My holiday turkey always goes wrong, but at least they stopped asking me to do it.
I can never get any yeast breads to work right, just too doughy or dried out.
I’ve never gotten homemade pizza right. (And it’s not like I demand a wood fired oven or anything - I like my sister’s pizza made in my oven, bless her)
Simple hash. Sounds easy, but mine always ends up looking like mashed potatoes with lumps of coal in it.
What stumps you?
Over-easy eggs. Either the yolk is too hard or the white too runny. I have to get my over-easy fix on the rare occasions I eat out for breakfast.
I am gravy-impaired. Every once in awhile you have something that would be good with gravy, but I have no concept of how to make it. Forget the stuff in a jar, that’s chemicals and filler and who-knows-what. I haven’t tasted real gravy since my grandmother died nearly 20 years ago.
I can’t make a sandwich worth a damn. I don’t know what the problem is but I don’t even like to think about eating a sandwich I made myself. I get someone, anyone to make me one because it has to be better that way.
That’s me too. My mother makes the best over-easy eggs ever and I’ve watched her, and tried to learn from her and I still can’t get it right.
I remember one morning going through 4 eggs before finally giving up and having cereal.
I’ve tried about ten different chicken tikka masala recipes, and not one of them is anything like what you get in a restaurant. I think the problem is all the recipe books go for authentic ingredients, whereas what I get in restaurants is “bright pink sauce out of a jar”. Where can I get a jar of this good stuff from?
I can’t make hashed brown potatoes for nothing. Mine always turns into a congealed grey lump. Disgusting.
Good one.
I was in a little bit of despair reading this thread, as I’d have nothing to contribute. I’m so damn good at just about everything culinary. 
But Indian food stumps me completely. I couldn’t curry if my life depended on it.
The Cook’s Illustrated from a month or two ago had a chicken tikka masala recipe that I made and turned out pretty good. They tried to use not too obscure ingredients that the home cook would have access to. Not sure if you have access to it, but I could email it to you if you’d like. Unless you’ve already tried it in which case ignore me.
I have trouble with eggs over easy, too. I think I just have trouble controlling the heat on my burner. Fortunately, I usually only makes eggs when the boyfriend is over and he likes his over hard. Over hard are also good for egg sandwiches, less messy, so it’s not a total loss if I mess up, just make a sandwich instead. I also started poaching eggs and found I was better at that than over easy and they are less greasy.
I had trouble with gravies until I decided to just start practicing making roux whenever I had the chance. Like if I was just cooking a chicken breast and had some “juice” to work with. Once I got the knack of that I could do gravies, cheese sauces and gumbo. Basically you cook the flour and butter or oil together first then add your meat juice. I’d do it in really small single serving amounts and if it turned out bad I could just toss it out. Eventually, I got good at it and moved on to other uses of roux. If making a cheese sauce, you add warm milk and later cheese. If making gumbo, you add broth. Gumbo uses a very dark roux and you feel like your arm is going to fall off after all the serving. Save that for an advanced practice.
I often have trouble with soups with vegetables or pasta in it, I always cook them too long and they get mushy. I like to let soups simmer a long time and I always overdo it.
I cannot make good beef stew. I’ve tried a bunch of different recipes and it always comes out bland and blah. Blech.
We went to an El Salvadoran restaurant a couple months ago and I had carne guizada. So good! I have a recipe that appears to be a good one. But I bet if I make it, it will suck.
Tofu. I know all about pressing, freezing, marinating, etc., but mine always comes out mushy, not nice and chewy with that semi-crisp outside. So I always order tofu when it’s on a restaurant menu, but I’ve given up on making my own.
Cake frosting. I can make a damm good cake from scratch, but the frosting is always runny, or some other thing wrong. I get better results from opening a can.
Ditto spaghetti sauce.
Fried chicken. I can’t get it nice and crispy on the outside and juicy inside. My results taste OK, but either dried up inside or kind of soft outside.
Let me join the masses when it comes to my absolute failure with Indian curry. I’ve tried jarred stuff, Trader Joe’s foil packaged mix, and a couple of other prepared sauces. Edible, but mediocre. All I want to make is the generic Indian chicken curry served at every crappy Indian buffet in the US. It’s delicious! I’ll take a look at the Cook’s Illustrated chicken tikka masala, though.
My lasagna is horrible, just horrible. I try, I’ve followed the directions of a myriad of recipes to the letter, it’s still horrible.
Pierogies.
I have tried dozens of recipes, but it never ends up like what I like. Mashed potato ravioli isn’t quite the same, and it’s what I get at the best of times,
Salmon - in a restaurant it’s usually moist inside, crispy broiled deliciousness outside. Mine is always dried out. Even when I watch it like a hawk, it seems to go from “not cooked yet” to salmon jerky in seconds. What gives? I imagine that your typical restaurant has some kind of super high heat broiling system that gets the outside crispy in a shorter time, hence, no drying out inside over a longer period.
Or maybe I just suck at salmon. Who can say?
Ditto on the beef stew thing - I can make a rich, savoury broth, perfectly cooked veggies - and little titanium cubes of beef in it. Come to think of it, I have the same problem with pot roast. Maybe I need to work on my braising techniques. Any tips?
I cannot make coleslaw as good as they do at any old barbecue or fish ‘n’ sticks joint. It always just tastes like shredded cabbage and mayo. I can do an oil and vinegar slaw just fine, though.
My refried beans just don’t taste right. Any and every taqueria makes terrific refries, but mine are lacking something. I guess I shouldn’t worry about that, as I can pick up a carton of them cheap from about ten places in town, but it bugs me that I can’t master this simple dish.
Steak. It seems so easy, I’ve tried again and again… and my results are either “shoe leather” or “moo”. No in-between, which is where I like it. So, eh, if I feel like steak I either go out someplace good, or have dinner with mom & dad.