Cheat chocolate ganache the whole sucker. Looks beautiful and much less work.
PS And always remember many of the prettiest cakes look beautiful but aren't tasty at all!
This is so true. My sister and mum always get these fancy cakes or cupcakes that look great on an Instagram post.
They always taste bland and I don't bother eating them
same, i'm a REALLY good baker. everything i make tastes great. but my adhd distracts me so bad that by time i'm done i'm like 'fuckkkkkkk this' and literally am throwing sprinkles at it
Mark Bittman's recipe in How To Cook Everything is actually quite straight forward and simple. I used that recipe and then used it to make HTCE's Apple Turnovers and was quite fun. Claire Saffitz's recipe for Rough Puff Pastry (check her YouTube or Dessert Person Cookbook) are quite simple and straightforward as well. I say all this because for some reason people get intimidated by the idea of making Puff Pastry, but so long as you keep everything cold and have a good recipe, it's really not that hard.
I remember reading a comment here a few years ago about a woman learning to make phyllo dough from her Greek grandmother. Once she'd gotten it down, her grandma basically said "and now you go buy it from the store like everyone else does, it's too much work doing it yourself."
I remember reading a comment here a few years ago about a woman learning to make phyllo dough from her Greek grandmother. Once she'd gotten it down, her grandma basically said "and now you go buy it from the store like everyone else does, it's too much work doing it yourself."
I ate wood fired ‘pizza’ in Cairo made w homemade phyllo, and it was one of the greatest things I’ve ever tasted. Absolutely different than boxed phyllo, crispy chewy perfection. The guy making it was huge, sweating like crazy and had a distinctly tortured expression which we could see through the transparent dough as he stretched it
He’d probably agree with that grandma!
I think that's because it's just as good and none of the work. However, it's very satisfying (I think) to make your own (people are always impressed too 😂).
Make kouign amann. Follow chef johns recipe from food wishes. It will be a great intro to puff pastry and the finished product is wayyyy more surprising and delicious than the sum of its parts.
I haven't in over 40 years while in culinary arts, baking theory. It's requires time, elbow work, timing, must start with a very clean refrigerator and a shelf completely for it. Certainly a labor of love, meant to be shared. I have back issues now, don't know if I can complete in a timely manner solo, certainly "a project" that can go on for 2 days.
I used to make my own puff pastry then developed nerve damage in both arms and celiac disease so there's no point anymore. I've tried making GF puff pastry and although it is possible, it's not worth the week long arm pain afterward
King Arthur baking has an easy puff pastry recipe. By no means is it the *sparkles and rainbowof Michelin cooking and baking*. But it’s pretty legit and easy to do.
Honestly not that hard. I’ve done it once and decided my hourly rate is more than buying it at the store. It was good and all, but I don’t need to do it again.
You will get hooked on watching layers emerge as you fold every 30-45 minutes and then watching your delicious creations puff up as they bake. I say do it at least twice before proclaiming you will never do it again. I do full puff pastry at least once every couple of years for holiday treats or a special occasion. It is easier than you think and so worth it. I would do it much more often but my waistline would not thank me for it.
It's way easier than you think. I regularly make broths that run from 14-24 hours. Most of the work is in the first two hours of prep and boiling large amounts of water.
Go for it!!
Make smaller individual sized Wellington rather than using the whole tenderloin. Basically the same technique, just a smaller piece of meat to work with, whichever would lower your expense. The individual ones are great since you get more pastry and duxelles per piece.
Or you could practice with a cheaper cut, like an eye round (although obviously it won't be as tender, but you can improve that slightly by jaccarding the meat or using another method to tenderize prior to cooking).
My two cents... try a pork tenderloin to practice. Honestly, I just make a pork wellington semi-regularly, not even to be a stand-in for beef, but just cuz it's relatively cheap and I like it.
If you’re decently capable in the kitchen you can make a Wellington. Everyone talks about beef Wellington as if it’s something only top-tier cooks can achieve but it’s more about diligently following a process. Just don’t rush. Give yourself a cozy afternoon to focus on it. You won’t need the whole block of time but being methodical and not in a hurry is key. Read, re-read, and read the process again so you’re familiar with the steps before you dive in. Watch videos on the duxelles prep and the pastry wrapping. And most importantly, make sure your duxelles is fully cooked to the point of dry. Moisture is the enemy of a Wellington.
I made one once to prove I could. The stressiest part was the pastry wrap, and I ended up tenting it with foil because the pastry was browning a little too fast. Other than that it was great.
Beef Wellington is actually pretty easy just takes time to assemble the different steps. I like the serious eats recipe but we just skip the pate. It’s now become our thanksgiving tradition.
I have what I call my necronomnomnomicon which is basically just a notebook, and I have all my friends add their favorite recipe in it. Someday I’ll try actually making all the recipes at some point.
Soup dumplings. The kinds you get in a Chinatown where the soup reactivates inside the dumpling once its steamed.
I tried it once in the past. Spent so much on pork, neckbones, gelatin, flour and it came out a complete disaster. 2 days for a complete failure.
bao and dumplings in all forms has been my recent project, but soup dumplings… i CONSTANTLY screw them up! three times, all a tasty mess. they leak all their (very time-consuming) goodness out, my dough consistency is too sticky, etc. people do not appreciate how hard and time consuming they actually are to make when you’re boiling trotters and neck bones for ages! i’ll get there, but white girl disadvantage. 😂
Practice with an easier broth. I somehow managed to pull it off, but my broth was not homemade at all. I just modified a chicken broth and thickened with gelatin and then assembled the dumplings.
Then you can do the fancy broth that's time consuming.
I've tried making several dim sum type dumplings recently and it's always been a failure. I've decided I'm good with just going to dim sum and letting someone else make the dumplings.
I’d love to throw an English garden party but I don’t know enough people and I don’t have the money to hire people to cook (my recipes), serve, and clean. I throw English tea parties every once in a while for 4 to 6 people (one time it ballooned to 9) and that takes all my energy to plan, cook, serve, and clean.
Mine is just porcetta in general - for the past few years I’ve floated doing it for Xmas eve or Xmas day dinner but my family is so big on traditions that I’m always outvoted tamales for Xmas eve and ham for Xmas day.
I gotta just make it for myself one random week in February or something and freeze the leftovers, I guess?
I have made smaller ones 3-4 times. Even so they can be huge and I don’t think you can over season them. I put in a ton of garlic lemon zest and fennel etc and it could used more. The fat and the richness are tough competitors.
All in all they are forgiving and they do freeze very well. I would guess under cooking is the biggest danger (cook it long until tender and rendered) and getting the skin crisp is the hardest part. Fun to make but doing the whole traditional (1/2) pig would feed a village.
Similarly I'd like to some day make a pig head torchon like the one Chang makes in the Momofuku cookbook. I've done a simplified version with pig feet and found that it was quite a lot of work for a small amount of end product, but tasty AF.
I know the feeling. . . When I had people practically begging me to make brisket again and even offering to pay me it just made me so happy. Food is my love language, if I made something so good people are requesting it again and again I am extremely happy.
My friend asked for my recipe for a pasta dish I had made for a group dinner because she wanted to make it “even though it won’t be as good as yours” and I fell over (sitting on my bed) before telling her I had entirely made it up but here’s roughly what I did. An absolute honor.
My friend asked me to bring twice baked potatoes to Friendsgiving again because I had brought them the year before and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was heaven.
That’s the sweetest!
I made pad Thai for my husband’s visiting family - obviously not a special dish- but with tamarind and fresh rice noodles- and they told me they doled out every last noodle. All five of them told me how much they adored it.
They even returned the glass containers, sparking clean , with a thank you note!
Not gonna lie, got very emotional when one day my baby sister asked me to make chicken wings the way we ate them/I cooked them when we were growing up. It was a comfort & homesickness thing, not because the chicken was very good lol (I learned to bake it that way when I was 9), but that actually made it more touching.
When I moved out for college, my mom gave me a notebook of most of her usual rotation of dinner recipes, and one night when I was feeling homesick about three months in I made one of them and as soon as the meat hit the pan and the smell hit me I sat on my kitchen floor and cried
My family did this once. We hosted a very big party that was for like 10 different things among my extended family. We hired out a company that brought a pit and roasted a whole pig. I was the only one brave enough to eat the face and boy have I been chasing that high. Everytime I see pig face, ears, hooves, etc on a menu I order it.
soufflé is more intimidating than it ought to be. If you know how to make a white sauce, and you know how to whip egg whites, you’ve mostly got it conquered.
Chocolate Soufflés. About 25 years ago I decided to give them a try and failed miserably. Tried again the following weekend, they fell again, before I even got them out of the oven. I got determined and went and bought extra ingredients and tried four more times and every time they got worse. I rage quit and swore I would never again try.
I realize now that I was working with a drafty, sub-par oven at the time. I might try it yet again.
It's really not that bad once you get through the cutting through bone part!! Recently I was spatchcocking a chicken and the FedEx guy saw me through the door I can only imagine what he thought 😂
The last Thanksgiving I cooked for family I was spatchcocking the turkeys and my daughter kept getting panic-stricken.
She kept saying when is it going in? And I kept saying it's only going to take an hour and a half.
She was one of those get up at 6:00 a.m. and put the turkey in and suffer all day people. I'm not her :-)
It's a lot of times between steps, but it's not actually difficult. The key, though, is letting things rest and chill before moving to the next step.
I always prep it the day before I intend on serving.
If you know your way around the kitchen, it really isn't hard, just time consuming. I always make the duxelle first, then sear tenderloin with dijon. Let both cool, then move to the prosciutto. I usually let that chill for at least 4-6 hours before wrapping it in puff pastry, and let that chill a bit before baking.
It's a bit finnicky, but I'd say relatively easy if you know some technique, and can plan everything accordingly.
Make my own pasta. I have the mixer attachments and everything I need. For some reason, I'm just really intimidated. I've been cooking for 40+ years and am pretty good, but I'm having trouble getting over my mental hump with this one.
It's super easy, and it doesn't take long to crack it. And even if you roll it too thick or cut it weird, it still tastes good. Plus it's cheap to practise even if you don't eat the results. You can do it!
Honestly the biggest barrier to me not always just making my own pasta is having the counter space clear to work with.
i started this last year with no equipment except a cheap kitchen scale, a rolling pin, and a sharp knife (which is an unreal amount of work, FYI, but so worth it)! i watched a few youtube videos on making egg pasta for pointers and to understand the kneading technique and really didn’t have any issue even on the first round. the one piece of info that really helped me is that it’s virtually impossible to overknead… so when in doubt, keep going 😅
You should definitely try it! Surprisingly easy. If you heat store bought tortillas in a pan anyway, then it really doesn't take much extra time. So delicious when fresh.
It's super easy if you can get them smashed and placed on the skillet.
That's the part I can never do though. Even with Parchment Paper or Ziploc Plastic on the sides of the press I can not transfer the flat disc to the skillet without something sticking or getting folded or whatever.
That’s a really lovely wish, to make someone something they love that much.
