# White Whale of cooking. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079 "2014-12-01T22:24:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/21 "2014-12-02T12:07:05Z")
> [@TheTerribleTako](#): > > Biscuits seem like they would be easy to make, but for some reason, every time I attempt to make biscuits, I either end up with hockey pucks or random crumbly piles on a pan. It’s probably over mixing, bad recipes, or improperly chilled butter, or possibly all three. I can’t make biscuits, either. Not even drop biscuits. Hockey pucks, every time. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/22 "2014-12-02T12:25:05Z")
I can’t bake; Don’t ask me. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/23 "2014-12-02T14:16:41Z")
> [@Uniqueorn](#): > > > [@CarnalK](#): > > > > Isn’t that like saying I am going to continue to try and make scrambled tofu taste like scrambled eggs? > > The ingredients are the same, except for the gluten, so it should be possible, especially since I had a delicious gluten-free pizza once. Well, not really. Dough is 98% water and flour and you’re substituting the flour. But yeah it’s possible to make a tasty one so keep on trucking I guess. ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/24 "2014-12-02T14:36:43Z")
We’ve discovered there is a white whale gene on my ex’s side. No one on his side of the family can make angel food cake. When he was in culinary school, that was the ONE thing that stymied him. He made the batter, someone else poured it in the pan and put it into the oven - fail. Someone else made the batter, he panned and ovened it - fail. If he touched anything anywhere near someone making an angel food cake, it failed. Our daughter discovered the same issue when she was in pastry school. I jokingly asked his mother about it, and she said she has never been able to make an angel food cake, either, even from a box. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/25 "2014-12-02T15:37:21Z")
I have learned, in the late autumn of my life, to fry and poach good looking eggs. I struggled all my life, and now I have mastered eggs. Woot. White sauces, however, remain a frustration. Always too flour-tasting. I guess that’s what accounts for all those canned soups out there. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/26 "2014-12-02T15:58:37Z")
Count me in the biscuit failure group. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/27 "2014-12-02T16:32:19Z")
Biscuits don’t work if you spend time on them or pay too much attention to them. You have to pretend you are a busy Southern Mama with way too many kids to get out the door each morning. First turn on the oven. You don’t have time to wait on these, so sneak it up five or six degrees past what the recipe called for. Plop the ingredients in a bowl, mix them up a bit, then walk away and put the toddlers shoes back on the right feet. Check the biscuit dough, see if it looks puffy yet, and if not go upstairs and threaten the eldest with a glass of ice water if he doesn’t get out of bed immediately. When the top of the dough is threatening to dry out on you, that’s the time to turn it out, mush it down a little, and quickly give a spinning cut to each with a glass or a measuring cup. Fany biscuit cutters are too sharp, and make the edges too clean. With a duller implement the edges much together just right, causing that nice domed top and helping to pull the sides up a little farther (rather than just separating and cracking in layers.) Bung them onto a cookie sheet, and into the oven which has been preheating all this time. Also, see Post #11 re: lard and shortening. In this case you want the shortening in the biscuits and the lard on the pan. No other oils need apply. Also, also, there is a bit of a code to these recipes. For example, “milk” really means Heavy Cream, and if they are yeast biscuits, the sugar measurements are meant to be tablespoons, no teaspoons. Beware of self-rising flour, it has too much salt and kills the yeast. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/28 "2014-12-02T16:43:01Z")
If you don’t care for lard, palm oil (palm fruit oil, not palm kernal oil) is chemically almost identical to lard, and behaves exactly the same when you cook with it. Of course, lard does have some flavor, and food made with palm oil will taste a little different from food cooked with lard. It will have exactly the same consistency and cooking characteristics, though. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/29 "2014-12-02T17:17:03Z")
:D:D:D I was just going to post that it must be impossibly difficult for cooks to NOT post comments about how to do some of these things the “right” way. I’m going to refrain from arguing or adding my own comments. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/30 "2014-12-02T17:20:42Z")
For me it’s fluffy restaurant style omelets. I can make omelets all day, and they are…fine…but flat, just not fluffy. I’ve not researched online, where I’m sure I’ll find 65,459,872 YouTube videos instructing me how to make perfect fluffy omelets…someday maybe… ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/31 "2014-12-02T17:37:43Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > White sauces, however, remain a frustration. Always too flour-tasting. I guess that’s what accounts for all those canned soups out there. I use a ratio of 1:1 flour to butter. FWIW, I also can’t make skillet fried potatoes. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/32 "2014-12-02T17:42:51Z")
