It bums me out that a lot of people are willing to look up recipes but don’t know that the same ingredient might be doing different things in different recipes. There are settings where a banana can sub for an egg! But you wouldn’t expect to make scrambled bananas into an omelet. - ThreadSky

lindaholmes.bsky.social • 58 days ago

It bums me out that a lot of people are willing to look up recipes but don’t know that the same ingredient might be doing different things in different recipes. There are settings where a banana can sub for an egg! But you wouldn’t expect to make scrambled bananas into an omelet.

Reposted from Maladroithe

Eggless egg custard tart what could go wrong

Comments

jay-lynn-farrow.bsky.social•58 days ago

Cooking is just edible chemistry. That is one of the many reasons it can be so fun!

The “Cl” in table salt is perfectly fine.
Cl alone can kill you.

jeremydrinkscoffee.bsky.social•58 days ago

cindymclennan.bsky.social•58 days ago

It might be the best subreddit.

timl7.bsky.social•58 days ago

Moira Rose has a notorious cooking history

sholahoon.bsky.social•58 days ago

there’s no greater power of substitutes than soaked chia seeds

ghostyspook.bsky.social•58 days ago

I like the response calling it an ‘extreme substitution’ bc there are easy swaps and there are you better know
What you’re doing swaps.

It was custard

hunterje.bsky.social•58 days ago

This is why my favorite cookbooks are ones that go in deep on technique rather than just being a collection of recipes

margareteby.bsky.social•58 days ago

I think about this all the time! And also the way that recipes are functionally translations from my kitchen to yours—there are necessarily blind spots but if we can’t agree on what an egg is (and why if you don’t eat eggs, an egg tart recipe isn’t gonna be one for you) then its real difficult

margareteby.bsky.social•58 days ago

There’s so much looseness around the edges of most recipes! But knowing how much and why is so crucial

rsgat.bsky.social•58 days ago

Hey! Wait a minute! A SCRAMBLED BANANA OMELETTE!

krhay.bsky.social•58 days ago

This is what I always loved about Good Eats and Alton Brown - the specifics behind a recipe

lindaholmes.bsky.social•58 days ago

This is actually one of the things I like about Chopped — if you watch it, because of the restricted ingredients, you can sometimes see folks explain the *function* of an ingredient and thus how to sub it out.

lindaholmes.bsky.social•58 days ago

A gazillion fun-looking recipes will not stand you in good stead any more than doing some reading *about* food and cooking and balance.

profbardlaw.bsky.social•58 days ago

I’m always struck by the tone of grievance in these comments, as if every recipe has to be adaptable to every dietary restriction or on hand ingredient

profbardlaw.bsky.social•58 days ago

And I guess also the lack of initiative to research substitutions that might match the texture & volume role that eggs play in most recipes

carrieraisler.bsky.social•58 days ago

I never understand why people don’t just search for recipes that already are adapted for their needs. The internet is vast, and those recipes were likely tested to make sure they work!

profbardlaw.bsky.social•58 days ago

Yes-it is very accessible info-I get the part of seeing a recipe and thinking that you’d like to make it, but not being mad at the author

adambonin.bsky.social•58 days ago

A lot of my early learning about cooking was through Cooks Illustrated. Reading about their trial and error approach ("we scrambled eggs in 150 different ways") helped me understand the science of what every element contributes.

chinsocal.bsky.social•28 days ago

Yes!

colinmbrown.bsky.social•58 days ago

I feel like Good Eats was great at giving just enough of this for average people to process and start to get this without getting too far into the details.

carrieraisler.bsky.social•58 days ago

Absolutely. I have learned so much about cooking just from watching food shows (both instructional and competition shows).

carmintheb.bsky.social•58 days ago

This is why I enjoy a CSA box. The challenge of figuring out how to use a food can* be fun.

Sometimes too many options is overwhelming.

* Six weeks of eggplants occasionally gets less fun, but overall I like it!

kaphka.bsky.social•58 days ago

This why I learned how to cook from Alton Brown. "Good Eats" was mostly food science, history, and puppets. Any specific recipes were just an afterthought.

rsphillips.bsky.social•58 days ago

Banana omelette challenge accepted

soquoted.bsky.social•58 days ago

If you liquify the bananas and use a dehydrator to make a banana roll-up, you could then make something that looked like an omelette.

lisaspangenberg.info•58 days ago

My dad was a chair of a Home Economics department. Many faculty were OK with me in the back of the classroom. A favorite was a cooking lab where the teacher would prepare a recipe then direct different groups of students to alter the recipe in small ways, like leavung salt out of a bread recipe.

lindaholmes.bsky.social•58 days ago

I accidentally left the salt out of bread once, and even though it seems like a small amount, the result was pretty much inedible. You learn things with time (and teaching!).

tomilaffly.bsky.social•58 days ago

Equally disturbed by this person’s refusal to use punctuation (not even periods), and sentence case. In a way, it makes sense that this person thought an egg can sub for a banana in this recipe. :)

greeneggzandsam.bsky.social•58 days ago

Is great for pancakes...also applesauce can be used as well.

aprilwolfe.bsky.social•58 days ago

My god this is a bad vegan. Like I dunno how you can feed yourself if you’re subbing banana for something that would clearly call for aquafaba and silken tofu or whatever. Being vegan was what taught me food science! This is just dumb!

ghostyspook.bsky.social•58 days ago

I’m not a vegan but I really enjoy discussion of the substitutions it’s so neat!

But yeah you need to know what you’re doing

lindaholmes.bsky.social•58 days ago

Yeah, I don’t have those restrictions in my own life and I do sympathize, but this person seems to be making it a lot harder on themselves than it needs to be by not putting in some work on the front end to learn how and what to adapt.

soquoted.bsky.social•58 days ago

This. Apparently bananas can be an egg substitute in quick breads, so if you don't understand the "why" you might think bananas always work.

What gets me is the "I followed all the instructions so it must be my oven." That's their uninquisitive conclusion.

ghostyspook.bsky.social•58 days ago

I never thought of it as a sub for eggs more for the oil (ditto pumpkin’ but I can see how that would work

colinmbrown.bsky.social•58 days ago

I think your point absolutely still stands but from the poster's name...I have some suspicions about this exchange. I would have expected her to just...fold it in?

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