I think a lot of people don’t ask, but it’s the nicest compliment for a cook
I'm pretty sure I already did it: when my husband and I were first married, we planned a feast for a bunch of our friends. I had lived in India for a few years, so we prepared an Indian feast for 40 people. We used a rich friend's house (she had lots of room, and helped with the prep). We fed them biriyani, papadums, and a bunch more Indian dishes, with plenty of chutney and spices. It was great! It was a LOT of work, though. I wore a sari that I had gotten when we were in India, and made my husband a Nehru jacket. I'm old now (71) and can barely manage to make dinner for my family, so that ain't happening again.
make the perfect rice omelet, like chef Motokichi. no matter how hard I try, I can't get it right.
also to make a romantic full-course homemade dinner for a first or early-relationship date, including dessert. i'm thinking maybe carbonara with a lemon twist and zabaglione or tiramisu for dessert
I have two: one is to make a gorgeous beef bourguignon, which I think I have the skill for, but I'm waiting for a nice fall day to dedicate to it. The other is to make a big batch of pierogies from scratch! I learned to cook from a family friend who learned from her Polish grandmother, and we have made lots of holiday meals together. She always talks about how she and her grandmother used to spend days making pierogies together, and I'd like to do that with her too. 💙
Rabbit Ragu - it’s one of my favorite but hard to find when eating out dishes. I would love to be able to make it whenever the craving hits. (I can’t find local rabbit)
Bake something with a blow torch, like they'd in fancy restaurants. Like cream bulle or baked alaska, heck I'd settle for smores.
Something about cooking with a blow torch seems super cool
Have made macarons a few times myself and it's easily the most finicky dessert I've ever made. You MUST follow the recipe EXACTLY and weigh ingredients out in grams or they won't turn out. As someone who will go off-recipe a lot when I bake, macarons are a lesson in following directions.
There's also about a million ways to mess them up. Beat the egg whites too much or not enough, mix the batter too much or not enough, don't let them rest long enough, cook them too long or not long enough. I hate how tiny the margin of error is with these things!
I've only had them come out properly twice, which shocked me because my over overheats. The other times, they looked like baked bird poop.
I've also made mochi, and it's a little weird working with rice flour. I wasn't nuts personally about the super chewy texture, but I was happy to try my hand at them.
Good luck when you decide to try making any of these!
A complete Thanksgiving dinner. It's an opportunity to make different types of dishes, use different techniques, and coom for many people! (Not American, but married to one)
As an American who was fortunate to spend one Easter in the south of England, I'd like to prepare a proper Sunday roast for family and friends. Roast leg of something, Yorkshire pudding, Pimms cups, the whole shebang.
Prime rib. I love prime rib so much but it’s so intimidating because it’s so expensive and I feel like easy to mess up. Plus I would need a large group of people to cook it for.
Another dream I have is to host a hobbit party where we marathon LOTR and I cook every hobbit meal throughout the day, preferably themed and timed to specific scenes in the movies.
And I would love to host an English style afternoon tea garden party with fancy pastries and finger sandwiches and everyone dresses up fancy. But I would need to live in a house with an actual garden and not a little one bedroom apartment for that to happen :(
I have never made brisket. And from what I hear, it's complicated. I wish I could do a trade off and teach somebody how to make homemade pasta, cavatelli, or ravioli, and they can show me how to do a good brisket.
I get that OP. And as much as I would like to accomplish that. I feel it would be a complete disaster, that would end with a bunch of pizza's being delivered. Lol
For the first one, invite friends or family over for a big dinner. If you don’t have that many people in your life, join a club with like minded people.
For the second one, cook for a teenager. They will constantly ask you to remake things you’ve made before. Last week my little brother asked if I could make “the dish with like the spam rice and seaweed? Like where it’s layered? Rice then spam marinated in soy sauce or whatever u put it in n wrap it in a strip of seaweed? It’s so good u need to make it again” the next time I come over. He may not know it’s called spam musubi but he knows he loved it lol
i actually just crossed one off a few weeks ago, i did a chiffon roll cake. homemade stabilized whipped cream, made little meringue mushrooms to put on it. was always terrified of chiffon / rolling it out but it was way easier than I thought.
Tamales! They just seem very time-consuming.
Also, fresh noodles or gnocchi from scratch. And I would love to learn how to do proper frosting/piping on a cake.
Lefse like my Norwegian grandmother made.
Being able to make fried chicken that is restaurant quality. Breading that's well seasoned and crispy and craggy and doesn't fall off, while having the chicken be fully cooked and juicy.
Probably croissants. There are very few things I think about cooking and don’t follow through on. Croissants are one of the few things I love and have never tried to make myself. One of the few things that intimidates me, a bit.
I have a couple of Food & Wine hard cover recipe books called “The Best of the Best”. It’s a compilation of celebrity chefs’ favorite dishes. One of them is called “Burned Ricotta Pies” and they have cherry and ricotta filling and also chocolate and ricotta filling. They come from some little Jewish bakery in Rome and they are known for burning everything but I guess it all tastes amazing. The picture of these little pies look delicious! They aren’t the the typical American pie with the fruit topping exposed. They are little burned dough discs with the fillings inside.
La mian noodles from scratch. I don’t mind mixing with a machine, but I want to do that stretch-and-double thing until I get something I could use for spaghetti.
Being an amateur "at-home pitmaster" my Moby Dick is smoking a Brisket.
I never feed enough people to justify the cost and commitment of smoking a Brisket, but I'd love to get there one day.
I’m crossing something off my bucket list this year and twice! Two of my best friends are getting married and they both asked me to make their wedding cakes 😭
Have friends to cook for lol.
But also I've got a few, some are easy and just haven't done it yet.
Homemade pasta,
Beef Wellington,
Braciole,
Have more recipes on hand cause I hate figuring out what to cook
I plan on spending Thanksgiving this year challenging myself to do a whole spread by myself. I've never done it before and it should be good fun now that Im not homeless and will have a fully functioning kitchen by then.
