Home made food or ingredients not worth the effort
Discussion
While it’s all very virtuous to make everything in the kitchen from scratch, over the years I’ve concluded that for the effort involved against the improvement in taste, a number of things are not worth the effort.
A few examples of things I’ve tried making, and will not bother in attempting again include:
Puff pastry
Peanut butter
Imitations of biscuits e.g Jaffa Cakes
Roasting green coffee beans
Curry paste
Pasta
Needless to say, this may be down to my ineptitude. What other examples do you have?
A few examples of things I’ve tried making, and will not bother in attempting again include:
Puff pastry
Peanut butter
Imitations of biscuits e.g Jaffa Cakes
Roasting green coffee beans
Curry paste
Pasta
Needless to say, this may be down to my ineptitude. What other examples do you have?
HarryFlatters said:
Chips... Rarely have I gotten better results when making my own chips over deep frying frozen chips.
With home made chips you need to parboil them before hand, then ensure they're completely dry (free of starch) before putting them in the fryer. Frozen chips will be par-cooked before being frozen.
Pizza bases.
Garlic
Herbs
Coffee
Expensive poncy knives
Ditto pans.
Ok getting a bit carried away there, but a decent £50 knife will do exactly the same as some ridiculous Japanese samurai £300 thing. Same with non stick pans. They all expire sometime so I just buy the very cheap Ikea ones, they do quite a few years before being replaced.
There is a lot of kitchen snobbery.
Garlic
Herbs
Coffee
Expensive poncy knives
Ditto pans.
Ok getting a bit carried away there, but a decent £50 knife will do exactly the same as some ridiculous Japanese samurai £300 thing. Same with non stick pans. They all expire sometime so I just buy the very cheap Ikea ones, they do quite a few years before being replaced.
There is a lot of kitchen snobbery.
Edited by Evoluzione on Thursday 20th September 12:33
FunkyGibbon said:
Rendang curry paste. Used Rick Stein recipe - took ages and ages. Whilst it was nice a £1.50 jar of shop bought blew its socks off.
Edited to add: not a criticism of Mr Stein's recipe, more a nod to my cooking skills or lack of....!
Agreed. Applies to any curry paste, really. There's no point making your own spice mixes, when the chances are the spices that went into a bought jar of paste were a lot fresher than the ones in your cupboard! Fresh spices are the key to a good curry.Edited to add: not a criticism of Mr Stein's recipe, more a nod to my cooking skills or lack of....!
captain_cynic said:
With home made chips you need to parboil them before hand, then ensure they're completely dry (free of starch) before putting them in the fryer.
Frozen chips will be par-cooked before being frozen.
I've tried the Heston method (parboil, cool and dry in the fridge, blanch in 140°C oil, cool and dry in fridge, flash in 180°C oil for serving), and the Aldi frozen chips I had the other week were better and 100000000% less effort.Frozen chips will be par-cooked before being frozen.
HarryFlatters said:
captain_cynic said:
With home made chips you need to parboil them before hand, then ensure they're completely dry (free of starch) before putting them in the fryer.
Frozen chips will be par-cooked before being frozen.
I've tried the Heston method (parboil, cool and dry in the fridge, blanch in 140°C oil, cool and dry in fridge, flash in 180°C oil for serving), and the Aldi frozen chips I had the other week were better and 100000000% less effort.Frozen chips will be par-cooked before being frozen.
Far more effort though, but worth it in my opinion.
captain_cynic said:
HarryFlatters said:
Chips... Rarely have I gotten better results when making my own chips over deep frying frozen chips.
With home made chips you need to parboil them before hand, then ensure they're completely dry (free of starch) before putting them in the fryer. Frozen chips will be par-cooked before being frozen.
Cut chips uniformly, wash in cold water several times. Blanch in barely simmering salted water with a teaspoon of white wine vinegar for every two litres of water. Remove and allow to air dry, now leave in a fridge over night to dehydrate a little then freeze.
Cook from frozen at 180 for 3 minutes.
(ripped off from the McDonalds patent)
21TonyK said:
For a perfect fast food fry...
Cut chips uniformly, wash in cold water several times. Blanch in barely simmering salted water with a teaspoon of white wine vinegar for every two litres of water. Remove and allow to air dry, now leave in a fridge over night to dehydrate a little then freeze.
Cook from frozen at 180 for 3 minutes.
(ripped off from the McDonalds patent)
I'll have to try the salted water thing, I usually just use normal water.Cut chips uniformly, wash in cold water several times. Blanch in barely simmering salted water with a teaspoon of white wine vinegar for every two litres of water. Remove and allow to air dry, now leave in a fridge over night to dehydrate a little then freeze.
Cook from frozen at 180 for 3 minutes.
(ripped off from the McDonalds patent)
I often shallow fry mine with chopped onion and garlic in a pan when doing steak and chips.
Puff pastry is the main one for me, even TV chefs seems to all use bought stuff.
I usually find any shop bought spice mixes way too salty, so always mix our own for dry mixes, but having played around with home made curry pastes they're a lot of hassle and not that that dissimilar to a shop bought one.
I usually find any shop bought spice mixes way too salty, so always mix our own for dry mixes, but having played around with home made curry pastes they're a lot of hassle and not that that dissimilar to a shop bought one.
geeks said:
Cauliflower Cheese if you get the right frozen one you'll wonder why you used to bother with boiling up some Cauliflower and making a cheese sauce.
What's the right one? It's never occurred to me buy a premade cauliflower cheese.
captain_cynic said:
21TonyK said:
For a perfect fast food fry...
Cut chips uniformly, wash in cold water several times. Blanch in barely simmering salted water with a teaspoon of white wine vinegar for every two litres of water. Remove and allow to air dry, now leave in a fridge over night to dehydrate a little then freeze.
Cook from frozen at 180 for 3 minutes.
(ripped off from the McDonalds patent)
I'll have to try the salted water thing, I usually just use normal water.Cut chips uniformly, wash in cold water several times. Blanch in barely simmering salted water with a teaspoon of white wine vinegar for every two litres of water. Remove and allow to air dry, now leave in a fridge over night to dehydrate a little then freeze.
Cook from frozen at 180 for 3 minutes.
(ripped off from the McDonalds patent)
I often shallow fry mine with chopped onion and garlic in a pan when doing steak and chips.
RizzoTheRat said:
Good point, I've never bothered making flour tortillas. Premade packs keep for ages.
Tend to make our own naan breads, and occasionally parathias though, presumably tortillas are similar?
I make corn tortillas because my wife has a lot of issues processing wheat, and soft corn tortillas don't seem to be a thing in my local supermarkets. Masa meal, warm water, salt. No need to rise or prove, press using my cheapy tortilla press then cook in a dry frying pan and keep warm in the oven. Absolutely worth the effort.Tend to make our own naan breads, and occasionally parathias though, presumably tortillas are similar?
Chips can still get f
ked though 
TartanPaint said:
There's no point making your own spice mixes, when the chances are the spices that went into a bought jar of paste were a lot fresher than the ones in your cupboard! Fresh spices are the key to a good curry.
No and yes - the key for most of them is time between grinding the whole spices and consumption. Freshly made garam masala from whole spices is infinitely better than anything you can buy. Gassing Station | Food, Drink & Restaurants | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff