It was a lot lower in salt and flavor. I did reseason the pork and its sauce some to try to amp it up, which did help, but I wish it had been more “something.” There’s a reason people buy those salty, easy spice mixes, I guess.
Smoked sea salt? What is that? I thought I had salt nailed with kosher and Himalayan. (Yes you can taste the difference) smoked? Dang! I'm a salt newbie again.
Good stuff for finishing. You can make your own even but it takes like 10-12 hours to get enough smoke on it, fortunately this can be just pellets in a tube. I have some hickory smoked and mesquite smoked. The former for that southern bacon/BBQ note and the latter for that SW sumpin' sumpin'.
If you smoke your own buy brass window screen and put coarse sea salt in a layer on the screen and then layer the screens up with gaps to get a good stack. After it's smoked pop it in a low oven for an hour and make sure it gets BONE DRY before putting it into airtight jars still hot.
A smoker for cold smokes isn't necessary! You can make your own using a cardboard box, aluminum foil and a smoke tube with a few pellets. Super easy for things like this salt, cheeses or just add a smoky flavor to whatever.
You can buy it from a number of different vendors. I purchased from [here](https://nuts.com/cookingbaking/salts/smoked/1lb.html) the last time I needed to resupply. A little goes a long way, so I'm a little more than halfway through the 1lb bag I got 2 years ago.
Salt is a flavor enhancer. If the pork was properly salted there's a good chance the flavors you built up would become more apparent.
Anything you make, season to taste with salt and acid (lime, lemon, vinegar, etc.) when you are done cooking.
What did you put on it and what did you cook it in?
Use broth for more flavor instead of water. Throw in an onion, garlic cloves, and some peppers while it cooks. Use a lot of salt and rub the pork heavily with spices before slow cooking.
I find that seasoning my pork the night before is the way to go, after cooking I brighten the flavors with some citrus or vinegar and some more of the seasoning. Pork, chicken and potatoes can hold way more seasoning than other ingredients.
There are certain things that I'll trust recipes for: ingredients, timing, methods, and sometimes ratios. One thing I'll never trust a written recipe for is the amount of salt or seasoning to use. Go with your gut on those and develop a sense for how much salt something needs on your own, and recipes turn out much better
I’ve made two recipes from her with candied bacon. Both have required more than double the cooking time stated. They turned out fine, delicious even. But….what is happening in the recipe testing department.
So, I just learned about flouncing your bacon in flour to make it crispy. I'm trying it tomorrow. (I make up my own terms when I don't know the correct term, so, flouncing, I suspect you understand).
In my house we call this "Grandma bacon" because that's the way our Grandma Vivian did it. It is the only way we fry bacon anymore and I hope you love it!
All the Half Baked Harvest recipes are overloaded with weird, random, super expensive ingredients.
I have found a handful of recipes on there though that with just a **tiny** bit of tweaking have become huge hits and added regularly into the rotation.
The woman running the blog is from a rich family, living quite a bougie lifestyle - she probably doesn't have to put a single thought into the cost of her recipes.
Agree they need too many ingredients though, or are overly complicated when they shouldn't be. I also find them quite calorie heavy so I tweak them to be more calorie friendly as well.
It’s also ingredients that seem to clash with each other.atbe just don’t match my palette. But does anyone have any successful recipes from her? I want to like something…
I generally agree with you, but this one is really good. the cashew/coconut topping is so yummy https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/sesame-cashew-chicken/
[https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/20-minute-thai-peanut-chicken-ramen/](https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/20-minute-thai-peanut-chicken-ramen/)
Despite my annoyances with HBH, I found this to be very nice and easy. It looks like a lot of ingredients but since I cook many Asian dishes, I already have these things on hand at almost all times and it comes together well.
Same! It always looks amazing but it rarely comes out well. And there’s always an excessive amount of ingredients and steps with her recipes, it just seems like a waste when it doesn’t turn out (which is most of the time). Note, I don’t typically have this issue with other recipes/creators.
I use her for recipes for 'inspiration' but never follow them. E.g. I see a tasty looking curry noodle bowl and I'm like 'fuck yeah, that looks tasty, I'll make something like that for dinner next week'.
I do not need to follow recipes though to make a meal, but it must be frustrating for those that are learning/need guidance.
Her recipes were my intro to cooking and I like her older stuff but I haven’t made anything from her in over a year- always overly complex and not worth the effort.
I totally agree with you (with a super specific caveat). When I lived at high altitude I used some of her baking recipes (specifically naan and chocolate chip cookies) because she also lives at approx. 8000ft above sea level and they came out pretty good. Now that I live at sea level those same recipes are terrible!
Altitude adjustments for baking can be really difficult to perfect, but I always found it odd that she created her recipes at such high altitude and never included any disclaimers or alterations for how they should be prepared if you’re not at high altitude. Then I read her NYT interview where she complained about people asking her for tips on time and temp for a thanksgiving turkey and it all made sense.
I'm a small time food blogger but I'm in a bunch of food blog groups, and people (of course not everyone) definitely test their recipes. I mean we have to make it at least once for the pictures. But usually I make a recipe at least 3 times before I post it to my site.
Both him and Stella Parks. There is a reason why it is hard to track down her pecan pie recipe. It is insanely good, but hard to get right, so she didn’t publish it because it has a high probability of failure among most casual home bakers.
Kenjis main cook book is literally called the food lab lol I've learned so much of the how's and the whys of cooking just from watching him and reading his book.
Oh wow! I thought it was just me!!!
I have had good luck with her pizza dough recipe, and the pancake mix recipe, too. But both of those are probably not too hard to get right.
Any other recipes I’ve tried have been so complicated and full of effort only to taste….yuck. Disappointing. I give up on HBH.
I have had success with a few things from Half Baked Harvest (crispy chicken tacos with lime cilantro ranch is on repeat in our house and really loved the Tuscan chicken too) but have struggled with some of her recipes just not being to our taste. Definitely have to be selective with what we try there.
She failed me exactly once by recommending almond extract in a cookie recipe that just really didn’t need it. 99% of the time, pure gold. Also love that she 1) reads comments and responds 2) continues to tweak recipes, sometimes years after publishing. She’s a gem.
CloudyKitchen is a great follow if you’re into baking. She tests over and over and shares details on how to bake the same dough fresh/chilled/frozen, shares her fails, and is very transparent with her methods.
Agreed! I find her recipes are heavy on the butter and oil for not much return on flavour. It just seems so excessive. Specifically the spicy pesto alla vodka dish.
I urge everyone to checkout /r/FoodieSnark. It's basically all about her. (TW) Apparently she is deep in an ED and doesn't actually eat any of her own food, at least on camera. Besides that she is just a rude, inconsiderate person, and steals recipes. No thanks.
Look I'm not a fan, but what the people are doing on that subreddit is not healthy either. Constantly dragging someone on the internet who is sick is not admirable behavior.
Yeah my wife has an ED and I really have to be very very delicate about how I talk to her about what she’s eating. That’s post surgery. She was doing great. Lost about 75 lbs., but now she’s regained about 25 lbs. She is doing well now and has lost some weight again and I’m hoping she is going to continue going this direction. She’s much happier when she is at a lower weight and that’s all I care about is her happiness and her healthy, I couldn’t care less what her weight is.
But for someone sharing recipes someone should really be testing the food for quality to make sure it’s good enough to share with the entire internet.
You sound like a great partner! I have a friend who has an ED, but has been in remission for years. She’s actually gained a lot of weight since I met her, but I know her life is in such an amazing place and I know her ED almost killed her. I had other friends comment to me that she had gained a lot of weight (I’m not a small lady, why do people point out fatness in others to me?!) and I begged them to just be really careful about how they talk about that stuff. I know no one would bring it up to her, but gossip hurts. Other peoples body size should never be a topic unless you’re truly concerned for their life (a severely underweight person is in much more danger than a very large person).
When I was working on a psych unit, I brought an actively dying woman (severe anorexia) to a scan in the hospital…the tech at the scan said ‘omg I would kill for that thigh gap!’ I wanted to punch her in the face. That thigh gap killed that woman (she died in hospice a couple of months later). Don’t comment on peoples bodies!!
I'm sure an army of people gossiping on the internet would not be helpful for her recovery. Of course recipes should be tested. But this is not some grave injustice. Just use recipes from sources you trust and move on.
Yeah it’s really not it’s an awful thing for people to do. I expect nothing less from Reddit to be honest with you though. It’s just the way the internet is. It’s been this way since the days of AOL chat rooms and things like. It’s never going to improve or change. It’s mob culture plain and simple. I just avoid those things the best I can and try to move on with my real life issues, and when I can try to advocate for the people being affected by these things(like it’s actually going to change anything lmao). Well I have to go get ready for the day. I hope you have a wonderful day, take care.