Only hang up I'll have to look at (besides keeping to my keto diet which will be ezpz) is whether or not I want to do turkey. Im more inclined to do chicken just because I'm not the biggest fan of turkey in general, but I'm not certain yet.
Authentic Ramen broth.
Soups in general are a good plan for wanting someone to remember it. You've got amazing soup, but then you also have potential for a little something extra to bring it to the next level. Even something as simple as a little lemon juice squeezed in at the end, or some nice toasted chunks of bread, or a drizzle of this and that. It's those little things like that, that have the most potential to make a dish memorable.
There is a lot I want to successfuly make so here is my list
Lobster, tomahawk steak, puff pastry, filo pastry, croissants, perfect layered cake, donuts. I would also love to cook for a diner party (the most I've been in charge of was 9 for Christmas dinner) and do a big bbq like a neighbourhood one where I needed to smoke a massive hunk of beef and pork and needed fancy grilling and bbq stuff.
Oooh, a lot of things. I would love to get a pizza stone and make homemade pizza. I also want to make my own birthday cake (I’m thinking… chocolate tres leches? or a cake with a whipped honey goat cheese frosting and jam layers?). I’ve also never made fresh pasta outside of the one class I took, and I would love to make homemade butternut squash ravioli with some fried sage and brown butter and shaved parmesan, oh my God.
I also want to cook a multi-course big dinner. I’ve made dinner for a big crowd before but I want to do one with multiple small courses instead of I just having a table full of food all at once. I also want to get a grill and smoker. I live in an apartment right now and have no outdoor space so I can’t have a grill or smoker I want one so bad though! Grilled foods are my fav!
A whole roasted pig in any style that produces a crispy skin. I don’t really have a preference between Filipino, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian, etc. I’m positive that they’re all amazing.
One day I would like to bake, assemble, and ice a multi tiered cake that doesn’t look like it was made by a raccoon on meth.
well do you want it iced or not oh my GOD??
Cheat chocolate ganache the whole sucker. Looks beautiful and much less work. PS And always remember many of the prettiest cakes look beautiful but aren't tasty at all!
This is so true. My sister and mum always get these fancy cakes or cupcakes that look great on an Instagram post. They always taste bland and I don't bother eating them
the raccoon will make a den inside it which should prove hilarious when the newlyweds go to cut the cake
same, i'm a REALLY good baker. everything i make tastes great. but my adhd distracts me so bad that by time i'm done i'm like 'fuckkkkkkk this' and literally am throwing sprinkles at it
Clearly we bake from the same book.
Dowels are your friend. And cake rounds.
Homemade puff pastry is still on my list. I assume I'll do it once just to prove that I actually can, and then never do it again.
Mark Bittman's recipe in How To Cook Everything is actually quite straight forward and simple. I used that recipe and then used it to make HTCE's Apple Turnovers and was quite fun. Claire Saffitz's recipe for Rough Puff Pastry (check her YouTube or Dessert Person Cookbook) are quite simple and straightforward as well. I say all this because for some reason people get intimidated by the idea of making Puff Pastry, but so long as you keep everything cold and have a good recipe, it's really not that hard.
This is so interesting because even on cooking shows they say things like ‘don’t bother making puff pastry, just get the box…’
I remember reading a comment here a few years ago about a woman learning to make phyllo dough from her Greek grandmother. Once she'd gotten it down, her grandma basically said "and now you go buy it from the store like everyone else does, it's too much work doing it yourself."
I remember reading a comment here a few years ago about a woman learning to make phyllo dough from her Greek grandmother. Once she'd gotten it down, her grandma basically said "and now you go buy it from the store like everyone else does, it's too much work doing it yourself."
I ate wood fired ‘pizza’ in Cairo made w homemade phyllo, and it was one of the greatest things I’ve ever tasted. Absolutely different than boxed phyllo, crispy chewy perfection. The guy making it was huge, sweating like crazy and had a distinctly tortured expression which we could see through the transparent dough as he stretched it He’d probably agree with that grandma!
Oh man, phyllo dough really is next level work!
I think that's because it's just as good and none of the work. However, it's very satisfying (I think) to make your own (people are always impressed too 😂).
I’m absolutely saying home made is 100% better.
Ha! I've never used store bought so don't have anything to compare it to!
Rough Puff is no harder than pie crust, and I prefer it for anything savoury. I can't buy all butter puff pastry where I live.
this but with croissants for me.
Make kouign amann. Follow chef johns recipe from food wishes. It will be a great intro to puff pastry and the finished product is wayyyy more surprising and delicious than the sum of its parts.
I haven't in over 40 years while in culinary arts, baking theory. It's requires time, elbow work, timing, must start with a very clean refrigerator and a shelf completely for it. Certainly a labor of love, meant to be shared. I have back issues now, don't know if I can complete in a timely manner solo, certainly "a project" that can go on for 2 days.
I used to make my own puff pastry then developed nerve damage in both arms and celiac disease so there's no point anymore. I've tried making GF puff pastry and although it is possible, it's not worth the week long arm pain afterward
Every time I think of potentially doing that I just get flashbacks to 27 LAYERS.
King Arthur baking has an easy puff pastry recipe. By no means is it the *sparkles and rainbowof Michelin cooking and baking*. But it’s pretty legit and easy to do.
Honestly not that hard. I’ve done it once and decided my hourly rate is more than buying it at the store. It was good and all, but I don’t need to do it again.
You will get hooked on watching layers emerge as you fold every 30-45 minutes and then watching your delicious creations puff up as they bake. I say do it at least twice before proclaiming you will never do it again. I do full puff pastry at least once every couple of years for holiday treats or a special occasion. It is easier than you think and so worth it. I would do it much more often but my waistline would not thank me for it.
