay. For my wedding she gave me a first edition of The Gentle Art of Cookery, circa 1925. It pairs nicely with Eduard de Pomaine's French Cooking in Ten Minutes in that early cookbooks didn't actually have amounts. Or temperatures. It was basically "mix these things, then these things, then stir until this happens, then serve with burgundy." "European style butter" means kerrygold and it's yummy. But it's yummy on toast. There was a time we called it "finishing butter" but there was a time we called them "criminis" instead of "baby 'bellas" because God is dead. I find the same people insisting I buy unsalted butter are the ones who routinely use metal utensils in nonstick pans. It's like "have you... had unsalted butter on toast you fuckers? Why don't you just goddamn assume that everyone is using salted fucking butter and cut the goddamn salt?" That fleur de sel thing. Again, "finishing salt" and again, never intended for cooking. I mixed that. It was dope. Unfortunately the bit where Joe Bastianich absolutely lost his shit on that poor girl for 10 minutes about how truffle oil represents the worst in cooking didn't make air but when I asked him about it he went on for another ten minutes.what in gods name is this monstrosity - why "european style butter"? why "fleur de sel"?
...yeah but when you use it you're kind of capping the meal, you know? It's delicious because it's basically "cheese flavor concentrate" and hydrogenated oil. It's the oreo cream filling of cheese. Whatever you mix it with, it's going to be "velveeta and" because all the cheese-like characteristics have been left at the factory. You mix a bunch of cheeses together and you've got... a continent's worth of cooking, really. But you mix "velveeta and" and it's going to be Tex Mex.