Home made food or ingredients not worth the effort

[RizzoTheRat]

Jambo85 said:

Evoluzione said:

Garlic

You've tried making your own garlic??

I have, you need to dry the bulbs well if you want them to keep for any length of time though.

[blueg33]

yeager2004 said:

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?

I agree with the above except curry paste.

[Jambo85]

RizzoTheRat said:

Jambo85 said:

Evoluzione said:

Garlic

You've tried making your own garlic??

I have, you need to dry the bulbs well if you want them to keep for any length of time though.

Ah, growing your own? That's a different question entirely from the OP. For what it's worth garlic is usually pretty successful and worthwhile, and herbs even moreso.

[cbmotorsport]

HarryFlatters said:

Chips... Rarely have I gotten better results when making my own chips over deep frying frozen chips.

Need to establish if you're talking about fries or chips.

If you're talking about fries, then I agree.

If you're talking about proper chips, then homemade is best. Proper chipping potatoes, par boil until almost falling apart, dry, and then fry. You want loads of fissures and cracks in the chips to give you really crispy edges.

[cbmotorsport]

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.

Totally disagree. It's hardly any effort, and with your favourite choice of cheese, it's far superior to any bought one.

[evoivboy]

captain_cynic said:

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.

You're probably doing far too much... I just par boil them and dry them on a bit of paper towel before throwing into hot oil. Fantastic result.

Far more effort though, but worth it in my opinion.

Plus they must be dirty Maris Piper

[HTP99]

cbmotorsport said:

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.

Totally disagree. It's hardly any effort, and with your favourite choice of cheese, it's far superior to any bought one.

Yep, I made a cauliflower cheese for the first time a few Christmases ago, I'd never done it before but everyone said it was the best one that they had eaten and it most certainly wasn't any effort to make.

Chicken corden bleu; made it a few weeks ago, it was nice but not worth the overall effort.

[Evoluzione]

RizzoTheRat said:

Jambo85 said:

Evoluzione said:

Garlic

You've tried making your own garlic??

I have, you need to dry the bulbs well if you want them to keep for any length of time though.

Growing or buying bulbs of it. I do buy it in bulbs, but it's much easier to have the dried granules on hand and that gets used much more often.
We've recently discovered the perfect pizza base is from a tortilla wrap, it makes lovely thin healthy bases.

[HarryFlatters]

I've tried many variations on the theme. Red Rooster potatoes, Pipers from the farm over the road, veg oil, sunflower oil, lard, goose fat...

Shop bought frozen chips are 95% as good, and a billiontly eleven times less effort and I won't be swayed.

Here's some photographic evidence

[LordGrover]

Complete opposite to the OP; things cooked better at home:

Steak. I've rarely had a steak cooked as I like it in a restaurant. It's the simplest thing in the world, but they invariably over/under cook them. The odd exception, especially Hudson Steakhouse in Bath.

[Pooh]

TartanPaint said:

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.

I don't agree, I frequently make curries and very seldom use curry pastes, I grind the spices myself and use fresh ginger, garlic etc, if I properly follow a good recipe such as some of Rick Steins I end up with a much better curry than if I use a jar or have a take away.

[Pooh]

TartanPaint said:

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.

I don't agree, I frequently make curries and very seldom use curry pastes, I grind the spices myself and use fresh ginger, garlic etc, if I properly follow a good recipe such as some of Rick Steins I end up with a much better curry than if I use a jar or have a take away.

[sas62]

My main reason for cooking and preparing some things from scratch is just so I know what's gone in them. It may not always taste better than shop or restaurant bought. Part of the reason I cure my own bacon,

[Du1point8]

I dont mind doing it, the bit that grates me is that I spend 5x the amount of the best jar stuff in raw ingredients and then need to freeze or find ways to use them all up in the following 1-2 weeks

[cbmotorsport]

I guess from working in the industry, your customers expect your food to be made from scratch, and we buy very little in (things like puff pastry being the odd exception) With that comes a familiarity with making things, and your perception of what defines a lot of effort changes. Effort is directly proportional to the amount you need to prepare, so when it comes to home cooking these days, there's very few things I class as a lot of effort.

[21TonyK]

Ice cream. Really cannot be arsed but I do miss tarte tatin with earl grey ice cream

[Greshamst]

RizzoTheRat said:

Jambo85 said:

Evoluzione said:

Garlic

You've tried making your own garlic??

I have, you need to dry the bulbs well if you want them to keep for any length of time though.

I swear by frozen chopped garlic in a sealable bag they sell at Waitrose.
Never any issues with freshness, don’t get all garlicky fingers for hours from chopping, and you can use as much or as little as you like. Absolute godsend!

[Jambo85]

Greshamst said:

I swear by frozen chopped garlic in a sealable bag they sell at Waitrose.
Never any issues with freshness, don’t get all garlicky fingers for hours from chopping, and you can use as much or as little as you like. Absolute godsend!

Mmm yes - while I think pre chopped carrots and onions are for the same cretins who think they need artificial grass, I do see the justification for ready to go garlic - is the type you mention better than the jarred type? It always has a funny taste, fine for emergencies but definitely inferior.

[Greshamst]

Wayyyyy better than the jarred stuff as it doesn’t have anything added to it, just chopped and frozen, 100% garlic.

The jarred stuff is always a bit acidic/oily/pickled.

[Hosenbugler]

There are a few things I woudn't make from scratch, puff pastry being one regularly mentioned in the thread. Another is Horseradish sauce, on the basis that homemade takes your head off!
I entirely agree though that making your own, gives you control over what goes into it , a prime example being soup, a Heinz soup I had recently had near 3 gramms of salt in it, totally unnaceptable to me, so fortunate my daughter is an ace soup maker.

One thing I did make from scratch and would not do again, was fishcakes. I used a Sophie Grigson recipe , prep took ages, yes they were good, but I would have struggled to tell the difference in a blind tasting between the homemade and a decent high street fishcake.