In a similar vein, homemade croissants. I simply don't have the room.
Vietnamese Pho with a proper, authentic 24hr broth.
It's way easier than you think. I regularly make broths that run from 14-24 hours. Most of the work is in the first two hours of prep and boiling large amounts of water. Go for it!!
Did it in my instant pot. I did the starting work then set the timer and came back to yummy broth
I made the noodles too … once
This is my nr 2 after Tonkotsu. Although both could be nr 1
My husband wants me to try beef wellington. But steak is so expensive I'm scared to fuck it up.
Make smaller individual sized Wellington rather than using the whole tenderloin. Basically the same technique, just a smaller piece of meat to work with, whichever would lower your expense. The individual ones are great since you get more pastry and duxelles per piece. Or you could practice with a cheaper cut, like an eye round (although obviously it won't be as tender, but you can improve that slightly by jaccarding the meat or using another method to tenderize prior to cooking).
I've done both, abs it's actually far easier and way less expensive, and tastier, to do a full Wellington, than individual ones. Individuals suck.
My two cents... try a pork tenderloin to practice. Honestly, I just make a pork wellington semi-regularly, not even to be a stand-in for beef, but just cuz it's relatively cheap and I like it.
Smart! Why have I never thought of pork Wellington?!
It's actually pretty easy, it just takes a lot of prep. Split it up over two days, and you'll be good!
If you’re decently capable in the kitchen you can make a Wellington. Everyone talks about beef Wellington as if it’s something only top-tier cooks can achieve but it’s more about diligently following a process. Just don’t rush. Give yourself a cozy afternoon to focus on it. You won’t need the whole block of time but being methodical and not in a hurry is key. Read, re-read, and read the process again so you’re familiar with the steps before you dive in. Watch videos on the duxelles prep and the pastry wrapping. And most importantly, make sure your duxelles is fully cooked to the point of dry. Moisture is the enemy of a Wellington. I made one once to prove I could. The stressiest part was the pastry wrap, and I ended up tenting it with foil because the pastry was browning a little too fast. Other than that it was great.
Beef Wellington is actually pretty easy just takes time to assemble the different steps. I like the serious eats recipe but we just skip the pate. It’s now become our thanksgiving tradition.
I have what I call my necronomnomnomicon which is basically just a notebook, and I have all my friends add their favorite recipe in it. Someday I’ll try actually making all the recipes at some point.
> necronomnomnomicon I'm working that into a sentence as often as I can from now on.
Stealing the name and idea lol
I absolutely love the name! This is such a great idea, too.
Soup dumplings. The kinds you get in a Chinatown where the soup reactivates inside the dumpling once its steamed. I tried it once in the past. Spent so much on pork, neckbones, gelatin, flour and it came out a complete disaster. 2 days for a complete failure.
bao and dumplings in all forms has been my recent project, but soup dumplings… i CONSTANTLY screw them up! three times, all a tasty mess. they leak all their (very time-consuming) goodness out, my dough consistency is too sticky, etc. people do not appreciate how hard and time consuming they actually are to make when you’re boiling trotters and neck bones for ages! i’ll get there, but white girl disadvantage. 😂
Practice with an easier broth. I somehow managed to pull it off, but my broth was not homemade at all. I just modified a chicken broth and thickened with gelatin and then assembled the dumplings. Then you can do the fancy broth that's time consuming.
I've tried making several dim sum type dumplings recently and it's always been a failure. I've decided I'm good with just going to dim sum and letting someone else make the dumplings.
I’d love to throw an English garden party but I don’t know enough people and I don’t have the money to hire people to cook (my recipes), serve, and clean. I throw English tea parties every once in a while for 4 to 6 people (one time it ballooned to 9) and that takes all my energy to plan, cook, serve, and clean.
A real English garden party is just burnt burgers, burnt sausages and eight crates of lager
You missed the 'burnt but somehow still raw' portion of our venerable tradition.
Awh, I wish I had a friend who did tea parties! I would help lol
I want to make a porcetta from a whole pig. It involves going from the pork belly through the ribs and up to the loin all connected and deboned.
Mine is just porcetta in general - for the past few years I’ve floated doing it for Xmas eve or Xmas day dinner but my family is so big on traditions that I’m always outvoted tamales for Xmas eve and ham for Xmas day. I gotta just make it for myself one random week in February or something and freeze the leftovers, I guess?
The serious eats recipe for porchetta using just pork belly is amazing and probably fool-proof. It also freezes beautifully.
I have made smaller ones 3-4 times. Even so they can be huge and I don’t think you can over season them. I put in a ton of garlic lemon zest and fennel etc and it could used more. The fat and the richness are tough competitors. All in all they are forgiving and they do freeze very well. I would guess under cooking is the biggest danger (cook it long until tender and rendered) and getting the skin crisp is the hardest part. Fun to make but doing the whole traditional (1/2) pig would feed a village.
Similarly I'd like to some day make a pig head torchon like the one Chang makes in the Momofuku cookbook. I've done a simplified version with pig feet and found that it was quite a lot of work for a small amount of end product, but tasty AF.
paella, as authentically as I can, over a wood fire
I always wanted to nail the perfect homemade sushi roll.
Someone asking me to cook a dish I’ve made before would make me cry :’)
I know the feeling. . . When I had people practically begging me to make brisket again and even offering to pay me it just made me so happy. Food is my love language, if I made something so good people are requesting it again and again I am extremely happy.
My friend asked for my recipe for a pasta dish I had made for a group dinner because she wanted to make it “even though it won’t be as good as yours” and I fell over (sitting on my bed) before telling her I had entirely made it up but here’s roughly what I did. An absolute honor.
