# Genius/Horror ingredient swaps you have made **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [August 13, 2021, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561 "2021-08-13T02:03:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/61 "2021-08-16T21:43:08Z")
I love barbecue ribs but, alas, I’m not allowed pork these days (red meat - medical reasons). So how do you make ribs without…ribs? Well, chicken drumsticks work surprisingly well. We call them chicken ribs when we do them. They’re not the same, but they’re very nearly as good. A disaster? Back in student days, for some inexplicable reason I got it into my head that I was going to make sauerkraut. One of the ingredients was dill seeds. With far too much optimism, I trotted off to my local Asian store, where, after a brief discussion, I came away will a pack of til. That’s sesame seeds. No, of course it didn’t work, but in truth I suspect substituting sesame for dill was only one of the more minor problems with the plan. j ETA - I’m taking a moment to recommend Lee Kum Kee Spare Rib Sauce. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/62 "2021-08-16T22:01:57Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I can assure everyone that you can not substitute powdered sugar for flour when making pancakes. This substitution is also not recommended for gravy. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/63 "2021-08-16T22:12:23Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#): > > I’m not allowed pork these days (red meat - medical reasons). Wait. Isn’t pork “the other white meat”? Or did I just make that up? When I make pulled pork or pork chops I give myself healthy points! ---
**Author:** ![shh1313](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shh1313/32/8020_2.png) [@shh1313](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shh1313)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/64 "2021-08-16T23:23:09Z")
I was out of eggs one day, but I had chia seeds. They were for my smoothies. I knew once wet they were gelatinous and figured they would be a great sub for blueberry muffins, smoothie’s, cakes and pancakes. They were! High fiber, nice flavor and nice additional texture for baking. They are neutral in flavor and will soak up the flavor or spice profile. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/65 "2021-08-16T23:32:29Z")
My recipe for chocolate truffles calls for 5 oz of heavy cream. I worked out that 2 oz of butter and 3 oz of milk will give the same butterfat content. It does and they tasted the same. Once you coated them you couldn’t see that there were tiny beads of butter that hadn’t quite amalgamated. But there was no difference in taste that I could detect. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/66 "2021-08-16T23:44:59Z")
My son wouldn’t eat Western pasta as a kid so I substituted lumps of slightly flattened biscuit dough for lasagna noodles. The first time I tried it I wasn’t following a recipe, just throwing together lasagna-type ingredients but it worked so well that I wrote down exactly what I’d done in order to replicate it. Years later it is still a family favorite, known as “faux-sagna.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2021, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/67 "2021-08-16T23:48:19Z")
Yeah, it is my "secret ingredient. " I add it to roasts, burgers, etc. > [@kayaker](#): > > **Joey** , that’s exactly the kinda substitution my sister routinely does in her kitchen. White powder subbed for white powder. She’s the most awful cook ever. Don’t leave out your bag of coke, whatever you do! 😛 > [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Lean beef? This exists? \<\\> Yeah, that is a new thing to make ground beef leaner and leaner. I want my ground beef to be fatty, some of the fat will cook out. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/68 "2021-08-17T00:07:32Z")
I accidentally grabbed the curry powder instead of the nutmeg to shake on top of a glass of eggnog. It was a mild curry powder and it was actually quite good. If I had grabbed the spicy curry it might have been a different story. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/69 "2021-08-17T01:07:54Z")
I make giant vats of spaghetti sauce when I have a bumper crop of maters. One time, I had a green pepper that I didn’t want to waste and chopped it up and tossed it in. Ruined the whole batch, pretty much. Just doesn’t belong in there. I’ll never do that again! We still ate it all, but you know… ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/70 "2021-08-17T10:11:19Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Wait. Isn’t pork “the other white meat”? Much as I’d like to think so, no such luck. > **[Red meat | Definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_meat#Definition)** > > Under the culinary definition, the meat from adult or "gamey" mammals (for example, beef, horse, mutton, venison, boar, hare) is red meat, while that from young mammals (rabbit, veal, lamb) is white. Poultry is white, excluding certain birds such as ostriches. Most cuts of pork are red, others are white. Game is sometimes put in a separate category altogether. (French: viandes noires — "dark meats".) Some meats (lamb, pork) are classified differently by different writers. > According to the United... j ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/71 "2021-08-17T13:23:33Z")
Here’s a swap that falls into the genius category: Root beer floats are wonderful. A couple of us were sitting around one day and thought, hmmm. We have no root beer. We do have vanilla ice cream. And we do have some Manhattan Special coffee soda. Incredibly good. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/72 "2021-08-17T13:47:49Z")
