Cooking defeats - What have yours been? Did you learn anything from them.

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Mel!

Sous Chef
Joined
Aug 29, 2006
Messages
862
One that comes to mind right now, is my attempt to deep fry home made samosas, and getting oily mush as a result.

I was too stubborn to admit defeat so tried cooking all of them in the fryer despite seriel failure, rather than stopping after the first one, and then also had the unpleasant task of cleaning the gunk out of the deep fryer, and then not knowing where to dispose of it without making a leaking disgusting bag of garbage, so I put it in the toilet, which blocked the toilet as the oil congealed on hitting the cold toilet water.

What I learned
I learned to bake samosas, rather than fry. I suppose, I could try shallow frying them, but baking seems better, because shallow frying would probably still cause the pasty to become soggy with fat.
 
When making batter dipped onion rings, don't drop a whole handful in the hot oil at one time. They will cook up as one multi-coiled onion ring mass the size of a softball!

WHAT I LEARNED: Drop batter dipped onion rings into the hot oil one at a time so the coating on the first one has a chance to set before the second one hits it.


Lest you think that's my only mistake:

Never break an egg into a flat dish and microwave it. It will result in an explosion (no, I am not exaggerating) and little particles of cooked egg all over the inside of the microwave, including in all those tiny little holes used for venting.

WHAT I LEARNED: Break the yolk first, then microwave.
 
No matter what else you worry about falling into it, NEVER put a lid on a pan in which you're heating oil. When you take the lid off, superheated oil will immediately flash.

And when it flashes, put the lid back on. Do NOT try to move the pan off the burner. Other lessons that go with that are that burned skin never tans again, and physical therapists are sadistic.
 
When I was very young all of my defeats revolved around attempting to make "gourmet" meals when I invited people to my home. I finally wised up and started making TNT country meals that I had made a hundred times. So I guess I really learned to be myself.
 
I tried a whole wheat pasta dish with homemade pasta. We went out to eat that night.

What I learned......I am just fine with dried store bought pasta.
What else I learned....Whole wheat pasta sucks even the store bought kind.
 
Never ever ever cook ham studded with cloves in a crock pot with orange juice for 10 hours.

What I learned.
1. Orange juice will get a burned taste that is over powered only by the overwhelming taste of clove.

2. Keep the number for pizza delivery handy at all times!
 
Fails always make you a better cook! Mine are too many to mention.:ROFLMAO: Best thing, being able to look back and laugh at yourself!:LOL:
 
Never boast about a dish you have made a few times and think you can wing it without referencing the recipe at least once.

What I Learned Shrek will always use the phrase "Harvard Beets" to wind me up...at least until one of us goes. I better go last or he'll tell the story at my wake.
 
do not take pizza dough from the fridge and try to stretch it to make a pizza right away.

it will never stretch out when cold no matter how hard you try.
 
There was that one time I tried to make my baby eat steamed puréed celery Babyfood. My poor baby! How I tortured her.
 
Winging it and making something fantastic but forgetting to write the recipe down and trying to do it again. Never works for me

And letting my bf cook haha
 
My tahini sauce had gone rancid. I decided to outsmart myself by buying sesame seeds and keeping them in the freezer.

Guess what. I made some tahini sauce with those sesame seeds, it looked so good, today, and the sesame seeds had gone rancid! No tahini sauce today.:(
 
Today was not exactly my day. I have stickers and a permanent marker on the shelf ready at all times to mark food going into the freezer.

Today I found a UFO, unidentified frozen object. No idea what it is.
 
Today was not exactly my day. I have stickers and a permanent marker on the shelf ready at all times to mark food going into the freezer.

Today I found a UFO, unidentified frozen object. No idea what it is.

Shrek can;t believe I have an individual container for each type of cut in the freezer. But of course, you still can't find anything, because they are all covered with popscicle boxes...
 
I have had many a failure in the kitchen. I reckon the worst was when I first tried my hand at cooking, many, many years ago. I was trying to make a cheesecake from scratch. Misread the recipe TWICE!!! Instead of a 1/4 tsp of salt I read 1/4 cup.
I thought that was too much, but......that's what I thought it read.
Holy Mackerel!!!
It was, needless to say, inedible and to this day when I read a recipe and if I ain't sure about a measurement, I trust my gut feeling as I should have done the day of the cheesecake fiasco.
 
PF--what child are all those Popsicles for?

Hoot--stuff like that only happens once. :yum: Holy Moley.
 
Never try cutting corners by first browning meat on top of the stove in a Pyrex dish before finishing off in the oven

Lesson learned: Glass shards are dangerous and hard to clean up. What a mess. Now I'm not so lazy.
 
Child--you--child--you, hmmmm.....young at heart!

Those sound delicious, I've never seen those flavors, I'm deprived.

Linda-I've done that, only once.:)

Dreyer's makes them, quite yummy and only 90 calories a bar, no artificial sweeteners.
 
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