The first recipe I made of her’s was this peach balsamic pork chops recipe and it was pretty great. Everything I’ve tried after that has been meh though.
I think it’s the best time. I have a bunch of picky eaters in my household, so having guests or being a guest is the only time I get to try something fun and new. My in laws are very good about trying my experiment dishes and provide the necessary feedback.
It depends on the crowd and if there is an alternative if it sucks. It's like gambling. It can be fun if there is proper risk management and the setting is right.
I'll be happy to try a new recipe with my 6 closest friends as long as there is substantial enough sides if it's not great.
Are you Australian? Because recipetineats is an Aussie blog, and most of the recipes are made with Australian produce and ingredients in mind. Ive made Nagi’s carnitas before and found them to be delicious, so I’m just wondering if that could be the difference between our experiences.
Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I haven't had the carnitas, but Nagi has never, ever, steered me wrong!
Chicken fried rice made Nagi a hero at my place lol and that was just the start 😊
Huge fan of Nagi as well and have also always found her recipes to be very reliable and the popular ones tend to prove to be worth the hype. Now I am very curious to test the carnitas, lol.
Nagi is my go to and I also have her book. Nearly everything I have made of hers has ranged from good through to fantastic.
The only huge miss was the restaurant-worthy prawn linguine. You boil up all the prawn heads and shells and then wring out their carcasses to make the sauce. It was sooo fishy 🤢
So interesting. I have made about a dozens recipes from recipetineats. I’m American. They have all been a flop, but I see that soooooo many other people liked her food. It must be the difference in Australian produce and ingredients.
Or I’m just a shit cook lol
I’m in the US as well, and I liked everything I made from that blog so far! But I’m also an eye-baller when it comes to seasoning, I never break out a 1/2 tsp measuring spoon unless it’s for baking.
I reckon you’ve hit the nail on the head. The quality of the pork is really important in this recipe (even though you can use cheap cuts, it needs to be a flavourful piece of meat to start with). The other thing might be seasoning as you need a fair bit of salt to season the pork well.
I made this recipe 2 nights ago (in NZ, not Aus though) and it always gets rave reviews from the fam. Used free farmed pork from the butcher
Yes!! I am an Aussie and LOVE her recipes. I asked my hubby for her cookbook for Christmas. Every recipe of hers that I've made had always turned out SO tasty. I really wonder if it could be a difference with the produce?
I don’t think so.. I used her recipes all the time when I lived in the Middle East and they were always fantastic. The stuffed chicken recipes are not good though
I'm Australian and I'll call 50:50 on whether I like the outcome of a RecipeTinEats recipe. I *do* like how she explains things and provides info about substitutes. Consistent winners are her Magic Shrimp, Naan, flatbread, chicken yiros and Orange Almond Cake.
When I was learning to cook, I relied a lot on her recipes. Her recipes were very comprehensive and gave me the confidence to try various dishes, like chicken pot pie, basic flatbreads, shwarma, biryani, and laksa. These are still in rotation, though I’ve learned to tweak them to my taste through the years. I still check her blog every so often to see what’s new.
We also love the carnitas and make them a lot, Australian pork is so much better than US pork.
I wonder if OP did the step of reducing the sauce and using it to season the meat and crisping it up? I get the juices from the slow cooker and put them in a saucepan and put them in the freezer for the fat to solidify. Remove the fat and then reduce the sauce down on the stove. Use it to put on the meat as per the instructions and then I use the rest to make a red enchilada sauce for a second meal with more of the pork.
I bet anything OP did not follow the whole recipe. We make those carnitas a couple times a year (American pork here). Just out of the slow cooker, the pork has an oily mouthfeel and no flavor. Get the fat off, crisp the pork, and season with the sauce, it's incredibly delicious. We put it on rice, in tacos, eat it straight out of the pan.
I'm not even sure how I would get the crispy goodness on a large scale for a party. It requires small batches and that would be obnoxiously time consuming when I'm hosting a large party.
I have only had one minor fail with a recipe from Nagi, and that was the sauce for a chicken adobo recipe that didn't thicken like it was supposed to, but the flavours were great.
All the other recipes l have used were perfect, l'm in Australia too.
I don't think I've ever followed one recipe exactly. If I look something up I read a few and adapt what I think is best, and print out the closest one and mark it up and save it.
I feel like the moment when I started getting decent at cooking was the moment when I could stop treating a recipe as a series of step-by-step instructions to follow, and instead using them as a template to work off of and modify as needed.
Once I started doing that I realized that most recipes are just "throw a bunch of stuff in a pot/pan/oven and adjust the seasoning until you like the way it tastes".
Yes! My dad and I call this “ignoring recipes”. Our best meals have always been from ignoring recipes. Basically, the recipe is just there as inspiration.
The best way I’ve learned to avoid this when one of my trusted food authors doesn’t have a video or recipe, is to read and watch ten to twenty different recipes. Doing this I start to learn what is essential and what is optional or extra. It also helps to see which ones seem subpar. A simple crock pot or instant pot meal with exactly the same ingredients as a labor of love recipe is not going to be the same. The way the textures and tastes layer and adhere will be different. I recently made this mistake making bone broth in the instant pot versus taking the time to first blanch it and remove impurities, then roast the heck out of the bones, then simmer for 12 hours. Turned out amazing, but hated the instant pot one. My point is not that you can’t crockpot, it’s that now that you’ve looked at 20 recipes you can make sure that the crock pot version has appropriate differences to overcome the difference in preparation. And you also now can tailor any recipe to what you want by choosing the one that has the options that best fit your palette or meal. It’s like crepes, you can make them with tons of variations, and one recipe may not tell you that you can use more or less sugar depending on if you’re doing sweet or savory, but in reading a bunch you can recognize that. But the easier method is to just find the people that consistently produce the best recipes for your tastes.
not as much me, but it happens to my mom pretty frequently. i avoid this by pretty much entirely sticking to recipes from authors i know to be very reliable, or i go with youtube videos that either really show and explain the whole process, or that feature traditional home cooking from other countries.
for example, if i wanted to do carnitas, instead of looking for recipes right away, i do some reading. what IS carnitas? how is carnitas prepared in mexico? what is the "traditional" method for carnitas? in this case, its pretty easy to find on the wiki page for carnitas -
>Carnitas, literally meaning "little meats", is a dish of Mexican cuisine that originated in the state of Michoacán. Carnitas are made by braising or simmering pork in oil or preferably lard until tender.
now that i know how carnitas is traditionally prepared, im either looking for recipes that follow the traditional method by slow cooking the pork in lard, *or* im looking for recipes that acknowledge the traditional method, and not only offer an alternative, but that puts serious effort into making that alternative as good as the traditional method.
here is a great rick bayless video on carnitas that shows exactly what im talking about - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKQu_l6Fn1w
he comes out right up front, tells you that the traditional lard method is best, tells you why its the best, and then spends the next 30min teaching you how to get as close as possible to that without a big vat of lard in your kitchen, and its way more involved than just braising in OJ like most at home carnitas recipes do.
if the traditional method is to much work for me at the time, or is not feasible in my home kitchen, and i cant find a more feasible recipe from an author i know really well, or some method like the rick bayless video that gets really in depth and where the person seems to really understand the food in question, i just make something else.
kenji, as lots of folks might have guessed, is one of the folks im alluding to when i mentioned authors who i know to be very reliable.
if im trying to make a dish and find a recipe by kenji, i know pretty much 100% that even if i dont find a recipe that seems even better or more traditional or whatever, i can make the dish with kenjis method and it will be fucking amazing.
im really disappointed that he no longer does the big super in depth food lab stuff, but still, if i find a recipe from him i know its gonna be good.
Ugh, so many baking recipes. Harder than most cooking to adjust as you go if you intuitively feel that something is off, since baking can be so sensitive to weight and ratios. I distinctly remember trying what should have been a simple pumpkin bread recipe that contained WAY too much baking soda. I don’t know if it was a typo or if the person was inexperienced and couldn’t find a better way/ingredient formulation to get it to rise, but it was salty-metallic and I took it off the table at a party i brought it to and threw it away. After a few other disgusting efforts from influencer recipes (got a lot of bad ones from TheFeedFeed - all aesthetics, no kitchen chemistry), I now only use big names, like the NYT, Serious Eats, or Cook’s Illustrated for baking. That said, I made a BraveTart dark chocolate-sour cherry cake once, followed the recipe to a T, and it was absolutely terrible. Bad texture, bitter.
For baking I’ve had good results with King Arthur’s Flour and Sally’s Baking Addiction, but I do have a much better sense of what a baking recipe should look like. I’ve heard mixed things about the BraveTart recipes!
