An interesting list but I disagree with some things on it. I guess it may depend on how experienced a cook one is. I find some recipes to have annoyingly over specific directions - especially regarding directions on specific pots and utensils. E.g. telling one to stir with a wooden spoon - you mean that my silicon spatula will hurt the recipe? Sometimes it isn't even a reactive mixture and a stainless steel utensil would be fine but the recipe calls out a wooden spoon.

A recipe can be too long too - so wordy that it is difficult to sort out the directions.

Worst flaw in poorly written recipes, IMO, is out and out mistakes. Like when the ingredients list has an ingredient that the recipe never says when to use or the instructions say to add an ingredient that got left off the list.

And it's also possible to have a recipe that is well written that produces a lousy dish (or one not to one's taste). I've made one Rachel Ray recipe, the directions were clear but I found the result to be insipid. I haven't tried any other of her recipes. Maybe it was a fluke or just not a match to my own tastes, but I've got enough reliable sources that I usually go with one of them.

(I also found the article a little ironic because very brief recipes are often given out on the show.)

I see that Rachel Ray is not on this list of cookbook authors.

I agree that overly instructional recipes are annoying at times. But only because I have some cooking experience. But I appreciate those same details when I am attempting a new recipe that stretches my skills.

I am not a regular listener of this show. I would guess, though, that they give an abridged version of a recipe for the sake of saving time but direct listeners to the website for more details. That was the case with this segment.

I simply thought it was interesting, not gospel. I know we have all tried recipes that we thought were so-so in the end. I remember a laborious phyllo concoction from a Moosewood filled with cheese, cabbage, onions, and carrots and probably other things that took forever to make and was terribly boring as well as enormous. Looking at the leftovers after I served it was almost as daunting as making it!

Eileen

If I am making something I have never made before that is complicated, I look for a t & t recipe from a trusted accomplished chef (Julia, Lydia, Mario, Shirley, for instance). But if it's something easy, a variation on a familiar recipe, then I will go by reviews, however, even then I want sophisticated reviewers, Epicurious over All Recipes, for example.
I have made some bad, bad things based on hundreds of All Recipe reviews although I now know they aren't the most reliable of reviewers.
And even Cook's Illustrated has left me numb and in shock over a few recipes carefully followed.

bumblebeez, I've also had some spectacular failures with Cook's Illustrated, and a few really outstanding results too. It's mostly the instructions that leave me cold, I get bored and frustrated with the counting of three grains of salt, or turning the dough 17.5298 degrees to the left and only when the moon is 2 days after full.

Other people really like that minute attention to detail, so, to each their own.

I find the most reliable recipes by asking people I know. Well, like the people here. In the alternative, I go to sources I trust. I know that I have seldom liked a Rachel Ray recipe, so I don't look there first. I've seldom had a bread failure with a recipe from Bernard Clayton's bread cookbook, James Beard's "Beard on Bread" or from the King Arthur website. Pepin has seldom steered me wrong on anything. I enjoy a vast majority of Dorie Greenspan's recipes, and those of Rose Levy Berenbaum. I'm less likely to check out the "celebrity chef" recipes as it seems to me that many are for show and not for real life, but perhaps that's just me too.

Annie

The same characteristics for spotting a good recipe are also some of the same things I learned in a class on how to formulate and write a recipe.

-Grainlady

I don't mind detailed instructions. I can recall the days , barely, when I was a new cook and I needed all the help I could get!

What does bug me are comments like "cover with a clean cloth"...nope I'm going to get one from the dirty laundry hamper!

I'm surprised not to see Rose Levy Beranbaum on the list. She writes the most precise and complete recipes I've ever seen.
Jacques Pépin's recipes always work.

"In a bowl" combine (eggs, vanilla) or meat and spices, etc.
I always think "what else" would I put them in?

Yup, interesting article. I learned how to read a bit more carefully, which I don't always do.

I have my own criteria for recipes - ingredients visually separated by when they are added/combined, like wet/dry for batters. I also like one recipe per page on in a cookbook that can be opened flat (spiral bound etc.)

Jessy, I agree. Especially about the recipe being on one page or a spread so that it doesn't continue on a page I have to turn. Many of my older cookbooks are like that.

When I use recipes I find online I often copy the text and organize the recipe with line breaks for each step if not already that way.

E

Cloudy, I have several Rose B's books and never use them. Too pedantic, at least Cook's Illustrated is fun to read.

I hate a recipe that "wastes words"...like cover with a clean cloth or with a wooden spoon or stir until combined.

And I know it is accepted procedure when writing a recipe to begin with the ingredient with the greatest quantity and work down to the quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper...
But I prefer to read a recipe with ingredients in order of use.
for example that carrot cake recipe I have posted here so many times...I have written myself notes that says
"grate carrots, drain pineapple, chop raisins, mix wet ingredients, mix dry and combine add fruit and veggies"
That allows me to see at a glance what to do.
And I often make notes in the margin that say things like "brown veggies first in oil, remove, brown meat and add back veggies add mushrooms last".
I like a broad overview before I begin.
Linda C

Jessica, I'm with you on book bindings. It's possible to bind hardback books so that they will lie open, like Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia et al.
But now, it's as if publishers don't really think you're going to cook with the book. Dorie Greenspan's baking book is awful that way. It's a huge heavy book that will not stay open.

