Now, I admit - I don't really give accurate measurements for my dishes. Mostly because I don't cook with accurate measurements, and much rather the 'cook by feel and taste' approach. But, if I were making something where measures are vitally important, they'd be here.
And that's not something you want to make a mess with. If you look up a recipe here and I've transposed a few digits, you'll be suitably cross. Like if I recommended putting, say, 23 teaspoons of chilli powder in a dish, you might well grow to hate me (once you wake from your coma).
But another area where things can go horribly wrong - as I'll soon illustrate - is in the unfortunate turn of phrase you may end up with by leaving an important word out. Not only can this be clumsy and make a recipe unclear and hard to follow, it too can lead to unfortunate cooking decisions.
Case in point: I point you to this otherwise fine-looking recipe for Stuffed Spatchcock, from the ABC's The Cook and The Chef. I think this will definitely inspire a recipe of my own, but I do hope that the recipe doesn't actually call for...
knob butter
But maybe it does! Perhaps Maggie Beer, delightfully foodie-type that she is, likes a bit of, well... sauciness in her cooking. For all I know, knob butter adds a silky finish, as it were, to the sauce that accompanies the dish. Or she's just an inveterate knob-butter-gobbler*.
Who can say.
Well, I can say one thing - be very careful when transcribing your recipes.
* Did I just call Maggie Beer a knob-gobbler? I think I did. Oops. Expect litigation and firebombs made from tasty food any day now.
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