Good-Assed Substitutions

[side_show]

I tend to use recipes as a jumping off point, rather than following them down to the minute detail.  So come on, tell me what are some of the successful, and possibly not so successful substitutions you've made when it comes to cookery?

I had a really successful situation related to this Pot Roast recipie this week.  The three problems I had were that I didn't have the last three ingredients, the dry onion soup mix, the red wine or the beef broth.  Gazing in my pantry, the only thing liquid that seemed remotely reasonable was an unopened, three year old 2 litre bottle of this Mulled Apple Sparkeling Soda.  I gave the bottle a shake, and the drink had clearly gone flat, so I figured, why not?  Why not replace red wine (sweet, with depth) and broth (depth again) with this cider?  It's easy enough to augment cider with the addition of some salty and savory flavours, so I took the cider, added some salt, garlic and pepper and went for it.  As for the missing dry onion soup I used dried onion flakes + salt + garlic powder + dash of sugar.

The result?  The best pot roast I've ever tasted, with a pan gravy with an astonishing depth of flavour.  The cider already had this spicy, musky flavour, so the gravy and the roast itself had this strong background flavour of savory spice that was so damn fine.

So what to do with the remaining cider in the now open bottle?  I'm using about a cup of it, plus soy sauce, ginger, honey and fresh ground pepper to marinate some short ribs that will be bbq'd tomorrow.

I've certainly had some not-so-good situations with substitutions too, but I'll post on those ones later.  

[wombat]

This is not a substitution exactly but, when you are baking and a recipe calls for brown sugar, don't buy that stuff in the box. Mix white sugar with a little molasses till it is brown-sugar-colored. It is much more flavorful than the stuff you buy which is really kind of fake, it's just colored with a little carmelized sugar.

[littlefallsmets]

My dad substitutes grape jelly for red wine in spaghetti sauces and he swears by it.

[jay-ell]

The other day, I had a recipe that called for sauteeing some chicken, removing it from the pan and then making a sauce with the drippings and some mushrooms. Usually recipes like this want you to deglaze the pan with stock or wine, but this one didn't, and I thought it odd. The sauce was simply 1/2 cup sour cream and 2 tbsp of barbecue sauce, so I deglazed the pan with a quarter cup of the beer that Pedro hadn't finished earlier and was sitting in the fridge getting flat. It was delicious. Not complex, but very tasty.

[side_show]

Yeah in general, I really like to use wine or beer in cooking, and I'm a big fan of otherwise swapping out water as an ingredient for anything that adds flavour.

Failed substitution this evening - made a "creamy" potato and ham casserole, which called for 1 cup of sour cream and one can of cream of mushroom soup, but I didn't have cream of mushroom soup, and also (wrongfully I understand now) assumed the recipe called for condensed cream of mushroom soup.  I used two cups of sour cream instead and this weird thing happened where the creaminess of the sour cream seemed to evaporate leaving behind these random, cottage cheese like lumps.  the casserole still tasted good, but it wasn't at all creamy like I'd hoped for.

[Nabubrush]

We have this thing we do when either of us cooks that we ask each other "but did you take the recipe and make it your own?" We basically never cook exactly from the recipe. I don't really know what started that - I'm sure it was her, though, because she has more or less taught me how to cook without slavishly following the recipe.

I make a mean spaghetti and I don't have a recipe at all - of course, it's never the same twice, but it's always pretty tasty.

[side_show]

I consult recipes only if I need to ensure I'm using the right temperature, timing and quantities, but other than that almost everything I cook is made from scratch.  For example, I'll be looking up flanken-style short ribs sometime today to find out the best method a timing for cooking them after their 24 hr marinade.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I am a total recipe guy, to the point that I sometimes have to remind myself that I'm a good cook and I can just as easily make something up as I go along. I have a bunch of pork stock in the freezer, and I've been trying to find a good Asian pork and noodle soup to use it up, but I can't find a recipe that's just right. And the other day after looking through yet another cookbook I thought "How about you just put the stuff you THINK should go in there into the pot and cook it? C'mon, you can do this." I expect to take that on tonight or in a couple days.

[jay-ell]

I never cook straight from the recipe. Ever. The first few times I make something, I try to follow it fairly closely, but partly because I'm picky and partly because I almost never have the exact ingredients on hand, I always change something. Even if it's as simple as cutting the chicken into strips before pan-frying it to make it cook faster, or adding red wine to the spaghetti sauce, I just can't follow a recipe (or a knitting pattern) as it's written.

Pedro, being a programmer and an inexperienced cook, needs written recipes, and he measures things precisely. I eyeball my measurements (though I'm pretty good at it after 10 years of cooking at least 5 nights a week) and throw in whatever I think would be good. If I'm in doubt about how the flavors are going to blend, I sniff. I can tell pretty easily how something's going to taste by the way it smells.

The barbecue-sauce-and-sour-cream sauce I made for the chicken the other night surprised me. It tasted less like a creamy barbecue and more...strogonofgiraffe? With a slight kick of vinegar. It ws good, but I was surprised at how different it was from what I was expecting.

I almost never use straight up water in cooking. I keep boullion paste in the fridge all the time and use chicken, beef, vegetable, or mushroom broth in its place, either full strength of diluted by half (if there are other strong flavors present). I frequently cook pasta in chicken broth; it gives it a wonderful, rich, buttery flavor without adding fat.

[theinevitable]

hm.

I am really really bad at knowing how much to add of various spices. I always add wayyy too much salt, garlic, etc. I also always have this uncontrollable urge to dump in a little more after my brain/my cooking partner says "that's enough."

Do you know what Chicken Tikka Masala with way too much Cardamom tastes like? REALLY BAD.

This should have been an obvious substitution, but last time I made that recipe I used yogurt instead of cream, and it was amazing.

I think I have finally gotten my stir fry/fried rice recipe right. Finally figured out the right ratios of things.

But in general: my substitutions are always a bad choice.

I am a big fan of JL's trick of cutting your pasta meat with mushrooms. But that isn't really a substitution.

[Carlos del Vaca]

strogonofgiraffe?

Just in case anyone missed this.

[Nabubrush]

Just in case anyone missed this.

Saw that and quite enjoyed it.

[pmcd9]

It was jolly good.

[side_show]

Russian-African fusion food is the next big thing.  JL has her finger on the pulse of haute cuisine.

[jay-ell]

Did I seriously just put mint-chocolate flavored marshmallows in my coffee? FUCK YES I DID, MOTHER BITCHES!