Do recipes online just never have enough seasoning? I mean, I don't want the taste so strong that I'm choking on my meal but when I try a recipe for the first time I follow it exactly. Usually the recipe ends up being not flavorful enough, whatever it's missing. The second time and beyond that I make a recipe I'll add extra seasoning (usually just more of whatever it already calls for) and it will come out much better.
I know the obvious solution is to taste as I go, season more, blah blah blah, that's not what I'm asking.
What I'm asking is: Does anyone else just feel like online recipes never have enough flavor? Do you all have any favorite online recipe sources?
Edit: Its been hours so here is the general comment consensus
-Recipes are guidelines
-Taste varies, Preferences are preferences
-Maybe old spices?
-Use legitimate sources for recipes if you will be following them to the letter
-Recipes are made to fit a broad audience
-and most importantly, the question I asked in the first place; Ultimately, no. Recipes online don't call for enough seasoning for most commenters
Im seriously going to be hearing "Recipes are Guidelines" in my flipping dreams tonight
It seems like every day we have people posting and fretting that their seasoning isn't immaculate, which is fine. Its great to want gorgeous looking pans that give slippy slidy eggs. But you don't have to have the former to have the latter. Eggs are not the be all end all of cast iron cooking either, but I'll talk about them the most since it seems to be what I feel is the measuring stick most people are using
I bought a 12" Lodge about 2 years ago for a camping trip, and for the longest time I was terrible at cooking eggs, they stuck all the time. I was used to Teflon pans and ran em hot with no issues. I was convinced it was the bumps on the surface of my Lodge. So I took Cowboy Rollins (still love him BTW) advice and sanded them down to metal and re-seasoned the pan. Still had issues.
I bought and inherited some vintage cast iron. The inherited pans (a #8 unmarked Wagner and #3 Griswold) needed to be stripped and restored, but the one i bought (a #6 Wagner) was immaculately maintained and perfect. I thought a mirror flat finish was what I needed. Still couldn't get great fried eggs.
Bottom line, it all comes down to temp control. If you run too hot, and don't put a stick of butter to float the eggs on, you will get sticking.
You hear "low and slow", but for the engineer in me that wasn't enough information. I bought a laser thermometer and did some experimenting, I found the optimal the temp is around 250. On my stove and for my daily egg workhorse is a "4" setting. Which I've come to learn happens to be about to be about the Liedenfrost point (for fellow nerds), which is the point water will bead and roll around the pan when a small amount is dropped in a hot skillet. What I also learned is that cooking eggs at the Leidenfrost point in a standard aluminum pan with adequate oil and butter also will give you slippy slidy eggs.
Real "Non-stick cooking" is about 1) a base line seasoning (like only 1-2 applications is needed), 2) proper pan temperature, pre-heat your pan to whatever setting is about 250 F deg or passes the water bead test, and 3) BUTTER. Butter is the star of the show here, and Ghee will do just as good of a job if you cant do butter.
Final point, I have a Lodge 10" round griddle that's my daily work horse for eggs and other stuff like grilled cheeses. I bought it about 2 months ago, and oven seasoned it no less than 15 times. The seasoning came off in spots. I stove top seasoned it with Crisco, same thing. At one point it wa
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I like to save all my wagyu and prime beef brisket fat trimmings. Once I have a few lbs collected, I put it all in the food processor, chop it all up with a knife first, and mince in food processor to rice sized pieces.
Set the burner heat on low and add to a heavy bottom pot. Render that fat for about 6 hours, stir occasionally.
At the end of your process, stir to break all the bits up and put the heat on high for about 5 mins. This will final fry the bits to about a nice light tan color from an off white.
Use a chinois if you have one or a fine strainer and sepperate out the tallow from the beef 'bacon bits'. Press all the tallow out and spread the 'beef bacon' out on a paper towel lined sheet pan. Once it's dried out use a morter and pestle and pulverize into a powder. Add a bit of kosher salt (just a bit) and put into an airtight container.
This is an awesome seasoning for burgers, meatballs, sprinkle on eggs, anything you want an umami heavy boost without msg.
Delicious seasoning with something most people trow out.
Kept ruining what I thought were supposed to be simple dishes, bc when I tasted it and didn’t get enough flavor, I kept adding different seasonings to it. But then it would taste weird and muddled bc of competing flavors. Turns out just adding what I originally needed to, and then letting the food cook a little longer, was the part I was missing! Hope my epiphany helps someone else who’s learning.
My favorite snack these days is pork rinds (I love 4505) seasoned with instant ramen seasoning powder packets. You can dump it in the bag and shake or just powder each bite. it’s amazing, it’s like eating those crushed dry ramen snacks I ate growing up. Completely satisfies my chip cravings and gives me a sodium boost because the powder is basically just salt and msg (Depends on the brand but I’ve read that it’s 1 carb for the whole packet).
Would love to hear about other ways of eating otherwise unflavored pork rinds! I can’t have dairy besides butter unfortunately so that rules out a lot of options.
