# That's not what that recipe means! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 25, 2020, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558 "2020-04-25T15:51:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/101 "2020-04-27T18:37:48Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > They both have bicarb. Baking soda _is_ sodium bicarb, a base. Baking powder is bicarb with an added acid. The one in my pantry has sodium aluminum phosphate and monocalcium phosphate. A solution of baking soda will have a higher pH than one of baking powder I would expect the more basic solution to more readily saponify the fats in steak. This confirms what my rudimentary knowledge of chemistry tells me, but does not explain what I encountered. Using baking soda to tenderize meat is common in chinese recipes, if you’ve had a disk like orange beef it may have been prepared that way. I also use baking soda in the place of lye when making bagels and soft pretzels to help get a firm brown crust, and as I mentioned before, I know how lutefisk is made and tastes. So i am stuck here for an explanation, and don’t especially want to try it again, but I’ll find some way to try this. But I can tell you that baking soda alone won’t produce that result. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/102 "2020-04-27T18:42:39Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > In India, they’ll say “tomato sauce” or “tomato ketchup,” and I’ll be wondering what other kinds of non-tomato ketchup are available. Besides the original fish-based sauce and the Mushroom Ketchup someone else mentioned, I’ve seen recipes for Walnut Ketchup from the 19th century. Never had it, though. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/103 "2020-04-27T19:34:03Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > [According to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chow_mein#American_Chinese_cuisine), it’s an east coast vs. west coast thing; > > This largely matches my personal experience. As a Caucasian who grew up in San Diego and now lives in the PNW, when I hear “chow mein” I always think soft noodles. I’ve never seen “lo mein” on a menu in any restaurant I’ve eaten in and I’ve never encountered the crispy noodle version. The only thing I would even think to use crispy chow mein noodles for is as a topping for a green salad with grilled chicken, assorted veggies, mandarin wedges, and some sort of sweet ginger-sesame dressing. I used to go with work friends to lunch on Mondays. We called it Noodle Monday, because we went to this Chinese noodle restaurant in San Gabriel (Alhambra?). I always got the Shanghai chow mein and never the Hong Kong chow mein. Shanghai style was stir fried (not steamed) but made with soft wheat noodles. Hong Kong style was with the crispy noodles as you described. Not my thang. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/104 "2020-04-27T19:41:34Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Using baking soda to tenderize meat is common in chinese recipes, if you’ve had a disk like orange beef it may have been prepared that way. This is called velveting, though I’m more familiar with using corn starch than baking soda. > **[Velveting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velveting)** > > Velveting is a technique in Chinese cuisine for preserving the moisture of meat while cooking. Additionally, it provides a soft or "velvety" texture to the meat of any entrée. > The technique is applied to raw meat before cooking either in oil or in water. It involves pre-coating the meat with baking soda or a mixture of oil, egg white, corn starch, and sherry or rice wine, and then blanching and drying. The meat can then be sautéed, stir-fried, deep-fried, simmered, or boiled. During cooking, the... ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/105 "2020-04-27T19:52:04Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > If it doesn’t have beans in it then it isn’t Chili, it’s some kind of Manwich knockoff. > [@Chronos](#): > > I agree with you, **Sitnam** , but a lot of folks take offense at that, and back up their claims to chili never containing beans with links to the earliest known recipes… which include beans. > > Apparently, to some Texan “purists”, proper chili is just wet steak. I think it’s useful to distinguish between “chili”—the fruit of the capsicum—and “chili con carne”—a stew of meat, beans, or both flavored with chili And other spices. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/106 "2020-04-27T19:57:40Z")
Cooks Illustrated has recipes that call for adding baking soda to ground beef to tenderize it. I tried to find a detailed explanation, since they often go into the science behind their recipes, but so far all I’ve found is this sentence: “To keep the meat tender, we treated it with baking soda, which raised the pH and kept the proteins from bonding too tightly.” ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/107 "2020-04-27T20:12:15Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > I think it’s useful to distinguish between “chili”—the fruit of the capsicum—and “chili con carne”—a stew of meat, beans, or both flavored with chili. The fruit is usually spelled chile. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/108 "2020-04-27T20:21:47Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > The fruit is usually spelled chile. “Chili” by far is the most common spelling in the United States for the fruit. It is also the preferred spelling of the Associated Press. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/109 "2020-04-27T20:23:20Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > The fruit is usually spelled chile. Depends on where you are. It’s not that simple. Chili and chile can both refer to the plant, as well as to foods or sauces flavored with it. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/110 "2020-04-27T21:08:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I agree with you, **Sitnam** , but a lot of folks take offense at that, and back up their claims to chili never containing beans with links to the earliest known recipes… which include beans. > > Apparently, to some Texan “purists”, proper chili is just wet steak. I wouldn’t say beans are required, but they weren’t part of the original 19th century San Antonio recipes either. I’d guess chili’s one of those things where the original term has lost all real meaning; you have stuff like a Greek meat sauce (kima) being finagled a bit in Cincinnati and being sold as “chili”, you have stuff like “white chicken chili”, which is sort of absurd, and everything in between. I’d say that the original stuff was the stew of beef, peppers and onions that developed in the greater San Antonio area in the 18th and 19th century from spicy tagine style stews cooked by Canary Islander settlers to the area in the early 1700s and that got adapted with local conditions and with local food traditions. No beans in any of that though. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/111 "2020-04-27T23:03:57Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Depends on where you are. It’s not that simple. Chili and chile can both refer to the plant, as well as to foods or sauces flavored with it. Also chile, chili, and chilli aren’t different enough to serve as distinctions. Most people are going to pronounce them identically. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/112 "2020-04-28T02:30:50Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Depends on where you are. It’s not that simple. Chili and chile can both refer to the plant, as well as to foods or sauces flavored with it. I’ve seen chili used for the fruit but don’t recall seeing chile used for the stew with the possible exception of some things like tomatillo-based green chile which has little in common with the red stuff from Texas and Wendy’s. I’d be curious to see an example of a product commercially packaged & available in America that calls the peppers chilies or the stew called chile. ---
**Author:** ![GMANCANADA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gmancanada/32/2837_2.png) [@GMANCANADA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GMANCANADA)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/113 "2020-04-28T03:06:34Z")
For me it’s **pad thai** made with a sweet ketchup based sauce. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel extensively in Thailand on many occasions and I’ve never once come across pad thai made with ketchup. That seems to be a very North American thing. I can’t say it absolutely doesn’t exist, but if it does it’s pretty rare. Normally it’s fish sauce, lemon/lime juice and palm sugar or plain sugar. No ketchup or tomato based ingredients at all. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Brother\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_brother_1/32/3513_2.png) [@Little\_Brother\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Brother_1)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/114 "2020-04-28T23:57:03Z")
> [@MikeG](#): > > I’m not sure what my reaction would be to seeing someone eat a Chicago style dog with a knife and fork. I’ve never seen it in my 50 years in Chicago so I’ll probably never know. You’ve never seen it because anyone who attempted it in Chicago was most likely terminated with extreme prejudice, and the remains fed into a woodchipper before you got there. If the rigid fundamentalist fanaticism for Chicago Hot Dog Correctness expressed on the Internets is any indication, taking utensils to that sacrament would be like visiting the Vatican and blithely picking one’s teeth with a splinter of the True Cross. (I started to write “wiping one’s fundament with the Shroud of Turin”, but the Shroud has been discredited in the eyes of all but a few resurrect-hards.) ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/115 "2020-04-29T02:14:40Z")
> [@Little\_Brother\_1](#): > > You’ve never seen it because anyone who attempted it in Chicago was most likely terminated with extreme prejudice, and the remains fed into a woodchipper before you got there. > > If the rigid fundamentalist fanaticism for Chicago Hot Dog Correctness expressed on the Internets is any indication, taking utensils to that sacrament would be like visiting the Vatican and blithely picking one’s teeth with a splinter of the True Cross. > > (I started to write “wiping one’s fundament with the Shroud of Turin”, but the Shroud has been discredited in the eyes of all but a few resurrect-hards.) You can’t use a fork? Then how to you avoid spilling the ketchup everywhere? ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/116 "2020-04-29T06:36:50Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Also chile, chili, and chilli aren’t different enough to serve as distinctions. Most people are going to pronounce them identically. Complaining that words with similar pronunciations are confusing is a very cold attitude to take. Positively Chilly! As for food names/recipes vs. content. At least 50% of the examples listed here are due to regional _preference_ differences. For example, whether ketchup should contain sugar or not. Or even be tomato-based or not. (the original was not!) The other 50% are due to linguistic variances. Where people _eat_ the same foods, but cal it something different. The classic example would be a Brit ordering “chips” in the US, or an american ordering “biscuit” in the UK. The other 15% are due to people with bad statistics. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/117 "2020-04-29T07:50:37Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > My high school Spanish classes taught a sort of bastardized Castilian Spanish, but being in Southern California, we were mostly exposed to Mexican Spanish. This led to some real confusion, like being taught that a “torta” was a cake when we all knew damn well it was a sandwich. Definitely bastardized, because for this born-and-bred Spaniard a “torta” is most definitely a slap in the face applied with full-force and an open hand or, by extension, any kind of big impact. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/118 "2020-04-29T10:59:00Z")
> [@MarvinKitFox](#): > > For example, whether ketchup should contain sugar or not. Or even be tomato-based or not. (the original was not!). All the examples given here for non-tomato ketchup here been historic, like a century or more old. Show me something labeled as ketchup _today_ that can’t be described as “tomato ketchup.” That’s what I’m asking for. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/119 "2020-04-29T11:28:15Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > All the examples given here for non-tomato ketchup here been historic, like a century or more old. Show me something labeled as ketchup _today_ that can’t be described as “tomato ketchup.” That’s what I’m asking for. [Geo Watkins Mushroom Ketchup](https://www.britishcornershop.co.uk/img/large/TJ0971.jpg), still produced and sold today. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558/120 "2020-04-29T11:33:22Z")
Thanks. How is it? Should I try to get some? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thats-not-what-that-recipe-means/852558.md?page=7)