DH doesn't think critically about a recipe as he's making it

[shaniahoo]

I desperately need to rant about my lovely DH, but not to his face since he's just made me a really lovely dinner and I am grateful for that. I am.

But when he cooks from a recipe he sometimes does something really weird because he read it wrong but doesn't notice that it might be wrong and question it.

So this evening we planned a new recipe from a Jamie Oliver book and I left it to him because I was out at an appointment. I said just follow the recipe. Jamie said use frozen mixed onion, carrot and celery but we don't have that nonexistent product so I got those vegetables in fresh. I didn't mention that to DH, didn't think it necessary. He decided to use the frozen mixed veg that we do have in, which is peas, sweetcorn, carrots and green beans. I don't understand why you would see "frozen onion, carrot and celery" and choose to use a frozen mix of completely different vegetables, rather than the same veg but fresh, and also apparently have never at any point considered that might be wrong. See it's not just misreading the recipe, it's also the fact that this veg is getting sauteed in oil and then add some vinegar and cook it off before adding chopped tomatoes. That's a REALLY WEIRD thing to do to peas and sweetcorn and he never considered that it was weird. He does more than half the cooking in our house and regularly makes pasta sauces that start with onion carrot and celery!

The meal was really nice anyway so I limited myself to a brief indignation then shut up about it and enjoyed the dinner.

There have been other times...like one time he made brownies from a jar recipe, and it said to mix together the dry ingredients then add eggs and bake. So because it didn't explicitly say to mix the eggs in, he poured them on top of the dry mix and put it in the oven like that. He said he was just following the instructions and they should have said to mix, but come on you're making brownies here, brownies do not consist of chocolate powder with baked eggs on top.

His visual memory is really bad, like he's a proper "kinesthetic learner" and doesn't seem to picture stuff in his head the way I do, which I've always struggled to understand and I wonder whether it's because when he's doing something he doesn't picture the end result as he's doing it, and therefore doesn't "see" a dish of powder with baked eggs on top of it, or pasta sauce with peas and sweetcorn as a base. Would love to hear from people whose brains work in the same way his does and who can fully understand making this type of mistake!

Heh heh. The brownies story is very funny.

my husband is similar-ish. Very literal when it comes to recipes and lack of confidence to branch out and try new things or adapt what he knows. He’s very good at things like steaks and fry ups, but terrified of anything involving flour, so pastry, dumplings, crumbles, Yorkshire pudding batter, béchamel sauce I do, even though all those things are pretty easy.

my biggest recipe-following error was making a chocolate mousse that called for two tablespoons of coffee. I added in two tablespoons of instant coffee granules rather than making up some hot liquid. It was grainy and bitter and obviously ruined.

Oh c'mon, I live with a dyslexic 10yo who is a brilliant little chef. Dyslexic people are capable of critical thought. OP's husband clearly has no interest in being a competent cook. No doubt much easier for him if she does all the grunt work.

How clueless about food would you have to be to think sweetcorn is a reasonable substitute for onions?

Is he useless in other spheres or is it just cooking?

A classic one in our household, from several years ago, was DH following a recipe for damper, and misreading teaspoon for tablespoon. He thought it was a lot of salt, but figured that it probably needed it and went right ahead.

He does experiment with cooking, but definitely has a tendency to want to follow recipes precisely. When you add that he equates "giving advice" with "criticising", there is not a lot I can do if I spot a problem. The other week he sensibly wanted to use up some old cheese and tried to make cheese straws. But we were out of ordinary flour so he went ahead with my gluten-free flour. Despite more than 20 years of exposure to my baking habits, work arounds and comments on what does or doesnt work gluten free, he was both surprised and extremely frustrated when he found himself with a crumbling dough that he couldn't possibly roll out ... (he did end up getting something to work and we had a nice batch of cheese crackers I guess you'd call them)

...........was DH following a recipe for damper

What's that?

You said he's a kinaesthetic learner - my daughter is like this, struggles with written instructions. She needs to see videos or watch someone do it. Also can't follow a verbal instruction, her brain just doesn't process it. She's also very literal - if the recipe doesn't say to mix it together, she wouldn't mix it together. She's intelligent but autistic. Not saying your H is autistic but executive functioning difficulties are a trait.

@Meowandthen

The op asked for opinions and suggestions. One of those was that there may be some neurodiversity involved. We were many many posts in before that was suggested. It was ONE of many opinions and suggestions. I think you should take a deep breath and think about why that suggestion made you so unreasonable angry.