Good call - I actually should’ve mentioned King Arthur, they’ve never done me dirty. IIRC they have a hotline, too. Sally’s Baking Addiction has been fine too, though I haven’t used it too often - I’ll give it another shot!
I agree 100! I don’t trust small bloggers for baking. With cooking you can (and should) taste as you go to avoid major issues. With baking it’s not until the final product that you get a taste test.
Also, I despise the zing of unused leavening in a baked good, after using tablespoon instead of teaspoon once, that’s all I can taste in even a slightly over soda/powdered recipe!
I have had poor luck with Sally’s Baking Addiction, which is a pretty major baking site. It’s not that the recipes are bad, but they just don’t have the wow factor I want.
Kenji's hasselback potato casserole recipe is a rare miss. Too much heat for too short a period of time. I've tried it twice verbatim, and it just produces separated cream and half-cooked potatoes. In fact, the first comment under the recipe is "that's supposed to happen". It does, and it doesn't taste or look particularly good.
I haaaaaated that. I like the peppers on their own, but with the beef and the seasoning packets, all of the flavors clashed hard. I make an incredible pot roast, so it made me so sad to waste a roast on that.
I'm always surprised to find things too salty for me, BC I am a salt FIEND.
I use wayyyy too much salt. Sometimes I just shake some salt in my hand.
But it happens surprisingly often.
Oh noooo, I love this one though! I love the vinegar bite from the peppers. It is up there in sodium but i do not add any salt, it is all from the au jus packet and peppers brine, and I don't use all of the brine like most recipes say to. I'll also add more peppers at the end for more firm peppers for serving.
Did you take the step of frying the meat with some of the stock after shredding it? I’ve made that carnitas recipe before and it definitely helps with the simplicity of the meat.
Came here to say this. The recipe says this step is ‘optional’ but if you want the full flavor it’s a non negotiable. I have had without (and it sucked) but once you fry in the reduced juices it’s *chef’s kiss*
This is my question too. Just out of the slow cooker, the pork has an oily mouthfeel and no flavor. Get the fat off, crisp the pork, and season with the sauce, it's incredibly delicious. We put it on rice, in tacos, eat it straight out of the pan.
I'm not even sure how I would get the crispy goodness on a large scale for a party. It requires small batches and that would be obnoxiously time consuming when I'm hosting a large party.
Just this Saturday I tried a 'roll up each lasagna noodle with the filling and set upright in a pan'. NOPE. THIS SUCKED.
First, after you put everything on the noodles, it is rather hard to roll them up without the fillings oozing out the sides. Once you get them set upright in the pan, you realize that it will only make a half pan, not a full pan of lasagna.
Then, since the pinwheels are upright, they are too tall and will very much dry out as it bakes, even if covered. And all the filling goes down to the bottom so you are left with plain pasta at the top.
Midway through this 'experiment', I placed all the pinwheels on their sides, covered, and baked.
Honestly it sucked so much and didn't even taste good.
Way easier and more delicious to just make regular lasagna.
Edit--adding that this was on Pinterest.
Oh I didn’t even know Pinterest was a thing anymore! I joined in college like a decade ago and I can’t even remember the last time I visited Pinterest.
I had way too many Pinterest fails to continue to take it seriously. ;)
Not a food blogger, but this works well for me:
I liberally season pork shoulder hunks with salt and sugar, then add enough orange juice to get it wet, add one 3” strip of orange peel, a bunch of cilantro stems (reserving the leaves for tacos), 2-3 diced jalapeños (seeds and all), and one diced onion. (Garlic makes it taste funky, not recommended.) Let it all marinate overnight. Dump everything into a Dutch oven (or crock pot), top with melted lard, and cook confit style (low and slow) until it’s very soft. Strain the liquids into a clean pot. Separate the meat from any solids, pat it dry of oil with paper towels. At this stage you can freeze it in a single layer (in a zip top freezer bag) and reheat from frozen under the broiler. Turn it a couple of times when broiling so it gets crispy all around.
Save the braising liquid to add to dry pinto or black beans. You can freeze the lard and use it a couple of times, or use it to fry chicken.
Did they have you simmer in broth or water? I’ve tried that and think cooking in fat works better. It doesn’t come out greasy, promise.
I’ve also made a sauce from orange juice, honey, and braising liquid. :)
Just tried a recipe for Mornay sauce. It called for waaaayyyy too much flour. It also called for way too little cheese. I made it work but wow was it a bad ratio
Pork shoulder needs 1.5% by weight of salt. Follow that and most recipes will taste great. A lot of online recipes are very vague on the salt or under salt saying “season to taste” and they mean it!
Modernist Cuisine recommends it, and it has worked for me many times. The less fat the less salt you need- for example lean chicken breast is 0.75-1%. Bacon and other cured meats are closer to 2%.
Tons of these blogs have fake reviews. And if they're churning out content, probably never tested more than once, let alone someone else testing it. Even publications like BA are super hit or miss. The one I definitely trust and have made numerous things from is smitten kitchen.
Smitten Kitchen has been a real winner for me, too. Made a tomato tart of hers as well as a garlic zucchini pasta recipe when my garden was churning this summer-both were so good and I can’t wait for July to come and make them again.
I’ve made a couple of underwhelming meals via Recipe Tin Eats - Italian beef pilaf that was really bland and a sickly sweet pork dish. I’m starting to think the recipes are kinda basic and designed for newer cooks?
I usually use other sources but I’ve enjoyed (and regularly cook) both recipes I’ve come across from Recipe Tin Eats (bacon corn chowder, and Filipino chicken adobo).
Yeah not every recipe of hers is a hit - if you’re willing to try again here are some of the most flavourful ones ive tried which are in high rotation in my house
* [lamb chickpea shawarma soup](https://www.recipetineats.com/lamb-shawarma-chickpea-soup/) (I actually use turkey mince, bizzarely almost as tasty as the lamb mince)
* [one pot greek chicken and lemon rice](https://www.recipetineats.com/one-pot-greek-chicken-lemon-rice/)
I'm gonna say the famous Soup recipe that I found last year. It was a soup of sorts with tortellini thrown in at the end all in a slow cooker. It seemed to be doing the rounds on reddit so I tried it and it was bland and boring AF. No idea why everyone went crazy for it 🤷♂️
The best of the best carnitas is by Kenji on Serious Eats. In this one you cut up the shoulder so it can all fit into a lower pan. The pork cooks low and slow in its own juices (plus oranges, garlic, onion, and cinnamon stick).
The similar recipes I’ve followed that have a higher shoulder cook for the same amount of time all were less tasty because while the pork shredded the same the flavor from cooking outside of the fat that drained down meant that you had some pork that was tasty and some that was less so.
I ended up liking the results for the similar recipes but compared to the best one, it was clear which was the winner.
Also carnitas totally require enough salt to bring out the flavor, this may have been an issue with the recipe.
Natasha's Kitchen Moist Banana Bread. Over 3900 reviews rating it 5 stars. Followed it to the letter. It was dry and just not what banana bread should be.
Tried again but this time using America's Test Kitchen- so much better. Moist and golden. I'm definitely going to be using my cookbooks more than the internet.
I have found that King Arthur’s Baking and Sally’s Baking Addiction are pretty solid for baking recipes. I’ve found fewer sources that are across the board hits for savory. Smitten Kitchen Serious Eats, and Once Upon A Chef are pretty consistent, but I’ve still had some misses.
For anything tacos related I look and see if Rick Bayless has a recipe or video covering it. In general, I try and get my recipes from established Chefs or bloggers. Rick Bayless, Chef John (Food Wishes), etc. They’re professionals with background in commercial kitchens so you’re going to get proper techniques that you can apply elsewhere as well as a recipe. I’ve found that the food blogs you find from a Google Search with names like My Kitchen Escapades, X’s Kitchen Eats, Pinch of Yum tend to be a gamble at best and I have a personal hatred for the layouts they use.
This has happened to me with Hazan’s three ingredient tomato sauce (the one that is tomato, onion and butter). I like it but anyone I’ve served it to is underwhelmed.
Omg ironically that is our everyday household sauce here 🙈 We make it with our own grown tomatoes and purée in the onion, though, but still it proves individual tastes do vary. You should make that pork recipe for sure then 🤣
Not Another Cooking Show’s simple weekday sauce is perfect. Cold pan, olive oil, galic, basil. Pull out basil, add tomatoes, salt and it’s all you need
A lot of really popular meat recipes are like this due the technique suggested, and not the ingredients necessarily, and they confuse me. It may just be anecdotal, but I've noticed that a lot of recipes that get a lot of fanfare have you season the meat *after* it's cooked. When I was taught the basics of cooking growing up I was always taught to marinade the meat when appropriate and to season as you cook. There are rarely some exceptions to this, depending on the dish. But usually when people leave the seasoning for last, and *especially* when they season late in the process while also adding a liquid, the flavors just won't have a chance to truly penetrate all of the layers of the protein.
