number of ingredients in classic dishes?

one of my least favorite things about modern, 'creative' cookery is the tendency of chefs to put way too many ingredients in. it is not uncommon for a menu to list 10 or so. can the experts here come up with the classic dish with the MOST ingredients? - as kind of a benchmark for contemporary chefs to shoot for. ingredients which themselves have ingredients - stock for instance - still count as only one ingredient. i guess i am most interested in the european tradition; but input about other cuisines would also be interesting. thanks for you help.

Chef Carey's BBQ Sauce has 16 ingredients

Barbecue Sauce
There are food writers out there who would have us believe the word "barbecue" comes to us from the French "barbe a queue," which translates as "beard to tail." Far fetched, I think. Several 18th and 19th century New World travelers and writers mentioned "barbacoa" or "borbecus,” raised wooden frameworks used as beds or for smoking meats. This linguistic ancestry seems much more likely, given the "racks" or grids on which we "barbecue.”
Ingredient Quantity
Onions, yellow, minced 2 Cups
Garlic, finely minced 12 Cloves
Fresh ginger, finely minced 2 Tablespoons
Peanut oil ½ Cup
Cayenne 1 TBSP
Chile powder 4 Tablespoons
Catsup 6 cups
Dry mustard 3 Tablespoons
Dry red wine 2 Cups
Apple cider vinegar 1 Cup
Apple juice 1 Cup
Brown sugar 1 Cup
Paprika 5 Tablespoons
Soy sauce ½ Cup
Tabasco To taste
Pepper, black 1 Teaspoon

Method:
1) "Sweat" onions, garlic and ginger in the peanut oil in a sauce pan over medium heat until just soft.
2) Raise heat, add chile powder and sauté about 60 seconds.
3) Dissolve dry mustard in one cup of the red wine.
4) Add all remaining ingredients to pan and thoroughly incorporate.
5) Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Simmer about 15 minutes.
Note: For a marinade or a "basting" sauce, dilute one cup of Barbecue Sauce with three cups of water. For chicken or fish, add ½ cup of lemon juice to Barbecue Sauce.

this isn't quite what i had in mind. one eats barbecue - one ingredient of which is often the sauce. the sauce itself is not exactly a 'dish' or a food - not something one serves to someone by itself.

OK - I was just trying to get the ball rolling here. Quite often I copy a recipe and save it as a Word Document on my hard drive. Here's one with 18 ingredients, but I don't recall where I copied it from, so I hope I'm not infringing on a copyright.

BOEUF BOURGUIGNON
Active time: 1 1/4 hr Start to finish: 4 1/4 hr

1/4 lb thick-sliced bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 lb boneless beef chuck, cut into 2-inch pieces
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup brandy
1 (4-inch) piece of celery
4 fresh parsley stems (no leaves)
4 fresh thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves (not California)
2 cloves
2 onions, finely chopped
3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 carrots, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 (750-ml) bottle dry red wine (preferably Burgundy or Côtes du Rhône)
1 lb small (1 1/2-inch) boiling onions or pearl onions
1 lb mushrooms, quartered if large

Accompaniment: peeled boiled potatoes tossed with butter and parsley
Special equipment: kitchen string

Cook bacon in boiling salted water 3 minutes, then drain. Pat beef dry and season with salt and pepper. Divide flour and beef between 2 (1-quart) sealable plastic bags, seal, then shake to coat meat. Heat 1‚ tablespoons oil and 1 1/2 tablespoons butter in a wide 6- to 8-quart heavy pot over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then brown beef well on all sides in 2 or 3 batches, without crowding, adding remaining ‚ tablespoon oil as needed. Transfer to a bowl. Pour off any excess oil from pot, then add brandy to pot. Deglaze by boiling over high heat 1 minute, stirring and scraping up brown bits, then pour over beef. Tie celery, parsley, thyme, bay leaves, and cloves together with kitchen string to make a bouquet garni (tuck cloves into celery so they don’t fall out). Heat 1 tablespoon butter in cleaned pot over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then sauté bacon, stirring, 2 minutes. Add chopped onions, garlic, and carrots, then sauté, stirring, until onions are pale golden, about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add wine, meat with juices, and bouquet garni and simmer gently, partially covered, until meat is tender, 3 1/2 to 4 hours. While meat simmers, blanch boiling onions in boiling salted water 1 minute and drain in a colander. Rinse under cold running water, then peel. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then sauté boiling onions, stirring occasionally, until browned in patches. Season with salt and pepper. Add 2 cups water (1 1/2 cups if using pearl onions), then simmer, partially covered, until onions are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Boil, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until liquid is reduced to a glaze, 5 to 10 minutes. Heat remaining tablespoon butter in a large nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then sauté mushrooms, stirring, until golden brown and any liquid mushrooms give off is evaporated, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Stir onions and mushrooms into stew and cook 10 minutes. Remove bouquet garni and skim any fat from surface of stew. Season with salt and pepper.

Cooks' note: Boeuf bourguignon may be made 1 day ahead. Cool, uncovered, then chill, covered (it tastes even better made ahead because it gives the flavors time to develop). If making ahead, it’s easier to remove fat from surface after chilling.
Makes 8 servings.