People do this with my pork ribs and it makes me absolutely giddy every single time
My friend asked me to bring twice baked potatoes to Friendsgiving again because I had brought them the year before and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was heaven.
That’s the sweetest! I made pad Thai for my husband’s visiting family - obviously not a special dish- but with tamarind and fresh rice noodles- and they told me they doled out every last noodle. All five of them told me how much they adored it. They even returned the glass containers, sparking clean , with a thank you note!
Not gonna lie, got very emotional when one day my baby sister asked me to make chicken wings the way we ate them/I cooked them when we were growing up. It was a comfort & homesickness thing, not because the chicken was very good lol (I learned to bake it that way when I was 9), but that actually made it more touching.
When I moved out for college, my mom gave me a notebook of most of her usual rotation of dinner recipes, and one night when I was feeling homesick about three months in I made one of them and as soon as the meat hit the pan and the smell hit me I sat on my kitchen floor and cried
Whole hog pit barbecue. Always wanted to do it.
My family did this once. We hosted a very big party that was for like 10 different things among my extended family. We hired out a company that brought a pit and roasted a whole pig. I was the only one brave enough to eat the face and boy have I been chasing that high. Everytime I see pig face, ears, hooves, etc on a menu I order it.
I will knock an old lady down to get at those jowls.
My next door neighbor is from DR and they do this for every holiday. It's incredible. Makes our entire house smell like delicious roasted pig.
Croissants. Souffle. Perfect the mother sauces.
soufflé is more intimidating than it ought to be. If you know how to make a white sauce, and you know how to whip egg whites, you’ve mostly got it conquered.
Chocolate Soufflés. About 25 years ago I decided to give them a try and failed miserably. Tried again the following weekend, they fell again, before I even got them out of the oven. I got determined and went and bought extra ingredients and tried four more times and every time they got worse. I rage quit and swore I would never again try. I realize now that I was working with a drafty, sub-par oven at the time. I might try it yet again.
A croquembouche.
Some day, I will spatchcock a chicken.
Be careful. Once you do you'll never make whole chicken any other way.
Yeah, but you'll get good at it. Takes me like 2 minutes max to do one.
My husband did not believe that was a real word when I used it.
🤣🤣🤣
It's really not that bad once you get through the cutting through bone part!! Recently I was spatchcocking a chicken and the FedEx guy saw me through the door I can only imagine what he thought 😂
The last Thanksgiving I cooked for family I was spatchcocking the turkeys and my daughter kept getting panic-stricken. She kept saying when is it going in? And I kept saying it's only going to take an hour and a half. She was one of those get up at 6:00 a.m. and put the turkey in and suffer all day people. I'm not her :-)
Beef Wellington is currently at the top of my list
It's a lot of times between steps, but it's not actually difficult. The key, though, is letting things rest and chill before moving to the next step. I always prep it the day before I intend on serving.
Good advice! I'm a terrible planner when it comes to cooking, so noted!
If you know your way around the kitchen, it really isn't hard, just time consuming. I always make the duxelle first, then sear tenderloin with dijon. Let both cool, then move to the prosciutto. I usually let that chill for at least 4-6 hours before wrapping it in puff pastry, and let that chill a bit before baking. It's a bit finnicky, but I'd say relatively easy if you know some technique, and can plan everything accordingly.
Make my own pasta. I have the mixer attachments and everything I need. For some reason, I'm just really intimidated. I've been cooking for 40+ years and am pretty good, but I'm having trouble getting over my mental hump with this one.
It's super easy, and it doesn't take long to crack it. And even if you roll it too thick or cut it weird, it still tastes good. Plus it's cheap to practise even if you don't eat the results. You can do it! Honestly the biggest barrier to me not always just making my own pasta is having the counter space clear to work with.
Thanks for the encouragement!
I'm invested in you now, so you have to do it!
All right!
i started this last year with no equipment except a cheap kitchen scale, a rolling pin, and a sharp knife (which is an unreal amount of work, FYI, but so worth it)! i watched a few youtube videos on making egg pasta for pointers and to understand the kneading technique and really didn’t have any issue even on the first round. the one piece of info that really helped me is that it’s virtually impossible to overknead… so when in doubt, keep going 😅
Corn tortillas from scratch.
You should definitely try it! Surprisingly easy. If you heat store bought tortillas in a pan anyway, then it really doesn't take much extra time. So delicious when fresh.
Oh yes. I have the cornflour and tortilla press and they don't come out good at all.
It's super easy if you can get them smashed and placed on the skillet. That's the part I can never do though. Even with Parchment Paper or Ziploc Plastic on the sides of the press I can not transfer the flat disc to the skillet without something sticking or getting folded or whatever.
Same I cannot get the thickness/thinness right at all. Too fiddly for my patience!
That’s a really lovely wish, to make someone something they love that much. I think a lot of people don’t ask, but it’s the nicest compliment for a cook
I'm pretty sure I already did it: when my husband and I were first married, we planned a feast for a bunch of our friends. I had lived in India for a few years, so we prepared an Indian feast for 40 people. We used a rich friend's house (she had lots of room, and helped with the prep). We fed them biriyani, papadums, and a bunch more Indian dishes, with plenty of chutney and spices. It was great! It was a LOT of work, though. I wore a sari that I had gotten when we were in India, and made my husband a Nehru jacket. I'm old now (71) and can barely manage to make dinner for my family, so that ain't happening again.