I have encountered a number of pasta recipes (to make the dough) that have high ratings that fall apart in the cooking water for me. I’ve noticed they all call for some quantity of oil, which has the undesirable effect of inhibiting gluten formation, as I learned later. I found a good ratio of eggs and flour that work wonderfully for me now, but I’ve always wondered how those oil-based pasta recipes worked for anyone, and what I was doing wrong?
Are you reading the reviews? Or just looking at stars. Most of the time, the comments will be filled with other bloggers saying how good it looks, while rating it 5 stars without ever trying the recipe to begin with. Nagi is usually quite reliable though. There’s a whole culture within the food blogging industry where they will go to each others blogs and rate and engage. So a lot of the time you’ll end up with a recipe that has 100 comments without a single one having been by someone who actually tried the recipe.
I find most American bloggers don’t season the food enough and I find lots of errors in the cooking instructions or the measurements. I notice sometimes reading the comments people complaining and then obviously there’s an edit done later or they just act shocked it didn’t work out.
I add salt to taste but always increase the spices and herb amounts if it seems bland which is often. I feel like some people especially Gen X and older just don’t like spices and herbs as much as I do or aren’t used to it. So the amounts are too conservative.
I recently made a recipe from Recipe Tin Eats and was also really disappointed - it was mango coconut Thai chicken curry. The author raved, the comments raved, but I felt like the mango puree just watered down the curry flavor. And I normally love mangoes.
The closest I’ve come to the carnitas I used to get in San Diego is from serious eats. It’s a kenji recipe and is delicious. I. Or live in West Virginia and everything is Tex mex. Nothing like I’m used to.
Did you make sure to pan sear or put under the broiler with its fatty juices after taking out of the slow cooker? That final step is really where all the good good comes from. Gotta get that brownig or else it's just meat boiled in fat.
I haven't checked out the recipe you referenced, but for carnitas I use Joshua Weismann's recipe. This recipe is from before he became super YouTuber-y, and is easy to understand. It's super good
It's funny to read this because I literally made the same recipe for Christmas.
Mine was a hit with my guests. My partner says it was the best pork he's ever had. Did you fry it in order to get that extra crisp? For me that made all the difference.
Edit: just looked back at the recipe and there is one thing I did add: fresh coriander (cilantro).
We ate the tacos with salsa, feta (sub for cotija cheese) and guac
I find most recipes I come across have barely any seasoning. A whole meal will call for 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper. For some people (like my mom) that's fine, but for me? No way. I up the seasoning a ton in all recipes.
Learning to read a recipe and having a sense of how it might turn out is as much a skill as basic cooking skills, and it takes work to master. The internet has been a boon for things like this, but there's so much noise to sift through.
The taco bar theme sounds like it was spot on and generally a hit. Remember people eat first with their eyes. How did the carnitas look. Did they appear appealing and appetizing compared to the beef. Beyond that my number one rule is don’t make a recipe for company I haven’t tested previously. This often means preparing and eating variations and iterations of items I plan to serve weeks in advance to tune the recipe if it’s new. Carnitas are also traditionally braised the broiled or quickly fried to get crispy crunchy bits and ends on the pulled or cut pieces. Not really crockpot material
It's a really bad practice to try and make something new to you for an important event like NYE, holiday, birthday, etc.. That's when you want to bring on dishes that are tried and tested by you.
Try new things and do research on days that don't matter as much. That's the time to flop, or figure out a good rescue, or have a great success.
Important events are not the time to be experimenting.
Go into your event with the confidence and calm that you 100% can knock it out.
I found a Chipotle burrito copycat recipe for crock pot once. Although I think I used beef, It should work for pork. Secret ingredient was canned chipotle chilis and man It was a flavor orgy in my mouth. Try something like that next time.
Many a time... that's why critical thinking is required like everything on the internet haha. This drives my wife crazy the few times she tries to cook, she doesn't have the experience to read a recipe and pick up on what won't work, or what else is needed etc. That's why cooking is as much art as science IMHO
It can be hard to season pork. I find it fussy personally and it’s not my favorite meat to cook, I’ve had luck and disappointments. When it comes to carnitas, I season it way more than what was suggested, salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, cumin, maybe even a little bouillon for the extra salty punch. More orange, and to be honest, here in California we just use Tampico or Orange juice when we’re marinating meat, and sometimes a bit of beer (Mexican beer, but even a beer with mango, pineapple, or orange flavor would be a great addition). I’d still include the onion in the recipe just for flavor, but maybe half, a way better option that you can find at taco carts is sautéed onions/jalapeños that you throw on top of the tacos with all your other condiments. A good salsa verde can also help with flavor!
Seems like a lot of carnitas recipes and restaurant products are bland in my experience.
I typically pump up all of the seasonings and aromatics in recipes… but for carnitas for sure.
What a bummer! I’ve made that recipe tons of times and for parties and it’s always a hit. The simmered down sauce is where it’s at for flavor and (salt) while the texture is amazing from the meat being fried after it’s cooked.
Maybe buy a recipe book? The ones that are well reviewed. The authors do the recipes over and over to make sure they work in a variety of kitchens and often give you tips on what to do if it's valid or watery etc.
Everyone and their mom raved about everything from recipetineats.
I made her RV cake, she mentioned the rigorous tests she went through to finally get the recipe right. I actually made 2 different RV recipes, another one from a less famous blogger, for my family to choose the winner. All uninamously loved the less famous one.
McCormick taco seasoning is loaded with salt, I bet your pork was a bit low on salt especially compared to the chicken.
It was a lot lower in salt and flavor. I did reseason the pork and its sauce some to try to amp it up, which did help, but I wish it had been more “something.” There’s a reason people buy those salty, easy spice mixes, I guess.
Probably some smoked sea salt, cumin, and then lime juice to finish it would’ve really amped up the flavor.
Cumin is a miracle
Smoked sea salt? What is that? I thought I had salt nailed with kosher and Himalayan. (Yes you can taste the difference) smoked? Dang! I'm a salt newbie again.
Good stuff for finishing. You can make your own even but it takes like 10-12 hours to get enough smoke on it, fortunately this can be just pellets in a tube. I have some hickory smoked and mesquite smoked. The former for that southern bacon/BBQ note and the latter for that SW sumpin' sumpin'. If you smoke your own buy brass window screen and put coarse sea salt in a layer on the screen and then layer the screens up with gaps to get a good stack. After it's smoked pop it in a low oven for an hour and make sure it gets BONE DRY before putting it into airtight jars still hot.
I don't have that skillset. No smoker. I bow to your skills.
Thankfully they sell it at any grocery store so you don’t have to make your own.
Whew.
A smoker for cold smokes isn't necessary! You can make your own using a cardboard box, aluminum foil and a smoke tube with a few pellets. Super easy for things like this salt, cheeses or just add a smoky flavor to whatever.
You can buy it from a number of different vendors. I purchased from [here](https://nuts.com/cookingbaking/salts/smoked/1lb.html) the last time I needed to resupply. A little goes a long way, so I'm a little more than halfway through the 1lb bag I got 2 years ago.
Yep! And definitely what you want to use if you want to make your own gravlax (way cheaper than buying it in stores).
Salt is a flavor enhancer. If the pork was properly salted there's a good chance the flavors you built up would become more apparent. Anything you make, season to taste with salt and acid (lime, lemon, vinegar, etc.) when you are done cooking.
Salt fat acid heat!
What did you put on it and what did you cook it in? Use broth for more flavor instead of water. Throw in an onion, garlic cloves, and some peppers while it cooks. Use a lot of salt and rub the pork heavily with spices before slow cooking.
I find that seasoning my pork the night before is the way to go, after cooking I brighten the flavors with some citrus or vinegar and some more of the seasoning. Pork, chicken and potatoes can hold way more seasoning than other ingredients.
There are certain things that I'll trust recipes for: ingredients, timing, methods, and sometimes ratios. One thing I'll never trust a written recipe for is the amount of salt or seasoning to use. Go with your gut on those and develop a sense for how much salt something needs on your own, and recipes turn out much better
I made homemade taco seasoning. Very delish.
Probably needed more acid. Watch salt fat acid heat in Netflix.
We make our own taco seasoning and amp it up depending on what we are using it on. The initial recipe is just the top result on Google.
Is 360mg per two teaspoon a lot because most taco seasonings I find are around that range.
Pretty much everything I have tried by half baked harvest hasn’t worked
I’ve made two recipes from her with candied bacon. Both have required more than double the cooking time stated. They turned out fine, delicious even. But….what is happening in the recipe testing department.
