The lure of the 5-ingredient recipe seems irresistible. Short list means simple, right? With a possible three out of five already in your pantry. That single recipe subcategory accounts for a lot of scrolling through the websites of All Recipes, Eating Well, Good Housekeeping and Rachael Ray, Southern Living, Food Network – you name it.
I am scratching my head about this, though, because I see 5-ingredient recipes that should have asterisks. They are the culinary equivalent of fake news. With notable exceptions, the recipes don’t count water, basic seasonings, oil. Why?
I am looking at a “5-ingredient” recipe for Simple Roast Chicken With Garlic and Lemon at JustATaste.com: the bird, a lemon, butter, rosemary sprigs, garlic. Except any cook worth her salt and pepper knows what’s missing from that lineup. The S&P are in the directions, however. I have the “Quick-Shop-and-Prep 5 Ingredient Baking” book from a couple years back, and its Spiced Chess Pie calls for 13 ingredients. Milk, cornmeal and ground allspice are in boldface, signaling to those who read the foreword that those items need to be purchased; the premise of the book relies on your stock of flour, sugar, butter, ice water, eggs, vanilla extract, cinnamon, ground ginger, salt and nutmeg.
The 5-ingredient phenomenon makes me wonder what home cooks really want when they type the phrase into their search fields.