Kitchen disaster

[thomasortega]

I've never, ever failed so miserably in the kitchen like today.

After several days planning the "menu", today I decided to make some "Swiss potatoes" (which is nothing more than "wannabe fancy" hashbrowns.

Breville Peel and Dice was the ONLY thing that worked right. Anything else did, including my brain.

Potatoes beautifully peeled and shredded.
As the FP was already dirty, I decided to use it to pull the chicken that I previously slow cooked. I'm so used to use the Doug blade that I forgot that the Brevile dough blade is tiny so it doesn't pull chicken unless you have a monster batch.

Ok, crisis solved... let's start cooking...

1 layer of potatoes, a thin layer of chicken, another layer of potatoes.

It took FOREVER to brown one side.... then there was the other side... jeez.... and making four three it means that I'd have to repeat the procedure at least other 5 times.

1st last second brain fart... I'll just stir fry those f-word potatoes and mix with the chicken.

I grabbed a giant all clad wok and started... BUT I FORGOT THE OIL! Do I need to say the stainless steel loved it so much that it grabbed the potatoes and wouldn't let them go?

Second change of plans (after almost half of the potatoes turned into a concrete stucco in the wok) followed by a second brain fart: change pan quickly, add some water, cook the potatoes and them mash. Now that I'm typing it I had to stop to laugh... make mashed potatoes with shredded potatoes? Facepalm

It was OK, until I grabbed the hand mixer and... the potatoes turned into a science project. Maybe I should've used a concrete mixer?

At this point, my Latin blood was already boiling, I looked at Darryl with lasers on my eyes and shouted "I give up! Deal with it!" and ran away from the kitchen. If I stayed there 10 seconds more I'd literally explode like Katie Kaboom.

He then somewhat tried to save the day by mixing that potato spray insulation with the shredded chicken, adding some grated cheese and tossing everything in the oven.

It turned out.. edible?

I dont remember ever making such a disaster in the kitchen. I don't consider myself a 3-star Michelin chef, but I know how to cook very well. I simply cannot understand what the hell happened tonight.

How about you guys? What was your worst kitchen disaster?

 

[helicaldrive]

There is no escaping

kitchen disasters. No escaping them.

They have dramatically decreased in frequency now that I’m almost 60, but they still occur sometimes — and sometimes despite doing every step perfectly, and the exact same way as at other previous times of success.

Sometimes it’s differences in the ingredients, not the procedure. For example, I’ve learned the hard way that my pie crust recipe only works with Land O’Lakes butter, and pumpkin recipes made with store brand pumpkin rather than Libby’s are usually a disaster. In both cases because store brands have more water. Sometimes we just err in those split second judgments. During parties I usually charm the good cooks in the crowd to stand there with me and say when. They have saved a number of evenings.

We must cook, and there is nothing to do but accept that sometimes for no explicable reason, disasters result.

Julia used to say the same thing, basically.

 

[joeekaitis]

Prepared-Ahead No-Boil Baked Pasta

 

Thought I'd get ahead of the game by prepping a pan of No-Boil Baked Pasta and throwing it in the fridge the night before, including the pasta sauce and added cooking water.

 

Ever made Ceviche?  You know, shellfish cooked entirely by acidity in the fridge for several hours?

 

Turns out the acid in tomato-based pasta sauce works the same way on hard pasta like penne and rigatoni, not to mention starches are hydrophilic (translation: starch loves water and will immediately start sopping it up, even cold water).  By morning, the penne had swelled to nearly-cooked size.  After an hour in the oven, it had turned to mush.  Spooning it into bowls only made it worse.  A formless mass that jiggled slightly like Jell-O with only a few remaining visual hints of how it began life.

 

Edible (with a spoon) and tasty but not exactly enjoyable.

 

The takeaway: brown up and break up the ground meat, stir in the dry pasta and STOP!  Into the fridge NOW! Dilute and add the sauce right before baking.

 

[nanook]

I Feel Your Pain

One of the more frustrating things to happen in the kitchen is when the first attempt at a recipe comes out really well.  So... questions answered, experience gained - or so one would think. The next attempt - the results are different - occasionally greatly so.  Go figure-!  Sometimes, it just happens.  All we can do is carry on.