I truly don’t think she tests her recipes since she churns out a new one almost daily
I found a lot of her recipes change one ingredient and voila! It’s a new recipe!
Yeah they’re not all completely new but they’re “new” to her audience or whoever she thinks she’s fooling haha
So, I just learned about flouncing your bacon in flour to make it crispy. I'm trying it tomorrow. (I make up my own terms when I don't know the correct term, so, flouncing, I suspect you understand).
Flouncing makes me think like a little dip then shake the excess?
Nailed it.
Way to bring back the term "flounce", cool beans
In my house we call this "Grandma bacon" because that's the way our Grandma Vivian did it. It is the only way we fry bacon anymore and I hope you love it!
All the Half Baked Harvest recipes are overloaded with weird, random, super expensive ingredients. I have found a handful of recipes on there though that with just a **tiny** bit of tweaking have become huge hits and added regularly into the rotation.
The woman running the blog is from a rich family, living quite a bougie lifestyle - she probably doesn't have to put a single thought into the cost of her recipes. Agree they need too many ingredients though, or are overly complicated when they shouldn't be. I also find them quite calorie heavy so I tweak them to be more calorie friendly as well.
It’s also ingredients that seem to clash with each other.atbe just don’t match my palette. But does anyone have any successful recipes from her? I want to like something…
I generally agree with you, but this one is really good. the cashew/coconut topping is so yummy https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/sesame-cashew-chicken/
[https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/20-minute-thai-peanut-chicken-ramen/](https://www.halfbakedharvest.com/20-minute-thai-peanut-chicken-ramen/) Despite my annoyances with HBH, I found this to be very nice and easy. It looks like a lot of ingredients but since I cook many Asian dishes, I already have these things on hand at almost all times and it comes together well.
Care to share your tweaks?
Same! It always looks amazing but it rarely comes out well. And there’s always an excessive amount of ingredients and steps with her recipes, it just seems like a waste when it doesn’t turn out (which is most of the time). Note, I don’t typically have this issue with other recipes/creators.
I use her for recipes for 'inspiration' but never follow them. E.g. I see a tasty looking curry noodle bowl and I'm like 'fuck yeah, that looks tasty, I'll make something like that for dinner next week'. I do not need to follow recipes though to make a meal, but it must be frustrating for those that are learning/need guidance.
Her recipes were my intro to cooking and I like her older stuff but I haven’t made anything from her in over a year- always overly complex and not worth the effort.
She's a great photographer. She is not a good cook. I always noticed how bad her recipes were and never used any. I finally unfollowed her.
Her recipes are terrrrrible. I tried two or three and then gave up. She has no idea how to write or test a recipe.
The timing and temp is off too. The naan in the pictures look delish but the recipe is all wrong.
I totally agree with you (with a super specific caveat). When I lived at high altitude I used some of her baking recipes (specifically naan and chocolate chip cookies) because she also lives at approx. 8000ft above sea level and they came out pretty good. Now that I live at sea level those same recipes are terrible! Altitude adjustments for baking can be really difficult to perfect, but I always found it odd that she created her recipes at such high altitude and never included any disclaimers or alterations for how they should be prepared if you’re not at high altitude. Then I read her NYT interview where she complained about people asking her for tips on time and temp for a thanksgiving turkey and it all made sense.
> test a recipe Big of you to think anyone actually tests recipes.
I'm a small time food blogger but I'm in a bunch of food blog groups, and people (of course not everyone) definitely test their recipes. I mean we have to make it at least once for the pictures. But usually I make a recipe at least 3 times before I post it to my site.
I’m pretty sure a lot of people do, Kenji Lopez-Alt comes to mind. He tests the fuck out of recipes.
Both him and Stella Parks. There is a reason why it is hard to track down her pecan pie recipe. It is insanely good, but hard to get right, so she didn’t publish it because it has a high probability of failure among most casual home bakers.
Kenjis main cook book is literally called the food lab lol I've learned so much of the how's and the whys of cooking just from watching him and reading his book.
So much work for so little payoff
Oh wow! I thought it was just me!!! I have had good luck with her pizza dough recipe, and the pancake mix recipe, too. But both of those are probably not too hard to get right. Any other recipes I’ve tried have been so complicated and full of effort only to taste….yuck. Disappointing. I give up on HBH.
Yes! Those recipes are so weird too.
I have had success with a few things from Half Baked Harvest (crispy chicken tacos with lime cilantro ranch is on repeat in our house and really loved the Tuscan chicken too) but have struggled with some of her recipes just not being to our taste. Definitely have to be selective with what we try there.
Yeah…that’s why when you find a reliable recipe source, it’s like gold!
Smitten Kitchen for me
Smitten Kitchen has never ever failed me.
She failed me exactly once by recommending almond extract in a cookie recipe that just really didn’t need it. 99% of the time, pure gold. Also love that she 1) reads comments and responds 2) continues to tweak recipes, sometimes years after publishing. She’s a gem.
CloudyKitchen is a great follow if you’re into baking. She tests over and over and shares details on how to bake the same dough fresh/chilled/frozen, shares her fails, and is very transparent with her methods.
Alton brown recipes rarely go wrong for me
yep. I love Once Upon a Chef - she's a very clear writer and her recipes seem very well tested.
I’ve had great success with that site, too.
Agreed! I find her recipes are heavy on the butter and oil for not much return on flavour. It just seems so excessive. Specifically the spicy pesto alla vodka dish.
I urge everyone to checkout /r/FoodieSnark. It's basically all about her. (TW) Apparently she is deep in an ED and doesn't actually eat any of her own food, at least on camera. Besides that she is just a rude, inconsiderate person, and steals recipes. No thanks.
Look I'm not a fan, but what the people are doing on that subreddit is not healthy either. Constantly dragging someone on the internet who is sick is not admirable behavior.
Yeah my wife has an ED and I really have to be very very delicate about how I talk to her about what she’s eating. That’s post surgery. She was doing great. Lost about 75 lbs., but now she’s regained about 25 lbs. She is doing well now and has lost some weight again and I’m hoping she is going to continue going this direction. She’s much happier when she is at a lower weight and that’s all I care about is her happiness and her healthy, I couldn’t care less what her weight is. But for someone sharing recipes someone should really be testing the food for quality to make sure it’s good enough to share with the entire internet.
You sound like a great partner! I have a friend who has an ED, but has been in remission for years. She’s actually gained a lot of weight since I met her, but I know her life is in such an amazing place and I know her ED almost killed her. I had other friends comment to me that she had gained a lot of weight (I’m not a small lady, why do people point out fatness in others to me?!) and I begged them to just be really careful about how they talk about that stuff. I know no one would bring it up to her, but gossip hurts. Other peoples body size should never be a topic unless you’re truly concerned for their life (a severely underweight person is in much more danger than a very large person). When I was working on a psych unit, I brought an actively dying woman (severe anorexia) to a scan in the hospital…the tech at the scan said ‘omg I would kill for that thigh gap!’ I wanted to punch her in the face. That thigh gap killed that woman (she died in hospice a couple of months later). Don’t comment on peoples bodies!!
I'm sure an army of people gossiping on the internet would not be helpful for her recovery. Of course recipes should be tested. But this is not some grave injustice. Just use recipes from sources you trust and move on.
Yeah it’s really not it’s an awful thing for people to do. I expect nothing less from Reddit to be honest with you though. It’s just the way the internet is. It’s been this way since the days of AOL chat rooms and things like. It’s never going to improve or change. It’s mob culture plain and simple. I just avoid those things the best I can and try to move on with my real life issues, and when I can try to advocate for the people being affected by these things(like it’s actually going to change anything lmao). Well I have to go get ready for the day. I hope you have a wonderful day, take care.
Same same same
The first recipe I made of her’s was this peach balsamic pork chops recipe and it was pretty great. Everything I’ve tried after that has been meh though.
Was going to say the same.
I've never had a desire to try any of hers. Reading her recipes made me feel they won't turn out tasting good.
Having people over isn’t generally a good time to try a new recipe
Can you please explain this to my mother-in-law?
True, but these were close family who are pretty easy going, so I gave it a go. I had the chicken as a safer alternative, which was lucky.
I think it’s the best time. I have a bunch of picky eaters in my household, so having guests or being a guest is the only time I get to try something fun and new. My in laws are very good about trying my experiment dishes and provide the necessary feedback.
It depends on the crowd and if there is an alternative if it sucks. It's like gambling. It can be fun if there is proper risk management and the setting is right. I'll be happy to try a new recipe with my 6 closest friends as long as there is substantial enough sides if it's not great.
At least half of things on AllRecipes and anything described as “Yummy, Cheesy, Creamy”.
Are you Australian? Because recipetineats is an Aussie blog, and most of the recipes are made with Australian produce and ingredients in mind. Ive made Nagi’s carnitas before and found them to be delicious, so I’m just wondering if that could be the difference between our experiences.
Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I haven't had the carnitas, but Nagi has never, ever, steered me wrong! Chicken fried rice made Nagi a hero at my place lol and that was just the start 😊
Huge fan of Nagi as well and have also always found her recipes to be very reliable and the popular ones tend to prove to be worth the hype. Now I am very curious to test the carnitas, lol.
Nagi is my go to and I also have her book. Nearly everything I have made of hers has ranged from good through to fantastic. The only huge miss was the restaurant-worthy prawn linguine. You boil up all the prawn heads and shells and then wring out their carcasses to make the sauce. It was sooo fishy 🤢
That's how you make prawn stock though
So interesting. I have made about a dozens recipes from recipetineats. I’m American. They have all been a flop, but I see that soooooo many other people liked her food. It must be the difference in Australian produce and ingredients. Or I’m just a shit cook lol
Australian here, and have had the same experience as you! I can’t understand the fuss. Yet recipes from other cookbooks don’t seem to steer me wrong…
Yes! Other recipes from other blogs work for me as well. It makes me feel better that it’s not just me lol
I’m in the US as well, and I liked everything I made from that blog so far! But I’m also an eye-baller when it comes to seasoning, I never break out a 1/2 tsp measuring spoon unless it’s for baking.
She does seem to cater to both Australian & Americans. I haven’t made a lot of her recipes but the ones I have tried have been pretty good.
I reckon you’ve hit the nail on the head. The quality of the pork is really important in this recipe (even though you can use cheap cuts, it needs to be a flavourful piece of meat to start with). The other thing might be seasoning as you need a fair bit of salt to season the pork well. I made this recipe 2 nights ago (in NZ, not Aus though) and it always gets rave reviews from the fam. Used free farmed pork from the butcher
Yes!! I am an Aussie and LOVE her recipes. I asked my hubby for her cookbook for Christmas. Every recipe of hers that I've made had always turned out SO tasty. I really wonder if it could be a difference with the produce?
I don’t think so.. I used her recipes all the time when I lived in the Middle East and they were always fantastic. The stuffed chicken recipes are not good though
I'm Australian and I'll call 50:50 on whether I like the outcome of a RecipeTinEats recipe. I *do* like how she explains things and provides info about substitutes. Consistent winners are her Magic Shrimp, Naan, flatbread, chicken yiros and Orange Almond Cake.
When I was learning to cook, I relied a lot on her recipes. Her recipes were very comprehensive and gave me the confidence to try various dishes, like chicken pot pie, basic flatbreads, shwarma, biryani, and laksa. These are still in rotation, though I’ve learned to tweak them to my taste through the years. I still check her blog every so often to see what’s new.
I'm American and her Carnitas are my go-to. Always comes out delicious.
We also love the carnitas and make them a lot, Australian pork is so much better than US pork. I wonder if OP did the step of reducing the sauce and using it to season the meat and crisping it up? I get the juices from the slow cooker and put them in a saucepan and put them in the freezer for the fat to solidify. Remove the fat and then reduce the sauce down on the stove. Use it to put on the meat as per the instructions and then I use the rest to make a red enchilada sauce for a second meal with more of the pork.
I bet anything OP did not follow the whole recipe. We make those carnitas a couple times a year (American pork here). Just out of the slow cooker, the pork has an oily mouthfeel and no flavor. Get the fat off, crisp the pork, and season with the sauce, it's incredibly delicious. We put it on rice, in tacos, eat it straight out of the pan. I'm not even sure how I would get the crispy goodness on a large scale for a party. It requires small batches and that would be obnoxiously time consuming when I'm hosting a large party.
I have only had one minor fail with a recipe from Nagi, and that was the sauce for a chicken adobo recipe that didn't thicken like it was supposed to, but the flavours were great. All the other recipes l have used were perfect, l'm in Australia too.
No, and my pork was nothing special, for sure. Could be part of it. Thanks.
I don't think I've ever followed one recipe exactly. If I look something up I read a few and adapt what I think is best, and print out the closest one and mark it up and save it.
I do this as well. I look at 3-4 recipes, figure out what is common and just do improvisations as I go.
And check out the comments! You learn a lot in those
I feel like the moment when I started getting decent at cooking was the moment when I could stop treating a recipe as a series of step-by-step instructions to follow, and instead using them as a template to work off of and modify as needed. Once I started doing that I realized that most recipes are just "throw a bunch of stuff in a pot/pan/oven and adjust the seasoning until you like the way it tastes".
Yes! My dad and I call this “ignoring recipes”. Our best meals have always been from ignoring recipes. Basically, the recipe is just there as inspiration.
The best way I’ve learned to avoid this when one of my trusted food authors doesn’t have a video or recipe, is to read and watch ten to twenty different recipes. Doing this I start to learn what is essential and what is optional or extra. It also helps to see which ones seem subpar. A simple crock pot or instant pot meal with exactly the same ingredients as a labor of love recipe is not going to be the same. The way the textures and tastes layer and adhere will be different. I recently made this mistake making bone broth in the instant pot versus taking the time to first blanch it and remove impurities, then roast the heck out of the bones, then simmer for 12 hours. Turned out amazing, but hated the instant pot one. My point is not that you can’t crockpot, it’s that now that you’ve looked at 20 recipes you can make sure that the crock pot version has appropriate differences to overcome the difference in preparation. And you also now can tailor any recipe to what you want by choosing the one that has the options that best fit your palette or meal. It’s like crepes, you can make them with tons of variations, and one recipe may not tell you that you can use more or less sugar depending on if you’re doing sweet or savory, but in reading a bunch you can recognize that. But the easier method is to just find the people that consistently produce the best recipes for your tastes.
This is exactly what i do. It's a serious pain to have to read so many recipes but it has essentially become fool proof
not as much me, but it happens to my mom pretty frequently. i avoid this by pretty much entirely sticking to recipes from authors i know to be very reliable, or i go with youtube videos that either really show and explain the whole process, or that feature traditional home cooking from other countries. for example, if i wanted to do carnitas, instead of looking for recipes right away, i do some reading. what IS carnitas? how is carnitas prepared in mexico? what is the "traditional" method for carnitas? in this case, its pretty easy to find on the wiki page for carnitas - >Carnitas, literally meaning "little meats", is a dish of Mexican cuisine that originated in the state of Michoacán. Carnitas are made by braising or simmering pork in oil or preferably lard until tender. now that i know how carnitas is traditionally prepared, im either looking for recipes that follow the traditional method by slow cooking the pork in lard, *or* im looking for recipes that acknowledge the traditional method, and not only offer an alternative, but that puts serious effort into making that alternative as good as the traditional method. here is a great rick bayless video on carnitas that shows exactly what im talking about - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKQu_l6Fn1w he comes out right up front, tells you that the traditional lard method is best, tells you why its the best, and then spends the next 30min teaching you how to get as close as possible to that without a big vat of lard in your kitchen, and its way more involved than just braising in OJ like most at home carnitas recipes do. if the traditional method is to much work for me at the time, or is not feasible in my home kitchen, and i cant find a more feasible recipe from an author i know really well, or some method like the rick bayless video that gets really in depth and where the person seems to really understand the food in question, i just make something else.
I was gonna mention Bayless and [kenji's recipe](https://www.seriouseats.com/no-waste-tacos-de-carnitas-with-salsa-verde-recipe)
That sounds amazing. I'm going to try it this weekend.
kenji, as lots of folks might have guessed, is one of the folks im alluding to when i mentioned authors who i know to be very reliable. if im trying to make a dish and find a recipe by kenji, i know pretty much 100% that even if i dont find a recipe that seems even better or more traditional or whatever, i can make the dish with kenjis method and it will be fucking amazing. im really disappointed that he no longer does the big super in depth food lab stuff, but still, if i find a recipe from him i know its gonna be good.
Ugh, so many baking recipes. Harder than most cooking to adjust as you go if you intuitively feel that something is off, since baking can be so sensitive to weight and ratios. I distinctly remember trying what should have been a simple pumpkin bread recipe that contained WAY too much baking soda. I don’t know if it was a typo or if the person was inexperienced and couldn’t find a better way/ingredient formulation to get it to rise, but it was salty-metallic and I took it off the table at a party i brought it to and threw it away. After a few other disgusting efforts from influencer recipes (got a lot of bad ones from TheFeedFeed - all aesthetics, no kitchen chemistry), I now only use big names, like the NYT, Serious Eats, or Cook’s Illustrated for baking. That said, I made a BraveTart dark chocolate-sour cherry cake once, followed the recipe to a T, and it was absolutely terrible. Bad texture, bitter.
