this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Have you ever tried a recipe that turned out to go horribly wrong, or maybe the end product, despite being good, just wasn't worth the effort? What was that recipe, and what about it made you say "NEVER AGAIN"?

I ask this as I am actively trying to remove the stench of onions from my Instapot lid's silicone ring after making French Onion Soup in it (so far steaming it with white vinegar on the steam setting, soaking the ring in a water/baking soda bath overnight, and baking it at 250 degrees F for 20 minutes have all done nothing, so I ordered a new one, I give up). And I realized that cutting all the onions and waiting hours for them to caramelize and now this damn smell issue just isn't worth it. Plus I still have frozen soup in the freezer because I can only eat French Onion soup so many days in a row.

NEVER AGAIN.

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[–] Psaldorn 44 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

That time I made banana bread but with salt instead of sugar. Accidentally, of course.

It looked sad and squishy, I tried a bit anyway. It was odd, my tongue detected something amiss, but the bad taste arrived a second or two after my brain started "reacting", like warning lights were flashing but I didn't know why.

And then the taste of bananabrine arrived and my face locked up in a rictus grimace.i couldn't control my mouth so I had to scrape it out with my hand.

Truly awful.

[–] Brekky 17 points 8 months ago

Hahaha bananabrine, great description

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[–] MrsDoyle 44 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I set out tonight to make a delicious chicken paprika kind of stewish thing I've done before. As is my usual habit I took the jar of paprika from the cupboard and sprinkled a generous amount in the pan. Tasted after half an hour and fuck me, it was HOT.

It was cayenne pepper, not paprika.

My stomach actually hurts a bit.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] MrsDoyle 9 points 8 months ago

Yes, kind of, though I don't follow a recipe. It's what veg I have kicking around, flavoured with garlic, paprika and Hungarian sweet red pepper paste. Sometimes a bit of chicken or chorizo.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (4 children)

FYI, the trick to making caramelized onions is boiling the onions. After you cut up your onions and add them to your pan, add a small amount of water, enough that the water will cook out after a few minutes. The water will steam the onions and cook them more quickly, which will them make them faster and easier to caramelize.

Here's a video to demonstrate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovqhzil3wJw

This trick works well to make mushrooms more flavorful and all sorts of other foods!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (4 children)

You can also cheat by adding some sodium bicarbonate.

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[–] spittingimage 31 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I found a recipe for Boston Beans that sounded interesting. It involved stewing kidney beans with tomatoes, brown sugar and bacon bits.

At the end of it I realised I'd made baked beans, exactly like you'd get in a can. It tasted okay, but 45 minutes of effort when I could open a can and heat the contents in five minutes for the same result?

[–] Delphia 16 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Done well they will be the best baked beans you will ever have... but they are still baked beans. They can only be so good.

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[–] QualifiedKitten 28 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Pumpkin pie using fresh pie pumpkins. It's not that hard, but it takes more time and means washing more dishes, and no one that I know of can tell the difference vs. a pie made using canned 100% pumpkin.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think it depends on the squash you use. Sure, buying a cheap pie pumpkin or butternut squash at the store might not taste that much better, but a home-grown squash or good local squash can far exceed the flavor of canned pumpkin. As usual, a lot of cooking is about using fresh, good quality ingredients.

[–] QualifiedKitten 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I hear what you're saying, but I also hear, "no, just do even more work!" Haha. As it is, baking a single pie is already more expensive than a single store bought pie, and the people I'm pawning my leftovers off to don't seem to know the difference.

On top of that, I live in a high rise in the middle of the city, so home-grown squash is impossible (I barely have space for a few window sill herbs), and anything "local" is going to be even more expensive. Just not worth it to me so I can have a few slices of pie.

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[–] superduperenigma 27 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Angel Food Cake. It turned out fine, but it really wasn't much better than the store bought kind. Plus it calls for about a million egg whites so I was left with a million egg yolks when it was all said and done.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago

You’re supposed to make an angel food cake and a pound cake using the two halves of a dozen eggs.