> [@alovem](#): > > I’d been making rib-meat “tacos” for a while, and, around the same time, I was experimenting with pizza dough. One day, I swapped out the corn tortilla for a thick base of that pizza dough, changed the rib seasoning a little and made tsatziki sauce. It turned out to be an outstanding gyro workaround. Certainly not genius (per OP), although I did feel proud of myself for about a week. What happened? I tried making it again. 😀 Sounds like you were halfway to making a [lahmacun (a.k.a. Turkish pizza)](https://www.themediterraneandish.com/easy-turkish-lahmacun-recipe/). > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Around the same time a friend of mine was making mushroom stroganoff for dinner but couldn’t find the sour cream he’d just bought. “Oh,” his roommate said, “Sorry, I ate it.” Like, with a spoon, straight from the tub. > > My friend was freaking out, and I was like, “Hey, substitutions work fine. Sour cream is just a tart creamy fatty spread. Mayonnaise would probably work pretty well.” He was deeply skeptical but took my advice. > > Mayonnaise did not work pretty well. Mayonnaise, no, but plain yoghurt is a perfectly acceptable substitute for sour cream in most circumstances and sometimes vice versa (creme fraiche can also work for either if it’s on offer where you live, although it’s less tangy). ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/73 "2021-08-17T14:01:21Z")
> [@Tarataratara](#): > > > [@kitap](#): > > > > I used to make Jiffy brand brownies. It occurred to me that I could substitute extracts for the water to give them more flavor. This was a good discovery. > > Have you tried coffee in place of water? That’s good. Except for tiramisu I’m not a coffee person. I tiramisued my way through Italy. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/74 "2021-08-17T14:04:43Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > plain yoghurt is a perfectly acceptable substitute for sour cream in most circumstances I’ve grown to prefer yoghurt over sour cream in many dishes. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/75 "2021-08-17T18:08:07Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Sounds like you were halfway to making a [lahmacun (a.k.a. Turkish pizza)](https://www.themediterraneandish.com/easy-turkish-lahmacun-recipe/) That looks good and is probably more practical than my homegrown gyro, which was just too much for late-night dining. > > [@Gyrate](#): > > > > Mayonnaise, no, but plain yoghurt is a perfectly acceptable substitute for sour cream in most circumstances and sometimes vice versa (creme fraiche can also work for either if it’s on offer where you live, although it’s less tangy). > > > [@kayaker](#): > > > > I’ve grown to prefer yoghurt over sour cream in many dishes. I’ll third your yogurt observation. Around the same time as my gyro experiment, I came across a recipe for Caeser salad dressing that called for unsweetened Greek yogurt, and I realized that it works well as a substitute for or an addition to mayo in several recipes (coleslaw, for example). ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/76 "2021-08-17T19:13:36Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Mayonnaise did not work pretty well. Mayonnaise does, however, actually work really well as a substitute for butter on a grilled cheese sandwich. Some chefs would say it’s actually better than butter. Seriously, next time you make a grilled cheese sandwich try spreading mayo on the outside instead of butter. Mayo is mostly oil, so it serves the same function as butter, but it doesn’t burn as easily as butter does. So you avoid getting that burnt butter flavor on your grilled cheese. And it’s so much easier to spread than butter. \*Full disclosure: This wasn’t my idea; I actually got the idea from NPR’s _The Splendid Table_. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2021, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/77 "2021-08-17T19:39:36Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Mayonnaise does, however, actually work really well as a substitute for butter on a grilled cheese sandwich. I like to paint tilapia fillets with mayonnaise, then coat with breadcrumbs. Into the air fryer and yumm. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/78 "2021-08-18T01:13:12Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > I’ve never specifically used stilton, but bleu cheese omelettes can be pretty tasty, especially with the addition of crumbled bacon and grilled onions and mushrooms. I’d say it isn’t too far of a reach to compare blue cheese with feta which is pretty common for Greek omelettes or skillets (served over hashed brown potatoes). There is certain to be spinach and onion in there as well and probably tomato. For a real treat, seek a place that also has gyros meat (and maybe olives though careful with the salt) and plan for a nap in the early afternoon. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/79 "2021-08-18T01:49:45Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > > [@WildaBeast](#): > > > > Mayonnaise does, however, actually work really well as a substitute for butter on a grilled cheese sandwich. > > I like to paint tilapia fillets with mayonnaise, then coat with breadcrumbs. Into the air fryer and yumm. Isn’t there a recipe for chicken prepared similarly, one that was promoted by one of the mayo brands? ---
**Author:** ![Precambrianmollusc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/precambrianmollusc/32/63_2.png) [@Precambrianmollusc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Precambrianmollusc)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561/80 "2021-08-18T15:06:53Z")
I was looking for a recommendation here for a spicy sauce to accompany a grilled goat, someone suggested a sauce containing cold coffee. It worked really well, added some earthy tones, anyway I figured it would add depth to a chilli, and it does, so I generally add what is left in the coffee pot whenever I make a chilli. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genius-horror-ingredient-swaps-you-have-made/948561.md?page=5)