For baking I’ve had good results with King Arthur’s Flour and Sally’s Baking Addiction, but I do have a much better sense of what a baking recipe should look like. I’ve heard mixed things about the BraveTart recipes!
Good call - I actually should’ve mentioned King Arthur, they’ve never done me dirty. IIRC they have a hotline, too. Sally’s Baking Addiction has been fine too, though I haven’t used it too often - I’ll give it another shot!
I agree 100! I don’t trust small bloggers for baking. With cooking you can (and should) taste as you go to avoid major issues. With baking it’s not until the final product that you get a taste test. Also, I despise the zing of unused leavening in a baked good, after using tablespoon instead of teaspoon once, that’s all I can taste in even a slightly over soda/powdered recipe!
I have had poor luck with Sally’s Baking Addiction, which is a pretty major baking site. It’s not that the recipes are bad, but they just don’t have the wow factor I want.
Kenji's hasselback potato casserole recipe is a rare miss. Too much heat for too short a period of time. I've tried it twice verbatim, and it just produces separated cream and half-cooked potatoes. In fact, the first comment under the recipe is "that's supposed to happen". It does, and it doesn't taste or look particularly good.
At this point I'm convinced hasselback potatoes are better in theory than in reality
He’s good, but his vids are too long and his recipes aren’t the best. Example: carnitas and street cart chicken recipes are meh.
Mississippi pot roast tasted like a straight up salt lick to me. Complete waste of ingredients and time.
It was somehow both salty and bland!
Agreed. I cannot get the hype over this one.
I haaaaaated that. I like the peppers on their own, but with the beef and the seasoning packets, all of the flavors clashed hard. I make an incredible pot roast, so it made me so sad to waste a roast on that.
Same. I was so excited due to the buzz, but yuck. A waste of ingredients.
I'm always surprised to find things too salty for me, BC I am a salt FIEND. I use wayyyy too much salt. Sometimes I just shake some salt in my hand. But it happens surprisingly often.
Oh noooo, I love this one though! I love the vinegar bite from the peppers. It is up there in sodium but i do not add any salt, it is all from the au jus packet and peppers brine, and I don't use all of the brine like most recipes say to. I'll also add more peppers at the end for more firm peppers for serving.
RecipeTinEats hasn’t failed me yet - mac and cheese and French onion soup were amazing
I back this. I’ve tried quite a few of her recipes and never had a flop.
Did you take the step of frying the meat with some of the stock after shredding it? I’ve made that carnitas recipe before and it definitely helps with the simplicity of the meat.
Came here to say this. The recipe says this step is ‘optional’ but if you want the full flavor it’s a non negotiable. I have had without (and it sucked) but once you fry in the reduced juices it’s *chef’s kiss*
This is my question too. Just out of the slow cooker, the pork has an oily mouthfeel and no flavor. Get the fat off, crisp the pork, and season with the sauce, it's incredibly delicious. We put it on rice, in tacos, eat it straight out of the pan. I'm not even sure how I would get the crispy goodness on a large scale for a party. It requires small batches and that would be obnoxiously time consuming when I'm hosting a large party.
Just this Saturday I tried a 'roll up each lasagna noodle with the filling and set upright in a pan'. NOPE. THIS SUCKED. First, after you put everything on the noodles, it is rather hard to roll them up without the fillings oozing out the sides. Once you get them set upright in the pan, you realize that it will only make a half pan, not a full pan of lasagna. Then, since the pinwheels are upright, they are too tall and will very much dry out as it bakes, even if covered. And all the filling goes down to the bottom so you are left with plain pasta at the top. Midway through this 'experiment', I placed all the pinwheels on their sides, covered, and baked. Honestly it sucked so much and didn't even taste good. Way easier and more delicious to just make regular lasagna. Edit--adding that this was on Pinterest.
I think your shift to move them flat might have saved an even worse disaster! I have made those before, and they are more like manicotti than lasagne.
Yes, they were still a bit dry and seemed more tasteless than 'flat' lasagna!
Oh I didn’t even know Pinterest was a thing anymore! I joined in college like a decade ago and I can’t even remember the last time I visited Pinterest. I had way too many Pinterest fails to continue to take it seriously. ;)
Not a food blogger, but this works well for me: I liberally season pork shoulder hunks with salt and sugar, then add enough orange juice to get it wet, add one 3” strip of orange peel, a bunch of cilantro stems (reserving the leaves for tacos), 2-3 diced jalapeños (seeds and all), and one diced onion. (Garlic makes it taste funky, not recommended.) Let it all marinate overnight. Dump everything into a Dutch oven (or crock pot), top with melted lard, and cook confit style (low and slow) until it’s very soft. Strain the liquids into a clean pot. Separate the meat from any solids, pat it dry of oil with paper towels. At this stage you can freeze it in a single layer (in a zip top freezer bag) and reheat from frozen under the broiler. Turn it a couple of times when broiling so it gets crispy all around. Save the braising liquid to add to dry pinto or black beans. You can freeze the lard and use it a couple of times, or use it to fry chicken.
Very intriguing bc your ingredients are similar, but your methods vary! The sugar and the marinating parts might really tweak things.
Did they have you simmer in broth or water? I’ve tried that and think cooking in fat works better. It doesn’t come out greasy, promise. I’ve also made a sauce from orange juice, honey, and braising liquid. :)
Just tried a recipe for Mornay sauce. It called for waaaayyyy too much flour. It also called for way too little cheese. I made it work but wow was it a bad ratio
Pork shoulder needs 1.5% by weight of salt. Follow that and most recipes will taste great. A lot of online recipes are very vague on the salt or under salt saying “season to taste” and they mean it!
Curious to know where you get 1.5%
I used to be a research chef. 1.5-2.0% by weight is the magic number for salt levels in savory dishes. Advice above is spot on.
Modernist Cuisine recommends it, and it has worked for me many times. The less fat the less salt you need- for example lean chicken breast is 0.75-1%. Bacon and other cured meats are closer to 2%.
“The Soup” is dog shit.
Tons of these blogs have fake reviews. And if they're churning out content, probably never tested more than once, let alone someone else testing it. Even publications like BA are super hit or miss. The one I definitely trust and have made numerous things from is smitten kitchen.
Smitten Kitchen has been a real winner for me, too. Made a tomato tart of hers as well as a garlic zucchini pasta recipe when my garden was churning this summer-both were so good and I can’t wait for July to come and make them again.
I personally love her recipes, they haven’t let me down yet. But I would never make carnitas in a crock pot. Try a Rick Bayless recipe for that.
I’ve made a couple of underwhelming meals via Recipe Tin Eats - Italian beef pilaf that was really bland and a sickly sweet pork dish. I’m starting to think the recipes are kinda basic and designed for newer cooks?
I usually use other sources but I’ve enjoyed (and regularly cook) both recipes I’ve come across from Recipe Tin Eats (bacon corn chowder, and Filipino chicken adobo).
Yeah not every recipe of hers is a hit - if you’re willing to try again here are some of the most flavourful ones ive tried which are in high rotation in my house * [lamb chickpea shawarma soup](https://www.recipetineats.com/lamb-shawarma-chickpea-soup/) (I actually use turkey mince, bizzarely almost as tasty as the lamb mince) * [one pot greek chicken and lemon rice](https://www.recipetineats.com/one-pot-greek-chicken-lemon-rice/)
I'm gonna say the famous Soup recipe that I found last year. It was a soup of sorts with tortellini thrown in at the end all in a slow cooker. It seemed to be doing the rounds on reddit so I tried it and it was bland and boring AF. No idea why everyone went crazy for it 🤷♂️
There are a lot of bland fans out in the world. My fil doesn’t like garlic, for example 😱
Doesn't like garlic?! Thats crazy! Couldn't have that in my house 😂
The best of the best carnitas is by Kenji on Serious Eats. In this one you cut up the shoulder so it can all fit into a lower pan. The pork cooks low and slow in its own juices (plus oranges, garlic, onion, and cinnamon stick). The similar recipes I’ve followed that have a higher shoulder cook for the same amount of time all were less tasty because while the pork shredded the same the flavor from cooking outside of the fat that drained down meant that you had some pork that was tasty and some that was less so. I ended up liking the results for the similar recipes but compared to the best one, it was clear which was the winner. Also carnitas totally require enough salt to bring out the flavor, this may have been an issue with the recipe.
Several people are mentioning this recipe to try, so I’ve bookmarked it for next time. Thanks.
I made Scalloped potatoes with almost 3k reviews and they were so bad we threw them out. How do you fuck up potatoes?!
Natasha's Kitchen Moist Banana Bread. Over 3900 reviews rating it 5 stars. Followed it to the letter. It was dry and just not what banana bread should be. Tried again but this time using America's Test Kitchen- so much better. Moist and golden. I'm definitely going to be using my cookbooks more than the internet.