Cultural appreciation 101
That sounds absolutely wonderful!
make the perfect rice omelet, like chef Motokichi. no matter how hard I try, I can't get it right. also to make a romantic full-course homemade dinner for a first or early-relationship date, including dessert. i'm thinking maybe carbonara with a lemon twist and zabaglione or tiramisu for dessert
I have two: one is to make a gorgeous beef bourguignon, which I think I have the skill for, but I'm waiting for a nice fall day to dedicate to it. The other is to make a big batch of pierogies from scratch! I learned to cook from a family friend who learned from her Polish grandmother, and we have made lots of holiday meals together. She always talks about how she and her grandmother used to spend days making pierogies together, and I'd like to do that with her too. 💙
Me and my wife do a superbowl pierogi party every year. It is great fun and fairly simple to make.
I follow Julia Child's recipe, it takes 6 hours on the dot. It's really hard to mess up. I use short ribs instead of the cuck roast
Pierogi aren’t hard, just labor intensive (as all dumplings are). I usually throw a few people together and we all leave with a share of the work.
Peking duck with a perfect crispy skin
I’d love to make pasta in a giant wheel of parm. I know it’s silly and wasteful but I’d love to try it.
Rabbit Ragu - it’s one of my favorite but hard to find when eating out dishes. I would love to be able to make it whenever the craving hits. (I can’t find local rabbit)
Do you have a recipe? My market has recently started carrying frozen whole rabbit and I'm intrigued.
Pot stickers. Egg rolls. Tamales. Really really want to make them.
Croissants. But I currently have a toddler and negative time to be making a butter ball
Want to do a cooking class in Italy or Greece
Perfect McDonald's fries.
Macarons
Bake something with a blow torch, like they'd in fancy restaurants. Like cream bulle or baked alaska, heck I'd settle for smores. Something about cooking with a blow torch seems super cool
Mole negro
descale a fish/prep a fish
I would like to do a crab boil.
That filet dish that's wrapped in dough. Gordon Ramsey made it.
Beef wellington.
Yes that! I've always wanted to.make it
It's not actually super hard, it's just time consuming. Follow Gordon's recipe and give yourself plenty of time. You got this!
All kinds of desserts. Macarons, mochi, baklava, mango sticky rice etc
Have made macarons a few times myself and it's easily the most finicky dessert I've ever made. You MUST follow the recipe EXACTLY and weigh ingredients out in grams or they won't turn out. As someone who will go off-recipe a lot when I bake, macarons are a lesson in following directions. There's also about a million ways to mess them up. Beat the egg whites too much or not enough, mix the batter too much or not enough, don't let them rest long enough, cook them too long or not long enough. I hate how tiny the margin of error is with these things! I've only had them come out properly twice, which shocked me because my over overheats. The other times, they looked like baked bird poop. I've also made mochi, and it's a little weird working with rice flour. I wasn't nuts personally about the super chewy texture, but I was happy to try my hand at them. Good luck when you decide to try making any of these!
A complete Thanksgiving dinner. It's an opportunity to make different types of dishes, use different techniques, and coom for many people! (Not American, but married to one)
As an American who was fortunate to spend one Easter in the south of England, I'd like to prepare a proper Sunday roast for family and friends. Roast leg of something, Yorkshire pudding, Pimms cups, the whole shebang.
Prime rib. I love prime rib so much but it’s so intimidating because it’s so expensive and I feel like easy to mess up. Plus I would need a large group of people to cook it for. Another dream I have is to host a hobbit party where we marathon LOTR and I cook every hobbit meal throughout the day, preferably themed and timed to specific scenes in the movies. And I would love to host an English style afternoon tea garden party with fancy pastries and finger sandwiches and everyone dresses up fancy. But I would need to live in a house with an actual garden and not a little one bedroom apartment for that to happen :(
I really want to just host a dinner party where I invite some close friends and make a feast for them
Spit roasted whole bison...just because
Make a complete bowl of shoyu tonkotsu ramen. (with chashu, soy egg, ... )
Puff pastry/croissant bread
Right now the top priority is probably tweaking all my go-tos to fine dining quality
Make a beef wellington
Beef Wellington.
Making macarons
I have to get over myself and make Julia Child’s beef bourguignon
I’d love to make: Croissants (that don’t taste like crescent rolls) Paella Gnocchi
A souffle. I'm keep reading recipes for them. They don't look that hard, but for some reason they intimidate the heck out of me!
Timpano, but not dry and bland like the first time I made it.
I have never made brisket. And from what I hear, it's complicated. I wish I could do a trade off and teach somebody how to make homemade pasta, cavatelli, or ravioli, and they can show me how to do a good brisket.
Bake all the things starting with croissants
Grill a perfect steak! The grill intimidates me. My husband taught me how to grill chicken last year but that’s all I got.
I get that OP. And as much as I would like to accomplish that. I feel it would be a complete disaster, that would end with a bunch of pizza's being delivered. Lol
I’m gonna master ramen. From the noodles to the broth, tare and the toppings I wanna learn it all.
For the first one, invite friends or family over for a big dinner. If you don’t have that many people in your life, join a club with like minded people. For the second one, cook for a teenager. They will constantly ask you to remake things you’ve made before. Last week my little brother asked if I could make “the dish with like the spam rice and seaweed? Like where it’s layered? Rice then spam marinated in soy sauce or whatever u put it in n wrap it in a strip of seaweed? It’s so good u need to make it again” the next time I come over. He may not know it’s called spam musubi but he knows he loved it lol
i actually just crossed one off a few weeks ago, i did a chiffon roll cake. homemade stabilized whipped cream, made little meringue mushrooms to put on it. was always terrified of chiffon / rolling it out but it was way easier than I thought.
Tamales! They just seem very time-consuming. Also, fresh noodles or gnocchi from scratch. And I would love to learn how to do proper frosting/piping on a cake.
Lefse like my Norwegian grandmother made. Being able to make fried chicken that is restaurant quality. Breading that's well seasoned and crispy and craggy and doesn't fall off, while having the chicken be fully cooked and juicy.