Mine is caramelizing sugar. I always end up with it lacquered to the inside of the pan, no matter how quick and attentive I am. I can make killer fried potatoes, though. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/33 "2014-12-02T17:50:45Z")
Scalloped- Fucking- Potatoes. I have done them once perfectly using two different methods, one time in the oven, one time in the microwave and finished in the broiler. Both came out absolutely amazing; creamy, nice texture on the potatoes, browned on top and slightly crispy and cheesy. Wonderful! In 15 years I have yet to make them ever remotely good again. Ever. Fuckers. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/34 "2014-12-02T17:55:29Z")
> [@swampspruce](#): > > Scalloped- Fucking- Potatoes. I have done them once perfectly using two different methods, one time in the oven, one time in the microwave and finished in the broiler. Both came out absolutely amazing; creamy, nice texture on the potatoes, browned on top and slightly crispy and cheesy. Wonderful! > > In 15 years I have yet to make them ever remotely good again. Ever. Fuckers. For being such a simple food, potatoes give a lot of people fits, for some reason. Mashed: too gooey, too grainy, too dry Pan fried: too burned, too raw, too greasy Deep fried: too greasy, burned, undercooked Scalloped: undercooked, grainy sauce, tasteless All I can say is: Practice. ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/35 "2014-12-02T18:08:36Z")
Beef Wellington. It is somewhat technical so I don’t feel too bad about it. It’s a lot of work to make it and in the end, it just doesn’t seem right compared to what I’ve had elsewhere. Either my pastry is doughy, or dried out, or the duxelles is too salty or flavorless. There is always something wrong. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/36 "2014-12-02T18:14:22Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > For being such a simple food, potatoes give a lot of people fits, for some reason. > > Mashed: too gooey, too grainy, too dry > Pan fried: too burned, too raw, too greasy > Deep fried: too greasy, burned, undercooked > Scalloped: undercooked, grainy sauce, tasteless > > All I can say is: Practice. I think practice is the key to most cooking woes, but if you’ve NEVER had it come out right, you don’t know what to practice. I cook some sugar-syrup stuff (jelly, icing, lemon curd) and they are incredibly fussy. you can use a thermometer, except that doesn’t really work, for complicated reasons. What DOES work is knowing what the dish looks at feels like at the moment you need to do the next thing. That’s something you can learn by doing it with someone else. To a limited extent, you can make the dish, observe that your jelly is too stiff, and try to take if off a little earlier next time. But just practice, without some idea of what you are aiming for at each step, probably won’t do it. I can’t make good roast potatoes. The crisp ones that my mother made besides a roast beef. Mine aren’t crispy on the outside, and aren’t always right on the inside, either. And I don’t know what to try. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/37 "2014-12-02T18:18:22Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > :D:D:D I was just going to post that it must be impossibly difficult for cooks to NOT post comments about how to do some of these things the “right” way. I’m going to refrain from arguing or adding my own comments. Would it really be so bad to give advice if it helps maybe one person get their white whale? I forgot to post this earlier but I am also in the “can’t do biscuits” group. Sometimes I even screw up the ones in the pop open can. I also overcook pasta a lot but mostly that’s because I get distracted. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/38 "2014-12-02T18:21:56Z")
> [@Wile\_E](#): > > Would it really be so bad to give advice if it helps maybe one person get their white whale?.. I’m new here, so maybe I’m completely out of line. But I would appreciate reading advice on cooking favorite foods. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/39 "2014-12-02T18:29:55Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I’m new here, so maybe I’m completely out of line. But I would appreciate reading advice on cooking favorite foods. That’s it! I’m reporting this post to the moderator… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2014, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079/40 "2014-12-02T18:39:36Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > All I can say is: Practice. And also the type of potato you choose will affect the outcome. My white whale? I’ve been trying to duplicate the kinds of peri peri chicken I remember from a trip I took to South Africa about 15 years ago. Recipes are all over the map, but I haven’t quite found _the_ one yet. I got some good recipes, but nothing that really hits all the marks. Or perhaps my memories of the flavor are very much tied to the place, and somewhat romanticized. I just remember falling in love with it the first day I tried it and eating it nearly every day I was there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-whale-of-cooking/706079.md?page=3)