[–] Usernameblankface 10 points 8 months ago

We buy egg whites in a carton. Much less hassle that way

[–] grasshopper_mouse 8 points 8 months ago

What did you end up doing with all the egg yolks?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Fucking cauliflower vegan "wings" they were the nastiest, smelliest, mushiest pile of gross I have ever tasted.

I have a dog who is a rescue, she was severely neglected when we first got her as a foster and her file stated she had to eat her own feces in order to survive at the place she was rescued from. Well, those cauliflower wings I just told you about? She sniffed them and gagged!! That's how bad they were.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

cauliflower wings properly made are amazing, but you should definitely not follow a recipe that results in nasty mush 😆

[–] Kurkiaurajuusto 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like you fucked something up when making them. I'm not vegan but I've tried them and they're ok when done properly. Not special, but okay and far from vile garbage.

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[–] garbagebagel 7 points 8 months ago

Similarly, cauliflower steak. I followed some recipe that just turned it into a brick of balsamic vinegarette and, while I love both cauliflower and balsamic vinaigrette, this was not delicious nor did it taste like steak.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago (4 children)

One time I made a Chinese restaurant favorite, mei cai kou rou.

It was very long and made a ton of dirty dishes.

It turned out not quite as good as restaurant quality, cost the same, and I learned it’s better left to someone with a prep cook and dishwasher.

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[–] okamiueru 19 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Orange chicken.

It was my comfort food while studying in the US. At Panda Express it was cheap, convenient, and delicious.

Then I tried making it. And... although I could make delicious-er, it was too much work. Then I forgot how much work it was, and made it again, and I swore, never again. I don't have a proper kitchen or a fryer, and it took me about two hours of active work (if you're serving 8 people). Most other food I make is max 20 minutes, and the rest is just time passing and heat doing its thing. Even dishes that take 8 hours to prepare, is usually still only 20-30 minutes of labour.

Without the right kitchen equipment. Never again.

I might make it again soon.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

My kids love Trader Joe’s frozen orange chicken and it’s easy to make.

Pan fry the breaded chicken pieces while you thaw the sauce, then toss cooked chicken in the sauce.

Cleanup is a large frying pan and tongs.

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[–] joekar1990 18 points 8 months ago

Fried chicken, it was absolutely delicious but the prep work, frying and dish clean up was more than I’d like.

[–] delicious_justice 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Puff pastry! The constant fear the butter getting too soft, the (seeming) hours of rolling then resting in the freezer, the failure of witnessing the butter melt out in the oven was just too much for me, especially when the pre made frozen stuff is quite good.

That said, I love a challenge and have been thinking of trying it again.

[–] flubba86 8 points 8 months ago

Yeah. I tried it once, just to see if I could do it. Now I know I can, I never need to do it again. I buy the frozen stuff.

[–] Brkdncr 16 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Some sort of marshmallow dessert that added condensed milk and sugar.

It caught on fire in the oven.

It tasted like eating pure sugar.

Threw it away after it cooled and it was also a bitch to clean off the pans. 0 stars.

[–] grasshopper_mouse 6 points 8 months ago

Reminds me of the time I tried to make spun sugar for some decorations and I wrecked so many pans of sugar water by not getting the temperature right and yes, cleaning them was a royal pain in the ass. The sugar basically turned into a solid rock inside the pan every time, so I had to add water and reheat it on the stove to melt it down again just to get it out.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

We followed a cake recipe once from some US food blog. We learned then that you should only use half or even one quarter of the sugar stated in recipes from Americans and even then it might be sickeningly sweet.

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[–] Passerby6497 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

My wife and I tried to make Pho one year for our anniversary. Went all out and got stuff from the Asian market to make it authentic and to the recipe I was recommended.