I use a plastic cookbook holder that keeps the book open, props it up, and protects it from splatters.

I do too, but tightly-bound heavy books defeat it. Often I weight them down on a table. With the Greenspan baking book it's hard to find something heavy enough to hold it flat!

Chase, I love your remark about the clean cloth. Gave me my chuckle for the day!

I do not trust writers who begin their article with a grammatical error, such as "who" instead of "whom" in this case. If they wait a few pages before making such a mistake, I might forgive them.

I also think that there are lots of very short recipes that are just fine. I do not think that one set of rules for how to judge a recipe can be universal, and I think that experienced cooks can judge a recipe without having a check list. The target audience for that article must have been novice cooks.

I think that Rick Bayless has some good ideas and recipes, but I cannot stand to watch him on TV - his mannerisms are just too annoying, and I don't like the way he talks.

I must be in a bad mood today!!

Lars

I'm with you, Lars. I just had that experience in a medical office setting where the weight loss professional/amateur to whom I was introduced, not a d.o/m.d/nurse/p.a/, but some muckied up letters after his name on a lab coat and neat scrubs(which made me crazy) issued to me a three page paper with misspellings, run-ons, incomplete sentences-just no proofreading and would this jerky Elmer Gantry be able to proofread his own stuff? And I'm gonna trust him to give me supplements(and I'm not a big supplement fan) and a Program(capital p)?

These bad skills are not even generational b/c this guy is 50, and 50 yr. olds didn't learn text shorthand before they learned grammar. :)Just didn't quite catch on when they were teaching English for 12 years. I will pass. Actually, scary.

I must be in a paretheses mood today!!

I never really appreciated a well-written recipe until the first time I edited a fund-raising community cookbook.

"I also think that there are lots of very short recipes that are just fine. I do not think that one set of rules for how to judge a recipe can be universal, and I think that experienced cooks can judge a recipe without having a check list. The target audience for that article must have been novice cooks."

My thoughts exactly, Lars.

When I read that article yesterday,
I found it downright laughable.
Then I realized it was probably intended
for very VERY new cooks.

So I read it again just now.
Basically the same conclusion.

"I never really appreciated a well-written recipe until the first time I edited a fund-raising community cookbook."

I agree wholeheartedly, Ruthanna!
I was also very surprised
by what some of my 'co-editors' insisted
Should be included or excluded in the recipes.

Rusty

I think it depends on the person and the situation. Usually I get the most excited about just simple ideas and combinations of flavors. I'm likely to mess with the recipe to use what I have on hand, so it doesn't need to be very exact. But then if I'm doing something new- like the first time I made pasta, marshmallows, caramel, I wanted very specific, step by step directions.

I've never seen a recipe that had the ingredients listed in order of quantity. I've only seen them listed in order of use. However, I sometimes change the order of use, especially in baking. No matter what the recipe says, I like to get the dry ingredients ready first, then do all the other stuff. It's just one of my quircks.

I've made some stuff from one of the Moosewood cookbooks lately that I didn't like as well as their earlier cookbooks. Maybe they have new staff.

Sally

I find the Moosewood recipes hit and miss. Some turn out quite good and some taste so-so to me. They are generally written clearly. Olive Trees and Honey is my go to vegetarian cookbook now. I've made a lot of recipes from it and haven't found a clunker yet. I'll still make the tried and true ones I've made before from Moosewood but I don't try new recipes out of it.

Sally, I usually like to get the dry ingredients ready first too. I'd rather not have the wet stuff sitting waiting after its been mixed while I get the dry ready. Maybe it's a habit too from the days when I started cooking with minimal equipment so it was practical to measure the dry ingredients when my measuring spoons were dry and then do the wet ones.

I have a Chinese cookbook where each recipe starts with mise en place instructions that tell you what to prep and put in a bowl together. That's very convenient for quick cooking stuff like stir fry where I want everything organized before I start. For most Indian or Chinese dishes, I'll prep that way reading through the recipe to organize what goes together even when it isn't written out that way.

oops, talk about lack of proofreading! Among other errors, it s/be parenthesis, not parestheses(paralysis)!

I think some of the newer "celebrity" chefs are more promotional machines than anything. In the quest to provide unique recipes, they are adding everything but the kitchen sink, and some of it is just plain WRONG.

Has anyone ever used a Maida Heatter cookbook? They are actually baking books, and each recipe is at least two, if not three, pages long. They may be tedious to read through, but her recipes always work. When I use one of her recipes, I'll condense the information to just a few points on an index card. I'm a seasoned baker, but anyone who is just starting out could benefit from the step-by-step instructions.

I'm not a Martha fan, but I've heard that her recipes are consistently good too.

I have a couple of Maida Heatter books. One has gone astray. I hope I placed it with other books and didn't loan it and forget to whom.

I know most people like a photo of a finished dish along with the recipe these days. Hers do not and I don't mind.

E