 

[ea56]

Mistakes are how I’ve learned to be a better cook and baker. No matter how long you’ve been cooking you can always learn something new. So, much as I hate to screw something up, in the end I’ve always benefitted from a cooking mistake. But at the time they sure can be infuriating, especially if expensive ingredients get wasted.

To avoid kitchen mistakes I make a conscious effort to VISUALIZE whatever I’m planning to make, especially if I’ve never made a particular dish or baked good before. Then I make sure that I have ALL the ingredients out before I start to make anything. This way there is no chance of being in the middle of making something and oh sh*t I’m out of this or that.

The worst kitchen disaster I ever had was when I made a Chicken Pie one time. It had come out just perfect! But I’d gotten a lot of raw pie dough on the outside and bottom of the glass pie pan. In my attempt to wipe this mess off before I put it into the oven somehow the GD pie flipped over and fell upside down. I yelled a long string of obscenities as I tried to salvage the pie, which I managed to do, but it sure weren’t purdy anymore, LOL! Lesson learned, be more careful about touching the pie pan with dirty hands!

Eddie[this post was last edited: 12/26/2021-13:35]

 

[rp2813]

I don't know if this qualifies, but it started a running joke that continued every year until 2020, just under the wire before COVID lockdown.

 

After Dave and I bought out my sister's interest in my family home, I decided to continue my mom's tradition of celebrating St. Patrick's Day with Grasshoppers (whipped up in my Waring "rocket ship" blender) and a corned beef dinner for about ten people.

 

For the inaugural meal, Dave went to a locally-owned high end supermarket with full service meat counter and got a nice chunk of beef.  The night before the dinner, we started staging and brought up a large stock pot from the basement to make sure the beef would fit in it.  It did, so we were in business.

 

The next afternoon we got started with the prep.  I grabbed the pot to fill it with water at the sink, lifted the lid and saw that the beef had been sitting in it for almost 24 hours at room temperature.  It just so happened that this particular Saturday was March 17th.  I hopped into my car and had the pedal to the metal as I backed out the long driveway just as our first guests were arriving, hoping I could find corned beef out there somewhere.  I can't remember, but I suspect Dave and I had been smoking the night before and forgot all about the meat in the stock pot.

 

I was able to find packaged corned beef at another store in a neighboring town and raced back home.  Things continued to unravel and while the dinner turned out fine, we didn't sit down at the table until almost 11:30 PM.  Every year after that, it became another part of the tradition to place wagers on what time we'd be eating.  I think the earliest we managed was around 8 PM.   Since I found an early post-war GE roaster oven a year or two later, there was never a question about whether the entire meal would fit in it, but the Grasshoppers reliably facilitated losing track of time anyway.

 

[helicaldrive]

OMG

Next time you don’t start cooking corned beef until the guests arrive use a pressure cooker.

 

[bradfordwhite]

When I was young (16) mixing up baking soda with baking powder. lol

When I was about 18 had my apartment, went to KFC right before closing (didn't know what time they closed), they were taking forever with my order then the guy gave me like all this food. It was like 4 times what I ordered. I thought I got a real bargain. lol. For many people it would be. I didn't know yet that chicken goes bad so I kept the chicken in the frig and when I checked it 3 weeks later.... surprise. lol.

But yeah, making intricate recipes can be ruined with just one missed step or bad ingredient.

We had this recipe for really good(rich) Peanut Butter-Butterscotch bars from the 1960s. You have to dedicate an hour to making it, though you do get two 10-15 minute breaks in there.
When they are made correct, and I have the recipe down pat now, they are so good. but if you mess up the egg mixture or the mixture doesn't cool enough it's ruined.

(The picture is similar but the recipe attached doesn't look right.)

Peanut Butter Marshmallow Squares – Confetti Squares

These Peanut Butter Marshmallow Squares – AKA Confetti Squares are one of my favourite nostalgic childhood treats. Creamy peanut butter and butterscotch chips mixed in with rainbow coloured marshmallows are truly a match made in heaven! **This post was originally published December 13, 2017 and...

basicswithbails.com

 

[dermacie]

I once made a beautiful lemon meringue pie completely from scratch. It was in the oven to brown the meringue and when I pulled the rack, (I recently cleaned the oven) and I had put the racks in wrong, the rack pulled completely out and the pie tumbled onto the oven door ruined completely like a lemon meringue crumble.    