My husband gets really really stressed following recipes. It's the kind of thing he'd do out of sheer panic. When in it's a recipe or methods he knows well he's totally fine.

This strikes me as someone who didn’t grow up cooking or who only learned to cook in a very regimented way.
I honestly think the veg thing is just as bizarre as the brownies because frying onions etc is the basis of so many meals. The frozen part isn’t the important bit!

I have ADHD and hate Delia's instructions. They are written like prose. I constantly miss things and have to read them a hundred times. I find a clear list of one instruction at a time, preferably numbered, much easier.

OP - Could your DH be ND? That sounds exactly like something my autistic DS would have done when younger. He used to read all instructions really literally. I taught him how to interpret instructions over time so he comes a cropper much less now but the brownie thing is certainly something he would have done when younger. I used to have be soooo careful and precise when giving instructions!

Does he make mistakes like that at work, or is it just at home?

If he filled in an application form, would he do it right?

Filling out an application form and following recipes for cooking/baking are completely different skills though. The latter involves so many layers of knowledge. In cooking there has to be a picture in your head of what it is supposed to look like and taste like. You have to have an understanding of what each individual component ingredient tastes like and what it will contribute to the overall dish. Likewise you have to understand what each method (chopping versus grating, stirring versus whisking) might produce. This is why people with executive functioning issues might find it more challenging.

Ah right thanks, not Delia then. But yeah it needs to be a good clear step by step. No assuming people know what to do.

Not understanding inference is a thing - could it possibly be something along those lines? Someone once explained examples of some issues that might cause to me saying if you had an appointment at 1pm and sent a message at 12.55pm saying you were stuck in traffic at x point (somewhere the recipient would know was more than 5 minutes away) but not specifically saying you'd be late that some people just wouldn't understand you inferred you'd be late. Any other times aside from cooking where there are issues?

I'm very, very straight-line literal and have been known to make mistakes like this until I learned when I was older that I don't have to LITERALLY exactly follow instructions. I still find it hard sometimes to "think outside the box", I can't for example picture a room how I want it decorated, I can't draw something out of imaginaton, it has to be from a picture etc, I can't write a made-up story. I've got better at recipes though which helps, but that's from years and years of daily cooking from scratch.

It's a simple bread made in Australia. All Year 6 campers have to make it. It's the law.
https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipes/easy-australian-damper-recipe/vjqvsg8t

He sounds really thick.

It would really piss me off and I couldn't be with him

I’ve seen that celery, carrot and onion mix in Asda. Tesco and Morrisons, can’t say I’ve seen it Sainsbury’s but I’ve never really looked. We don’t have a Waitrose where I live, the nearest one is 40 miles away.
My nephew is autistic and would have done the same thing with the eggs on top of the brownie powder mix. Unless it said ‘‘crack eggs into a bowl, whisk with a fork and stir them into the dry ingredients until throughly combined”. The frozen veg substitution wouldn’t have happened with him, he would have been literally frozen, unable to complete the dish.

Sainsbury’s used to sell it but I haven’t managed to actually find it in a store since before the pandemic started. M&S sell soffrito mix too.

Just bash it on the counter a couple of times to break up the lumps.

Has anyone mentioned yet where you can buy onion, celery, carrot mix and what it's called in each shop? 😁

My bf follows instructions just fine but then he decides to add something weird cause its in the fridge and about to go off. Another thing he does is adds two proteins in one meal which is fine but usually those are designed to be a separate meals so we run out of everything quicker when you add the meatballs and chicken in one meal

I agree,he just doesn't know the absolute basics. Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course is what he needs.

Tbh, being frozen can change the characteristics of an ingredient. So it may be that picking different frozen food would be a better substitute than the same food fresh. Although that is more likely to be true the opposite way (substituting fresh for frozen is more likely to result in weird results).

Frozen berries go all mushy in all situations for example. The oniony flavour of onions is stronger after they’ve been frozen apparently.

True, but that would be quite a niche thing to know, relative to the really basic cooking technique of "when in doubt, start by gently frying up some finely chopped onions/celery/carrots".

It was a Jamie Oliver so presumably it was a "meals in 15/30 minutes" recipe. He usually specifies prechopped base veg to save time, and frozen because it's much more practical and cheaper than buying it fresh.