How many times to try a recipe before giving up?

September 4, 2015 6:27 AM

When trying a new recipe how many times should I cook it to completion before deciding I don't like the recipe?

I realize different categories of culinary arts vary in difficulty and that the more times I cook the more familiar I am with the techniques or steps of a recipe.
How many attempts should I make before deciding "this tastes bad; would not try again?"

I have experience with a stove and oven. A novice I am not.

posted by ayc200 to Food & Drink (19 answers total)

One. If you don't like something, why cook it again when there are countless other recipes out there to try?
posted by headnsouth at 6:32 AM on September 4, 2015 [25 favorites]

For Me it depends, sometimes if I think the mistakes were....technical in nature or something that could be improved upon with different ingredients or a different/better cooking technique, I will give it another try or two...but there have been plenty of recipes that I made ones and that my wife and I decided we just plane did not care for, and with so many other recipes out there to try I don't bother making it again.
posted by Captain_Science at 6:33 AM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Unless you're really certain you did something wrong that might impact the end flavor, don't bother trying again. There are lots of recipes in the world to try.
posted by something something at 6:33 AM on September 4, 2015 [5 favorites]

Once. Life is short and food costs money.

"This is ok but needs chives/cream/carrots/cumin" is different than "this tastes bad" and I like to modify as I see fit, especially when cooking (it's harder for baking).
posted by sockermom at 6:35 AM on September 4, 2015 [4 favorites]

Once is fine, unless your efforts have achieved something that is just light years away from what the recipe promises. If you feel like you made some kind of hideous error, like the meat trifle from Friends, then it's fine to try again. But otherwise, yes to all the above "why bother?".
posted by poffin boffin at 6:41 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

yeah, if you didn't like it because - as with the last recipe we tried - you go, hmm, I think we used too much lime juice, then you try it again with less lime. But if you just flat out hated it on the merits, ditch it. Because it's not like it's going to become something other than what it is.
posted by Naberius at 6:45 AM on September 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

Once, unless I know I screwed it up REALLY badly the first time, then I might give it another shot.

Basically, when looking to cook something outside my usual milieu, I have two choices:

1. Try an entirely new recipe that sounds delicious
2. Try a recipe I didn't like the first time (but it might have been my fault)

I think that option 1 has a much higher chance of resulting in a tasty dinner than option 2. And there are so many good dishes out there that I don't feel bad about giving up on ones I don't immediately enjoy.
posted by 256 at 6:58 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

One time is usually enough to know if it has potential. If you are thinking hmm this is Ok but would be better if I added x or did y, then a second time with the changes is fine. Life is short, there are many recipes out there & other versions of dishes to try. Now how many different recipes for a certain dish you might try is a whole different ball game, took me 7 different recipes to find a Chinese stew recipe I like, and more than I can count to find my ultimate red sauce recipe, but these were different versions of the same recipe not the same one over and over.
posted by wwax at 7:04 AM on September 4, 2015

I usually find iffy but redeemable recipes are redeemable right away -- 'well, this isn't up to much, but if I quickly grill a boatload of onions and garlic, stir that in, and throw down a cornbread topping, that'll give it the missing flavour and texture' -- but if there is no fix readily apparent (though admittedly in the case of some things, like baked goods, you can't always enact the fix the first time), it's junk.

This is something to be even more doctrinaire about if you are using recipes off blogs or allrecipes.com or whatever where the source is a person who made it once or twice and decided it was good enough for Wednesday dinner. If I was dealing with a cookbook author with an excellent reputation, I might try to puzzle out where I had gone wrong. Idea with a pretty picture circulating on Pinterest? Assume it's family slop from a novice cook and forget it.
posted by kmennie at 7:16 AM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

Once, unless you can see clearly what the problem is. If you eat it and think "this would be great, but that was [too much/not enough] [thing]" make it with the adjustment next time. Adjust the cooking time if it was too done or not done enough.

If you can see the potential in it, try it again. If you're just like "eh" and it's clearly not some serious aberration (a protein didn't behave as expected, the recipe had instructions that you interpreted one way but understand afterwards should have been done differently), why bother? Recipes are basically an infinite resource.

I think there is an exception to that if the recipe is canonical or requires a very specific skill or technique or science that very few people perfect on the first try, and that's more about baking than cooking. There's a lot to learn from making the same baguette recipe 10 times, the same custard, the same cake. That also assumes you care about perfecting that skill, which you aren't obligated to do if it's not your job. There's more than one way to make a custard, and some of those ways are easier than others, if less classic. It's all going to the same place.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:52 AM on September 4, 2015

Once, unless you really done goofed. As others have said, life is short and we only get so many mealtimes.

If it's iffy, but seems like it might work, I, we, often find it's a bit more fruitful to do a bit more research on similar sorts of recipes, rather than to rehash one that doesn't quite ring the bell. That usually means a good idea but a poor implementation. So looking for a better version of that concept is frequently a better use of time and ingredients. This is particularly true when we're trying to make a classic or cross-cultural dish work.

But there are lots of just plain bad recipes out there.
posted by bonehead at 8:06 AM on September 4, 2015

Once.
Unless it shows promise.
Or unless you think that it failed because you got some finicky step wrong and you research how to change that finicky step.
Then, more, up to the limits of patience or budget.

But it it's just plain yuck, then just once and banned.
posted by SLC Mom at 8:08 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

You don't owe anything to the recipe.
posted by SLC Mom at 8:09 AM on September 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

If I can point to a specific thing to fix, such as "too much onion, not enough bell peppers" then I'll try it again with my adjustments. If not, I let it go and move on to other recipes to try.
posted by Green Eyed Monster at 9:59 AM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

One and done, unless you believe you can nail it on the second try. If you want to make a specific dish but the recipe you're using isn't working out for you, find a different recipe. Not every recipe out there is a good one.
posted by Metroid Baby at 10:01 AM on September 4, 2015

I'm with everyone else, one and done, but I'll add the caveat that if the problem is a new cooking method or pan, or anything else that is not strictly unique to the recipe, I may try again.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:32 PM on September 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

One - if it just outright tastes bad, any sort of tweaking of the recipe isn't going to radically change the flavor of it. It's one thing if you make something once and you like it, but think it needs more spice, more texture, etc. to be good. But if you just don't like it, no small changes will make you like it.
posted by AppleTurnover at 1:22 PM on September 4, 2015

Mostly, I'm with the "one" everyone is saying. BUT: yesterday I was at a party, where the hostess called me to ask how to cook the main 30 mins before we were supposed to be there.

It was not a dish I cook frequently, but I gave her my best thoughts. Afterwards, I checked my books and some blogs, and became confident that my advice had been sound. When I arrived, 10 minutes late, things were panicky, and it took me so long to figure out what had gone wrong that parts of the meal were spoiled. There were several small things which came together to make a huge difference: they had used the ventilator in the oven, without adjusting temperature. They had used far too much liquid. They were taking the food in and out of the oven because of panic.
This is a good cook, but she was cooking something she is not familiar with for 20+ guests and only looking up (in this case calling me) what to do in the very last minute. I've made that mistake more than once. Now I'm old, and I don't.
posted by mumimor at 11:36 PM on September 4, 2015

Once unless it is a complex technique and you know it was your inability to do the technique right that caused room for improvement.
posted by koahiatamadl at 6:58 AM on September 7, 2015