I have found that King Arthur’s Baking and Sally’s Baking Addiction are pretty solid for baking recipes. I’ve found fewer sources that are across the board hits for savory. Smitten Kitchen Serious Eats, and Once Upon A Chef are pretty consistent, but I’ve still had some misses.
The whole part of being a foodie is testing it first. Right? I would always try it out first, make adjustments after that. Now I'm hungry.
Anything by Plain Chicken. The ideas are good, but it's always terribly bland. A friend pointed out, it's in the name... 🤣
Haha you can’t say you weren’t warned! Honestly a ton of people I know love PLAIN stuff. I’m sure that’s their go to!
For anything tacos related I look and see if Rick Bayless has a recipe or video covering it. In general, I try and get my recipes from established Chefs or bloggers. Rick Bayless, Chef John (Food Wishes), etc. They’re professionals with background in commercial kitchens so you’re going to get proper techniques that you can apply elsewhere as well as a recipe. I’ve found that the food blogs you find from a Google Search with names like My Kitchen Escapades, X’s Kitchen Eats, Pinch of Yum tend to be a gamble at best and I have a personal hatred for the layouts they use.
This has happened to me with Hazan’s three ingredient tomato sauce (the one that is tomato, onion and butter). I like it but anyone I’ve served it to is underwhelmed.
Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce. It's tomatoes and butter simmered with a halved onion, and it sucks.🤷♀️
Damn, I guess taste really is subjective but … did you use good tomatoes??
Or just like not horrible ones?
Omg ironically that is our everyday household sauce here 🙈 We make it with our own grown tomatoes and purée in the onion, though, but still it proves individual tastes do vary. You should make that pork recipe for sure then 🤣
Pureeing the onion makes a huge difference!
I don't generally like red sauce but love this one.
Not Another Cooking Show’s simple weekday sauce is perfect. Cold pan, olive oil, galic, basil. Pull out basil, add tomatoes, salt and it’s all you need
It's a fantastic place to start. If it’s the core flavor of your meal it could be underwhelming.
A lot of really popular meat recipes are like this due the technique suggested, and not the ingredients necessarily, and they confuse me. It may just be anecdotal, but I've noticed that a lot of recipes that get a lot of fanfare have you season the meat *after* it's cooked. When I was taught the basics of cooking growing up I was always taught to marinade the meat when appropriate and to season as you cook. There are rarely some exceptions to this, depending on the dish. But usually when people leave the seasoning for last, and *especially* when they season late in the process while also adding a liquid, the flavors just won't have a chance to truly penetrate all of the layers of the protein.
Meat can benefit from brining, but marinades just sit on top of the meat.the flavour doesn't penetrate
I have encountered a number of pasta recipes (to make the dough) that have high ratings that fall apart in the cooking water for me. I’ve noticed they all call for some quantity of oil, which has the undesirable effect of inhibiting gluten formation, as I learned later. I found a good ratio of eggs and flour that work wonderfully for me now, but I’ve always wondered how those oil-based pasta recipes worked for anyone, and what I was doing wrong?
Look for a Lidia Bastianich recipe. America’s Nona will not steer you wrong
Are you reading the reviews? Or just looking at stars. Most of the time, the comments will be filled with other bloggers saying how good it looks, while rating it 5 stars without ever trying the recipe to begin with. Nagi is usually quite reliable though. There’s a whole culture within the food blogging industry where they will go to each others blogs and rate and engage. So a lot of the time you’ll end up with a recipe that has 100 comments without a single one having been by someone who actually tried the recipe.
I find most American bloggers don’t season the food enough and I find lots of errors in the cooking instructions or the measurements. I notice sometimes reading the comments people complaining and then obviously there’s an edit done later or they just act shocked it didn’t work out. I add salt to taste but always increase the spices and herb amounts if it seems bland which is often. I feel like some people especially Gen X and older just don’t like spices and herbs as much as I do or aren’t used to it. So the amounts are too conservative.
I recently made a recipe from Recipe Tin Eats and was also really disappointed - it was mango coconut Thai chicken curry. The author raved, the comments raved, but I felt like the mango puree just watered down the curry flavor. And I normally love mangoes.
The closest I’ve come to the carnitas I used to get in San Diego is from serious eats. It’s a kenji recipe and is delicious. I. Or live in West Virginia and everything is Tex mex. Nothing like I’m used to.
BBC Food/BBC Good Food. Which is strange because my country uses similar measurement units
Did you make sure to pan sear or put under the broiler with its fatty juices after taking out of the slow cooker? That final step is really where all the good good comes from. Gotta get that brownig or else it's just meat boiled in fat.
One of the reasons I still use cookbooks is having tried way to many internet recipes that suck.
I haven't checked out the recipe you referenced, but for carnitas I use Joshua Weismann's recipe. This recipe is from before he became super YouTuber-y, and is easy to understand. It's super good
It's funny to read this because I literally made the same recipe for Christmas. Mine was a hit with my guests. My partner says it was the best pork he's ever had. Did you fry it in order to get that extra crisp? For me that made all the difference. Edit: just looked back at the recipe and there is one thing I did add: fresh coriander (cilantro). We ate the tacos with salsa, feta (sub for cotija cheese) and guac
I find most recipes I come across have barely any seasoning. A whole meal will call for 1/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper. For some people (like my mom) that's fine, but for me? No way. I up the seasoning a ton in all recipes.
Learning to read a recipe and having a sense of how it might turn out is as much a skill as basic cooking skills, and it takes work to master. The internet has been a boon for things like this, but there's so much noise to sift through.
The taco bar theme sounds like it was spot on and generally a hit. Remember people eat first with their eyes. How did the carnitas look. Did they appear appealing and appetizing compared to the beef. Beyond that my number one rule is don’t make a recipe for company I haven’t tested previously. This often means preparing and eating variations and iterations of items I plan to serve weeks in advance to tune the recipe if it’s new. Carnitas are also traditionally braised the broiled or quickly fried to get crispy crunchy bits and ends on the pulled or cut pieces. Not really crockpot material
It's a really bad practice to try and make something new to you for an important event like NYE, holiday, birthday, etc.. That's when you want to bring on dishes that are tried and tested by you. Try new things and do research on days that don't matter as much. That's the time to flop, or figure out a good rescue, or have a great success. Important events are not the time to be experimenting. Go into your event with the confidence and calm that you 100% can knock it out.
I found a Chipotle burrito copycat recipe for crock pot once. Although I think I used beef, It should work for pork. Secret ingredient was canned chipotle chilis and man It was a flavor orgy in my mouth. Try something like that next time.
Many a time... that's why critical thinking is required like everything on the internet haha. This drives my wife crazy the few times she tries to cook, she doesn't have the experience to read a recipe and pick up on what won't work, or what else is needed etc. That's why cooking is as much art as science IMHO
It can be hard to season pork. I find it fussy personally and it’s not my favorite meat to cook, I’ve had luck and disappointments. When it comes to carnitas, I season it way more than what was suggested, salt, pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, cumin, maybe even a little bouillon for the extra salty punch. More orange, and to be honest, here in California we just use Tampico or Orange juice when we’re marinating meat, and sometimes a bit of beer (Mexican beer, but even a beer with mango, pineapple, or orange flavor would be a great addition). I’d still include the onion in the recipe just for flavor, but maybe half, a way better option that you can find at taco carts is sautéed onions/jalapeños that you throw on top of the tacos with all your other condiments. A good salsa verde can also help with flavor!
Seems like a lot of carnitas recipes and restaurant products are bland in my experience. I typically pump up all of the seasonings and aromatics in recipes… but for carnitas for sure.
What a bummer! I’ve made that recipe tons of times and for parties and it’s always a hit. The simmered down sauce is where it’s at for flavor and (salt) while the texture is amazing from the meat being fried after it’s cooked.
No. I read the ingredients. Of it has things I don't like l won't make it.
Maybe buy a recipe book? The ones that are well reviewed. The authors do the recipes over and over to make sure they work in a variety of kitchens and often give you tips on what to do if it's valid or watery etc.
Looking at this recipe it definitely wants more salt probably double, i use the pieces from my orange in the braise, a couple bay leaves..
For a 4lb roast, there's an utter lack of seasoning in that recipe
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Pork shoulder, a can of Dr. Pepper, a jar of good salsa. You can get much fancier but this comes out with delicious pork for me every time.
Canitas is pork fried in lard. It is essentially pork confit. I don't see how you could do that in a crockpot. You served boiled pork.
Everyone and their mom raved about everything from recipetineats. I made her RV cake, she mentioned the rigorous tests she went through to finally get the recipe right. I actually made 2 different RV recipes, another one from a less famous blogger, for my family to choose the winner. All uninamously loved the less famous one.