To the person who mentioned the tediousness of making a roux for gumbo: use Alton’s method, which in my opinion is the absolute best method of making a roux. Indirect heat. Bake the oil/flour mixture in a 350 degree oven for an hour. It wont burn and it requires almost no stirring at all. You stir it maybe 3 times total. What you get is dark brown and rich and perfectly consistent.
There’s also microwave roux, which I tried for the first time last week, that works surprisingly well and only takes about 10 minutes to make.
I can make over easy eggs, I’ll share a secret with you guys, the way to do it is to splash the grease up on the top of the eggs with a spatula. Use a bit more grease than usual (or butter or whatever) and tilt the pan until you get a bit of a pool, and splash the hot grease on top of the egg and keep doing it. Eventually you’ll cook the top that way.
As for me. Egg Drop Soup. I haven’t tried it in ages, but I can never manage to get it really thick like they do in restaurants. It can’t be that difficult, but I don’t get what they do in the restaurants. I like it on the gooey side and it doesn’t work. I forgot why but it didn’t seem like adding corn starch worked either. I think it wasn’t clear after that or something…anyone have any ideas?
Indian food is also my bane. I want the stuff I get at the Indian buffet. What I end up with may be authentic but I have no idea how it is supposed to taste, and I can’t get to the stuff I get at the buffet, which is what I want. I have a cabinetful of Indian spices from the Indian grocery and I still can’t make anything worth half a damn.
Y’ever wonder if the stuff they serve at Indian buffets is as horrid to actual Indian people as the stuff at Old Country Buffet is to Americans?
Reminds me of when my son complimented me on a homemade apple pie: “Mom, this is really good! It tastes just like it came from the store!” :smack:
Yeah, well, I can’t help it, I’m frigging addicted here. And if that’s what their Country Buffet is, and it gets better, I may seriously have to consider relocating there. Hot damn. No other food haunts me at night, mocking me. “Oh, I know that the only good buffet is two towns over and is juuuust outside where you could safely eat there over your hour lunchbreak. But, you need it. It’s good. It tastes so good. Drive there. I know they’re closed. Drive there and wait.”
Have you tried Madhur Jaffrey’s books on Indian cooking? I find the stuff I’ve made from them as good, if not better, than those from Indian buffets.
Bacon, except over a campfire.
Pork green chili. Ambrosia when someone else makes it. Watery and nasty when I do it.
Chicken soup. I put in way too much of something or boil the veggies too long or something… I don’t know, but it annoys me. I hate to waste all those ingredients practicing when I know it’s going to suck.
Well, I could give you my recipe. But then that whole thing about having to kill you and all…
I can’t make veggie soup or sphaghetti sauce the way my mom did. I don’t know what I’m not doing but they just DON’T work.
If l ever figure out Chik-fil-a’s secret formula I will go into competition selling chikn-fryed-steak, breded-pork-tenderloyn, and chikn-wangs.
I know there are industrial pressure fryers, garlic powder, onion powder, soy products, salt, pepper, and sugar/corn syrup involved, I know they brine… and I’ll be open on Sundays. I’m onto you, you delicious milky sweet, breaded, chikkny god thang
Grilled Cheese - I’ve given up and haven’t made any in years. No way will it ever come out the way it would if you buy it in a restaurant. I’ve tried every different kind of cheese I know of.
BBQ - I know, I need to turn in my man license. I can never cook anything well on our grill. For one, even on the lowest setting it’s still WAY WAY too hot. It’ll be black on the outside, red on the inside.
OK, so much to say:
Salmon - wash it and pat it dry with paper towels. It won’t get crisp if you leave it wet. If you marinate it, remove the extra liquid before cooking. Most importantly, take it off the heat (and take it out of the pan) at the not quite done stage. It will finish cooking via carry-over heat, just tent foil over it to prevent it from getting cold (and don’t cover the foil closely, or condensation will drip on the fish. Just as was mentioned for steak, a good sear on the stove, flip and finish in the oven is a great method.
Bread Dumplings - the dumplings will rise when you boil them, but if you don’t poke holes in them before you remove them from the water, the cooling will contract the air bubbles in the dumplings and make them shrink into dense, doughy lumps. Mine still aren’t as good as my wife’s late grandmother’s, but they get better every time (and I only make them once or twice a year).
Kolachkes - find a good cream cheese dough recipe. A good cheat is to roll out the dough, fold it upon itself, and roll out again a few times. It will puff up and make it flakier.
French Toast - use the Alton Brown method and let the bread dry out overnight. One cause of it being too soggy is soaking up too much moisture, so don’t put so much milk into the eggs. Replace with half and half or cream to give it a better texture.
Missed edit window!
BBQ - low heat is one thing, but indirect heat is another. After you sear the food to get your grill marks, try turning off the heat on all your burners but one, on low. Put the food on the other side of the grill and put the cover down. Let it finish cooking. No burning, and no raw insides.
Mayonnaise tends to be my failing, but I’m getting better at it; I think I need to lay off the experimenting though; it works well in its basic form.
Now, as for curry, I have my grandmother’s and my great uncle’s (he was a professional chef) basic curry recipe. Works every time, and is open to experimentation to get some good flavours. I can share if people want.
Mine is pie crust. I come from an area of the midwest where all of the old Pennsylvania Dutch women made kick a$$ flaky crusts, including my own late grandmother. It’s a crapshoot for me on whether they come out passable or closely resemble a cement slab. I’ve given up and now buy them already made.
Fortunately, many of the restaurants where my parents still live serve up pies like Grosie’s.
It’s been said before:
Alton Brown
He adds corn chips to chili to thicken. It’s worked when I’ve tried it.
I’ve been working for years to perfect my dad’s roast beef/potatoes/carrots Sunday dinner. The meat was alwas fall apart tender with lots of flavor…you never needed a knife to cut through it. The potatoes and carrots were always carmelized perfectly and he would make gravy that would rival anyone’s grandmothers!! It was a rare Sunday when we didn’t have a roast dinner cooked by Dad.
Part of the genius was the awesome heavy iron electric skillet that he used. It wasn’t non-stick like the ones you see now…it was heavy and thick and simply the best for this dish. That’s all he ever used it for!
I would say my roast and potatoes are about 80% as good as his were. I don’t have the iron electric skillet so that is part of my problem. I have been using my regular big iron frying pan and I have figured out how to get the potatoes and carrots to carmelize better. But it’s still not the same…I’ll keep trying though!!!
I’ve tried, oh, at least a dozen Indian recipes and NONE of the have been what we’ve been looking for. There’s something about Indian restaurant kormas and tikka maslas that just cannot be replicated at home, I swear!
Roast Mastadon,its a mental thing I think ,never seem to get it right .
Not a problem at my local takeaway they even manage to give the fries the authentic,incredibly aged taste.