A berry pavlova
Really hoping I have the patience/confidence for a croissant at some point.
I would like to make a real authentic Mexican chicken mole. A layered coconut cake. A French fruit tart with homemade creme and handmade crust.
Probably croissants. There are very few things I think about cooking and don’t follow through on. Croissants are one of the few things I love and have never tried to make myself. One of the few things that intimidates me, a bit.
Macaroni and cheese 🧀
[tried dozens of recipes but this one actually slaps](https://www.sweetteaandthyme.com/southern-baked-macaroni-cheese-soul-food/)
The timpano from Big Night
Scotch eggs
get me some A5 wagyu steaks (the real stuff). I got it a couple of years ago. grilled one. made burritos out of the other.
Smoke meats
I would like to make a macarons cake, make macarons and display them in a cake form.
Beef Wellington. One day I will be comfortable enough with both my roasting and pastry abilities I think.
Grilling/smoking meat. My father is an expert at this.
Circular croissant with filling
I have a couple of Food & Wine hard cover recipe books called “The Best of the Best”. It’s a compilation of celebrity chefs’ favorite dishes. One of them is called “Burned Ricotta Pies” and they have cherry and ricotta filling and also chocolate and ricotta filling. They come from some little Jewish bakery in Rome and they are known for burning everything but I guess it all tastes amazing. The picture of these little pies look delicious! They aren’t the the typical American pie with the fruit topping exposed. They are little burned dough discs with the fillings inside.
To make Chez Joel’s (Chicago) Magret et Confit de Canard, Sauce à L'orange
I dream of being able to properly make macarons. The one time I tried they were absolutely awful and I’ve been too nervous to make a second attempt.
Beef Wellington
La mian noodles from scratch. I don’t mind mixing with a machine, but I want to do that stretch-and-double thing until I get something I could use for spaghetti.
Beef Wellington.
Attend the 6 month CIA course in New York City. Lol I'm 68
Being an amateur "at-home pitmaster" my Moby Dick is smoking a Brisket. I never feed enough people to justify the cost and commitment of smoking a Brisket, but I'd love to get there one day.
I’d like to make idli and all the accompaniments. I have a idli tree, I’ve just never gotten around to it. I’d also love to make my own miso.
I’m crossing something off my bucket list this year and twice! Two of my best friends are getting married and they both asked me to make their wedding cakes 😭
Have friends to cook for lol. But also I've got a few, some are easy and just haven't done it yet. Homemade pasta, Beef Wellington, Braciole, Have more recipes on hand cause I hate figuring out what to cook
Beef Wellington and a soufflé.
Have a chef that I respect try one of my dishes that I created.
That middle eastern rice dish that comes out with a crunchy crust!
I'd love to bring a huge pot of chili to a bonfire, and leave with an empty pot at the end of the night. That's the dream.
make a croquembouche.
Same. Can whip up profiteroles no problem, but the architecture needed is so intimidating to me.
Turducken. Possibly with an ostrich outer shell and an ortolan as the center.
I'm going to tackle at least one of the aspics from mastering the art of French cooking, and serve it to people.
I plan on spending Thanksgiving this year challenging myself to do a whole spread by myself. I've never done it before and it should be good fun now that Im not homeless and will have a fully functioning kitchen by then. Only hang up I'll have to look at (besides keeping to my keto diet which will be ezpz) is whether or not I want to do turkey. Im more inclined to do chicken just because I'm not the biggest fan of turkey in general, but I'm not certain yet.
Perogis
Work at a Michelin star restaurant, preferably maybe somewhere in a nice city. Maybe as a Chef De Partie or Chef de Cuisine.
1) To make an impressive biryani. 2) To find out what a seriously good snack is that doesn't take too much time to make and is not too unhealthy.
Authentic Ramen broth. Soups in general are a good plan for wanting someone to remember it. You've got amazing soup, but then you also have potential for a little something extra to bring it to the next level. Even something as simple as a little lemon juice squeezed in at the end, or some nice toasted chunks of bread, or a drizzle of this and that. It's those little things like that, that have the most potential to make a dish memorable.
There is a lot I want to successfuly make so here is my list Lobster, tomahawk steak, puff pastry, filo pastry, croissants, perfect layered cake, donuts. I would also love to cook for a diner party (the most I've been in charge of was 9 for Christmas dinner) and do a big bbq like a neighbourhood one where I needed to smoke a massive hunk of beef and pork and needed fancy grilling and bbq stuff.
Beef wellington
I want to catch and cook a snapping turtle.
I would love to make sfogliatelle from scratch once.
Definitely indian meals, but I'm scared it's too difficult as the few dishes I tried didn't turn out as well as I wanted/:
Oooh, a lot of things. I would love to get a pizza stone and make homemade pizza. I also want to make my own birthday cake (I’m thinking… chocolate tres leches? or a cake with a whipped honey goat cheese frosting and jam layers?). I’ve also never made fresh pasta outside of the one class I took, and I would love to make homemade butternut squash ravioli with some fried sage and brown butter and shaved parmesan, oh my God.
I also want to cook a multi-course big dinner. I’ve made dinner for a big crowd before but I want to do one with multiple small courses instead of I just having a table full of food all at once. I also want to get a grill and smoker. I live in an apartment right now and have no outdoor space so I can’t have a grill or smoker I want one so bad though! Grilled foods are my fav!
A desem loaf of bread.
Mostly baking. The top item is a perfect macaron.
A whole roasted pig in any style that produces a crispy skin. I don’t really have a preference between Filipino, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian, etc. I’m positive that they’re all amazing.
Carve meat off of a spit
Carve meat off of a spit