[Jenise]

Creighton, are you objecting to the actual number of ingredients used in a dish, or the tendency of modern menus to describe in detail what's going to be on your plate?

If the former, I don't quite agree that modern cookery uses too many ingredients, or even that modern cookery is in itself the culprit. And I'm definitely am not a fan of the "never more than five ingredients" theory except as a means to help get people who are afraid of cooking out of the fast food lines and into the kitchen. Many of the beautiful, complex dishes of the world's great ethnic cuisines (Indian, for instance) require a fair number of ingredients, and so does a lot of classic French cookery if you break the recipes down into all the ingredients required to make the parts that build the dish, which is often a composition of elements rather than a one-dish meal.

If the latter, it would take things way too far to mention all the ingredients required to make the parts that build the sauces, to quote myself, but I really appreciate a menu's naming the highlights involved in a given dish, especially when the elements are a little unusual in terms of luxury, nonclassic ingredients or proportion. The details make me feel like the chef really wants me to understand how much he or she cares about giving each dish a unique personality, and that makes me crave the food. Ingredients to which people have common allergies or digestion problems should also be listed--like cream, peanuts and seafoods. The listings also help people who don't understand classics get a better idea of the dish.

But there's absolutely no need for any menu to list anything you can't see or taste, and something that's been a really irksome trend of the last ten years is a tendency toward grandiosity in the use of blathering adjectives. Information's one thing, attitude's another.

one of my least favorite things about modern, 'creative' cookery is the tendency of chefs to put way too many ingredients in. it is not uncommon for a menu to list 10 or so. can the experts here come up with the classic dish with the MOST ingredients? - as kind of a benchmark for contemporary chefs to shoot for. ingredients which themselves have ingredients - stock for instance - still count as only one ingredient. i guess i am most interested in the european tradition; but input about other cuisines would also be interesting. thanks for you help.

First, I'm a hobby cook with nowhere near the experience(s) of the majority of folks on this forum. Second, this to me seems to be a really hard question because of (to me) the difficulty in defining terms. What's the standard?

How about bouillabaise? Here's a recipe with 23 ingredients, if you include water, salt and pepper and firm fish as a group and oily fish as a group. But, it calls for 4 firm and 2 oily, so does that bump it up to 27? Is this considered the classic recipe? If it's the classic and you only use 2 firm fish (or omit any other ingredient, as that goes), does that diminish the dish to the point of pedestrian v. classic?

I don't mean to sound, I don't know... confrontational, maybe. But this is one of the first things that came to mind when I read your original post.


8 to 10 pounds firm white-fleshed fish (choose 4 from this group): redfish (ocean perch), red snapper, blue-mouth, rockfish, sea robin (gurnard), monkfish, cod, porgy (scup), grouper, halibut, haddock, dab, turbot, wreckfish, ocean pout (ling), cusk, wolffish (ocean catfish), tautog (blackfish), tilefish, sculpin

4 to 5 pounds "oily" fish (choose 2 from this group): bluefish, moray eel, conger eel, mackerel, shark, dogfish, striped bass, sea bass, kingfish, Spanish mackerel, mahimahi (dolphinfish)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium-size onions, sliced
8 cups cold water
2 bouquet garni, each consisting of 4 sprigs fresh parsley, 6 sprigs fresh thyme, 10 black peppercorns, and 1 bay leaf, tied in cheesecloth
1 cup dry white wine, such as Muscadet, Sancerre, or Cassis (the wine, not the blackberry liqueur)
1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil
6 to 8 large garlic cloves, to your taste, finely chopped
Pinch of saffron threads, crumbled and steeped in 1/ 4 cup hot water until needed
2 large onions, finely chopped
3 leeks, white and light green part only, halved lengthwise, well washed, and thinly sliced
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 pounds ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 long thin strip orange zest, with no pith
1 tablespoon fennel seed
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads steeped in 1/4 cup tepid dry white wine until needed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Boiling water as needed
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons anise liquor such as Pernod or Ouzo
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley leave
1 recipe sauce rouille

But there's absolutely no need for any menu to list anything you can't see or taste, and something that's been a really irksome trend of the last ten years is a tendency toward grandiosity in the use of blathering adjectives. Information's one thing, attitude's another.

Jenise, I was watching Bobby Flay the other night and he made a comment that expands on your point... If you're putting x ingredient in a dish, make sure you taste x ingredient when it's done.

ok, so i screwed up on this question - wasn't necessarily clear in my own mind what i am objecting to. certainly i was thinking only of major and visible ingredients - not butter and herbs and wine, etc. i will try to reformulate and even gather examples and try again another time.

I was going to say bouillabaise - I see ScottD beat me to it. But I would say that fresh tomatoes instead of paste, and don't forget the ingredients in the rouille, which can add another 8-9 ingredients.

You should also go to Michel Bras website. He does a fresh vegetable appetizer/salad plate in season that includes more than 2 dozen vegetable ingredients.

I won't eat dishes without at least 12 ingredients. (Just kidding.) My friend swears by a four-ingredient cookbook. You don't always need 20 ingredients to make a good dish.