… and round these parts (the south of England) the usual term is a Hog Roast.
But I digress. About a year ago it occurred to me that damson jam is a real quick set; and so (unsurprisingly) is plum jam. And surely it would be possible to make striped jam using alternate layers? And wouldn’t that be a cool, fun Christmas present for friends and family?
Yeah, it’s possible. But I discovered when I made a pilot batch that each layer has to be a separate set. It took an entire day to make five jars. Cool presents, but never again.
If I remember correctly, one of the things the pilot batch taught me was that you have to half boil a batch of each jam, and then boil-to-set sub-lots of each batch alternately (for stripes); and I was concerned about managing the half-boiled jams, so I was working at a fairly small scale. Maybe they would start setting because of evaporation (because they really are quick setting jams)? And so on. Plus, whilst the pilot batch pointed me in that direction, I’d never actually done it before, so it was all a bit hit and miss.
You could say that I now know for next time - but there ain’t gonna be a next time!
I made some very nice Chicken Kiev (oven roasted, not fried) that I probably won’t do again. Much of the garlic butter oozed out in the pan, and it’s just as easy to saute a chicken breast with garlic butter.
That reminds me: soooo many recipes that involve onions and beef (especially ground beef) have instructions to cook the onions, sometimes in oil, then remove them and brown the beef, then add the onions back in.
I’ve quite literally NEVER done it that way. Those onions go in the pot the same time as the beef.
I like to brown the onions separately, you get more even browning and don’t end up with bits of raw-tasting onion. I have a few instant pot recipes that have you brown the chunks of meat first, remove them, then wilt the aromatics, and then deglaze the pot and return the meat. I don’t know if i have any recipes that have you brown the onions first, but it’s the same principle.
Browning meat first is pretty typical, because you want a dry and usually lightly oiled environment to encourage good browning. And you don’t want to crowd the pan, as meat releases moisture as it’s cooking, and too much meat in the pan causes the pan to get wet and the meat to boil rather than brown.
Similarly, trying to brown the meat with the onions in the pan is nigh impossible to do correctly, as onions contain lots of moisture and discourage browning. This isn’t important in some recipes. Not every stew needs browned meat, but properly browned meat does add different flavors via the Maillard reaction to the end product.
I’ve never seen instructions to brown onions first, either, but it’s probably for reasons like this.
It wasn’t very difficult, but in the end I couldn’t detect any improved taste over the decent-quality stuff I buy in the grocery store. I suppose if I had my own dairy farm with superbly high-quality milk coming from my cows, then it might make sense. For this better-than-average home cook? I just don’t see the point.
…and one qualified, “never again.” Casatiello Napoletano - Italian Stuffed Easter Bread.
I can’t remember what recipe I used; possibly this one. To be fair, I’m not much of a baker, but I remember this being a lot of work. It was good, but I’m not sure it was worth the effort.
I will likely try it one more time, since I think I learned some things from the first go-around that might save me some headaches, but I don’t see it being a frequent part of our dinners.
Do you like chocolate? Here’s one of the oldest, easiest and best:
HERSHEY’S “PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” Chocolate Cake
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
Directions:
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans (or see below for variations).
Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pan(s).
Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with “PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.
VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.
THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.
BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.
CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.
“PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” CHOCOLATE FROSTING
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
2/3 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency. Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.
Have you ever done a blind taste test? I read that vanillin usually wins, to the surprise of people doing the tasting.
Now that I know this, while I can’t bring myself to use straight-up vanillin, I do use Molina Mexican Vanilla Blend, which contains both vanilla and vanillin. (No coumarin, as they are at pains to assure us, since that’s the bad rap Mexican vanilla gets.) I’m happy with it.
I am probably most aligned with @kayaker in this thread. I spend hours almost every day in the kitchen because I enjoy the work. The smell of citrus as you microplane it! The satisfying ka-thunk as a sharp knife cuts through a crisp long bean! The glistening shimmer as oil gets to exactly the right temperature for sautéing! The silkiness of a perfectly emulsified cake batter!
And to answer the OP’s question - I canned my own lime marmalade once, but the work involved in sterilizing everything did not appeal so no more of that, even though the result was tasty. I still make things that could be canned, like pickles and chutney, but I refrigerate or freeze them.
I also made corned beef once, mostly because I was able to buy juniper berries and was intrigued by the thought of using them. It wasn’t hard, but I didn’t like having a lump of meat taking up space in the fridge for however long it had to sit, and the result wasn’t special. So I won’t do it again.
For the record, I can, barely, taste the difference if it’s the predominant flavor in a dish. But if it’s in a baked good where it’s added to offset other flavors (many chocolate cakes for example) I’ll use whatever is cheaper with nary a care.
But, actually, @CairoCarol brought up another Never Again for me. Homemade canned (mason jar) pickled jalapenos.
First, they were absolutely amazing. 1000% better than what you get in the store, especially because I made them with my mother in laws home grown jalapenos. Epic in every way.
But the WORK!!! And the only way to make it worth the effort is to do pretty large batches, which meant I still had some left when the next year’s harvests come in. Much easier to clean and freeze the some the of excess, both as is in freezer safe containers, and as batches of salsa.
My understanding is that all the thousands of lovely compounds boil right out of real vanilla when cooking, except vanillin, so you might as well use the artificial stuff in baking, saving the expensive real stuff for uncooked goods.
But since you ask, here’s a video of her yellow cake recipe
She says it needs to be superfine sugar, but I always use regular granulated sugar, and it comes out great.
I never use the plastic wrap, although that’s a neat trick. I just start slowly.
Oh cool, she throws in the adjustment to make it chocolate. The other adjustment in her cookbook to make it a chocolate cake is to use 3 whole eggs instead of 6 egg yolks, because the extra richness of the yolks doesn’t matter when you have all that chocolate. She also suggests that as a simplification of this recipe.
the youtube is 7:36 with a lot of explanation, and gets through “making the batter”, which is the part that’s different from using a mix.
But here’s her youtube of what to do after that:
It’s another 3:22 minutes.
I’ve made both the yellow and the chocolate cake lots of times, and it always comes out great.
This thread brought back loads of memories. I used to cook a lot when I was a teen, including, in the “once but never again” category: Melton Mowbray Pork Pie, croissants, danish pastries, and Croquembouche – @Stoid 's Gâteau St-Honoré picture above reminded me of that one.
In the “made several times but won’t bother again” group are fried chicken, eclairs, cream puffs and tamales.
I’m not a very good chef, but I like to try things now and then.
I figured, let’s try Mayonnaise! Looks simple enough, and I bet homemade tastes even better.
Got the ingredients together. Mixed it up. Did it wrong. It did not make Mayo.
Tried to fix the first batch. Did not work.
Made a new, fresh batch, using exacting measurements, and exacting blending techniques. Still broken.
Tried one last time, exactly like before! Halleluja! It worked perfectly!
Tasted EXACTLY like store-bought. Totally not worth the time.
I’ve made strawberry freezer jam a couple of times. It really does taste fresher / brighter / better somehow than store-bought. I just usually don’t remember about doing it until we’ve eaten too many of the berries and don’t have enough for jam.
I use Alton Brown’s sauerbraten recipe, which involves juniper berries. Yes, it takes up room in the fridge for 3 days. But we make it only for Christmas dinner, so it’s worth it. I was at a grocery store once, years back, when I heard someone asking the produce clerk if they had juniper berries. I quickly popped into the conversation to explain what they were (and that the grocery didn’t carry them, but Penzey’s, 10 miles away, did).
