I once cooked a recipe from Alton’s show that got me banned from cooking at my mom’s for 2 years. Extra points if you can guess what recipe it was. Hint: it was not the pot roast.
Apple pie? :dubious:
Fried tofu?
Anything with tofu should be grounds for disownment. **YIK!!! :mad: **
I’m not a cook or a physicist, but it strikes me as possible that this kind of shortcut (and I mean cooling down to fridge temperature, not the timing) could have had negative consequences to the pie, just as doubling the oven temp and halving the cooking time similarly doesn’t work.
PS, since it addresses the same poster (though not the same post): I have eaten tofu in various forms and styles for most of my life. If you hate it, you’re eating it wrong. 
For me, it’s his baby back ribs recipe. I knew it was going to be a disaster (at least for my tastes) when I started, but I wanted to give it a shot. Incidentally, that pot roast recipe is one of my favorites and in regular rotation in this household. I don’t understand the negative complaints. Reminds me very much of Veracruz or Cuban types of stews with the olives, raisins, and tomato.
I have no idea if Alton Brown is the saintliest man in the world, or if he spends every spare minute searching for kittens and puppies to kick, but I would say that judging a person by how they appear on “Reality” TV is probably unwise.
More for me! I just had smoked tofu for lunch, and it was delicious.
The disgusting French “Onion” soup made with apple juice (his theory: 50% apple juice+50%beef stock~=veal stock. The problem is: 50%apple juice+50%beef stock=vomit inducing sweet/salty nausea.)
I threw out the whole pot because it was so incredibly bad.
Maybe because the recipe calls for apple cider?
(I don’t know if it’d REALLY make a difference in this case, but it seems possible?)
Count me as someone else who used to like “Good Eats” until I saw Alton acting bitchy on “Next Food Network Star”–I think it was season 2 or 3, he clearly didn’t want to be there, and he was unnecessarily snarky to the contestants. “Why can’t we send them all home?” was one of his bon mots. I’ve pretty well made it a point not to watch FN in the last couple of years, so I don’t know if he’s been equally rude since.
My attitude towards “Good Eats” has changed in retrospect too: the whole thing seems too canned, too perfect, as do most modern cooking shows. Julia Child, on the other hand, always let her expertise shine through without seeming overpowering or condescending, and that’s what sets her apart from the personalities that FN has cultivated. Alton, Giada and Ina make it seem like they’re doing us a favor by letting us watch them cook. (Oh, and Giada ticked me off with her smarmy comments about Lidia Bastianich’s PBS series in an interview a few years ago. Cite: http://www.nypost.com/pagesixmag/issues/20080928/Sizzler+Giada+De+Laurentiis)
On Good Eats, Alton also had a bum recipe for sauerkraut. It tasted like licorice strained through an old gym sock.
Also, Alton’s idiotic “do-it-yourself” smoker out of a cardboard, old tin, tin snips, a hot plate, etc…probably cost $40.00 to make if you didn’t have a scrap yard out back. Plus another couple of hours to put it together.
A year or so ago, you could buy a cheapo electric smoker for about $80. And you could use it more than once. And it won’t melt in rain.
I followed the recipe, but misremembered writing it down. Seriously, the broth was disgusting…inediblely disgusting. The problem is that it’s way too fucking sweet. Apple juice, apple cider…doesn’t matter: you needed 95% less fruit juice.
This is one of those rare times I’ll disagree with pulykamel and say that I think his baby back rib recipe is fantastic. Granted, I prefer to smoke mine, but his recipe is really great if you’re going to braise them.
I totally agree about the onion soup, though. It was not very good at all. Same with his chocolate mousse with gelatin. I carved it.
I just read that link. She said that Lidia is boring. I wouldn’t call that “smarmy.” I would have said much worse. Lidia is just as smug and self-important as any TV cook.
When I was in college, I could always tell when the vegetarian supper dish was baked tofu because the whole cafeteria stank of burned rubber.
My last girlfriend and I used to go to a Chinese restaurant every Valentine’s Day, and she would always order (a) braised frogs’ legs* and (b) tofu swimming in red pepper oil. I could never decide which dish was more revolting.
*They don’t taste like chicken; they taste like a weird combination of chicken and fish.
To expand further on this topic, I submit that no one beats Laura Calder in the Beautiful Titties department. My attention is so riveted on her cleavage* that I miss most of whatever it is she’s saying. 
*I also love it when she goes upstairs to change clothes and comes back down all girly-like. Oooooooooooooooooooooh…! :rolleyes:
It was just too sweet for me, and I thought it was way too heavy on the Old Bay. I’ll do braised ribs finished on the grill from time to time, but I use a sugar-less dry rub, and coat with a tomato-based barbecue sauce at the end for the sugary caramelization over the grill. I just think his 8:3:1:1 ratio of sugar:salt:chili powder: other is WAYYYY heavy on the sugar. If I do add sugar, it’s never more than the salt amount. More than usual, though, I start with equal parts salt and cracked pepper, omit the sugar, and go from there.
I never had that problem, but I also could have gone light on the rub. Its possible I even used my own, but I can’t remember. Old Bay didn’t even ring a bell with me when you said it.
I just liked his braising liquid, and the sauce it made after reducing.