It was so bad, we just had to throw it out and order pizza. It sucks cuz I really like Pho, but it's just not worth trying to do myself.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

The good thing is the majority of Vietnamese restaurants are small family businesses that don't charge a lot. So for me pho is an exclusively eat out option. I know any attempt I'd make would be shit and expensive.

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[–] Toneswirly 13 points 8 months ago (3 children)

French Onion Soup is indeed a bitch and a half, but its also delicious and vwry affordable to make. Next time, try a heavy cast iron pot; it'll absorb the onions flavor without stinking. That said, you still have to endure chopping 3 lbs of onions...

I'll probably never make fried ravioli again. I like em on salad but its just a pain to deepfry anything and the payoff isnt worth it.

[–] Treczoks 7 points 8 months ago

Chopping onions is not an issue. I remember peeling and cutting three bags of 25 kilograms each with a number of farmers wives for some kind of savory onion cake.They had thought it funny to invite me to their table (I was dropping by as one of them had to leave), expecting to see a young man giving up after a few minutes. What they did not expect was that I was quicker in peeling and cutting than they were, as I've had learned to do this from a real cook ;-)

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Smoked brisket. I don't have the proper smoker, but that didn't stop me. I turned the thing and watched fuel and air and temperature every half hour for 12 hours. It was delicious. Never again.

I can get pretty much the same results just buying from the barbecue joint 3 miles away.

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[–] Tedrow 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Pumpkin lasagna roll ups. Absolutely delicious but not worth the time and effort.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Homemade Soup Dumplings (Xiao Long Bao), made from scratch. So much work. It became quickly evident doing it properly required skill you couldn't learn from a video or a recipe book and would take a really long time to master.

The whole thing ended up kinda thick and clumpy. Definitely one of those things better left to people who know what they're doing.

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[–] venoft 11 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Boiling your own beets takes so fucking long, I had no idea. 4 hours on the stove for a simple beet. No thanks, I'll just buy them in a jar.

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[–] LifeOfChance 10 points 8 months ago

Thanksgiving 2019 my wife and I decided to make an apple pie from scratch. Cook and prep time was estimated for 3h this was with us factoring in never having baked before. We decided we could start at 8 and be fine. Fast forward to 230am and we are just removing it from the oven. Next day everyone is trying it and we all agreed it was probably the best pie ever made in the family. I'll never try again because it wasn't worth all that work.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

I made prime rib and was scared of the oven constantly burning, causing me to constantly turn it off and then back on whenever someone got angry since I was at the house alone babysitting the oven at the time. When we went to eat it, everyone complimented it and theorized me constantly jumpstarting the oven while it was cooking actually made it better than it otherwise would've been. So while I successfully made prime rib by accident, I'm not going through that again.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Pad Thai, found a recipient from Hot Thai Kitchen YouTube video. She made it look easy.

3 hr later I produced a goop that was un-edible. So bad my SO asked me never to try again.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

NEVER put lemon juice in an omelette. Absolutely disgusting. Once tried it, not following any recipe. Never again.

[–] grasshopper_mouse 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I've never seen an omelette recipe call for lemon juice, that does sound totally gross.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Beetroot curry. I was drunk and went with the idea that "you can curry anything"... you can't.

[–] thorbot 7 points 8 months ago

Chocolate soufflé. Fuck that caved in nonsense

[–] NeoNachtwaechter 7 points 8 months ago

I mixed myself a Bloody Mary, just to find out if I like it, and I didn't like it at all.

Now I know. Never again.

[–] PoliticallyIncorrect 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Cooking meth, I almost got intoxicated and exploded..

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[–] smort 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Inspired by this video, I tried making smörgåstårta, a Swedish sandwich cake.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=I98AAMQm9f0

It had lots of ingredients, but it was like eating salty mayonnaise-flavored swamp mud.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (5 children)

More of a cooking technique than a recipe. I wanted to make a stir fry more substantial so I added flour to it. Strongly recommend against ever doing this.

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