 

[ea56]

Re: Reply#4

The best Corned Beef and Cabbage I ever cooked was in the oven. I had to work late on that St. Patricks Day in ‘82, so before I left in the morning at 9 am I put the Corned Beef, red new potatoes, a couple of onions quartered and cabbage cut into quarters into my blue splatter enameled roaster, poured a can on beer over all of it and tossed in a few bay leaves, placed the cover on the roaster and set the oven at 275F on the little 20” gas stove in our rental.

When I got home at 7pm the house smelled just like St. Patty’s Day and Corned Beef was fork tender. I’d thought that the cabbage may have been over done, but it was also perfect. Better that a crock pot and easy as pie! And no water logged Corned Beef.

Eddie

 

[rp2813]

Derek, having the racks pull all the way out is the rule rather than the exception with Gaggenau ovens like mine.  There are no stoppers provided.  I don't know if it's due to off-the-charts imposition of German discipline or what, but it's hazardous to say the least.

 

As for using a pressure cooker for corned beef, at that time I didn't own one that would fit all of the beef and had never used a PC for preparing it, so I was taking no chances on a sequel to the first mishap. 

 

There will be no next time.  2020 was the end.  I'm not that big a fan of corned beef anyway, and since we moved to a new home, the tradition no longer needs to continue under this roof.

 

[mattl]

I do a lot of baking yet...

A few days ago I was making one of my many Christmas cookies.  They are called sweet pockets, have an orange infused dough with a cream cheese/coconut/brown sugar filling, shaped like pirogi. Everyone likes them and they go fast, recipe makes about 20.

 

I weight everything and convert recipes accordingly.  So I decided to increase the recipe by 50%, easy. The result was terrible - only got 12 instead of 30. Had to toss them, luckily I had a few more oranges around to zest and squeeze, made the standard recipe -all was fine.  Who knows why it didn't work, will try again in the future.

 

[stan]

You guys

all sound like good cooks!
And brave enough to try new things
I think there’s a lot of really good cooks on this site.

 

[chachp]

Turkey in a bag......

 

I have a few over the years but the worst one was when I was in my 20s.  I was house sitting for friends who were out of town over Thanksgiving.  I decided to cook a big dinner for a few other friends (the owners knew and were fine with it) and didn’t realize how under equipped their kitchen was until I started cooking.  Neither of them cooked all that much.

 

As I was preparing everything, I realized she didn’t have a large roasting pan for the turkey.  All she had were a few cookie sheets.  I figured since I was cooking the turkey in a bag what could go wrong with putting it on a cookie sheet.  Well, I can see most of you right now cringing thinking that’s a bone head move.  But wait, it gets better.  She had a flair range.  Is it coming together yet for you?  

 

Well, I had this huge turkey in the oven above and I’m watching the bag expand as they do.  But I was also watching the liquid in the bag come up the sides of the bag a little bit.  Every burner on the stove was in use.  I had stepped over to the other side of the kitchen to do something and I heard this sound.  I looked over to see this grease pouring out of the oven on to the cooktop and the pans and the burners that were on.  The bag burst.  To this day I don't know why but OMG, what a mess.

 

We all got a good laugh over it, we were able to salvage a decent meal out of it and spent the better part of the next day cleaning.

 

When the owners got home we had a good laugh over it.  The kitchen was spotless when they got home.  Actually better than when they left so they weren’t too tripped up over it.

 

[vacerator]

I've seen way worse!

Some like dark cabunets, and that dutch door fridge is cool too! I'd paint the brick, or acid wash and fade it down.

 

[henene4]

Screw up

We made mouse au chocolate as usual this year.

I must have mixed up something in my head and ended up adding 50g of salt and a pinch of sugar - so the wrong way around.

Had to do an emergency run to the store and redo it.

Most annoying thing was all the washing up I had to do - 4 bowls, times two...

 

[ea56]

Re: Reply#9

I just realized that I forgot to mention that I also put carrots into the roaster with the Corned Beef, potatoes, cabbage and onions. It wouldn’t be a St. Patricks Day Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner without the carrots too. BTW, all the vegetables came out so delicious prepared this way. Much more flavorful than boiled in copious amounts of water.

Eddie