S/O Kitchen Flops | Imamother

amother

Ivory

Thu, May 10 2018, 9:28 pm

DH's minhag on Pesach is not to eat fish. It was our first year home for Pesach and I decided I'm going to be an aishes chayil and make falshe fish the way his mother does. I called my MIL. Got the recipe. It's a recipe that yields a ton, so I cut the recipe in half and rewrote the new measurements in the margin right next to the original. I followed the recipe to the T: shred the potatoes and vegetables, cook other potatoes, mash them, combine them all fast so that the shredded potatoes don't turn black, boil up the water, drop the balls in, let it cook with more vegetables, put it over, flash-freeze, then refrigerate.

(I couldn't stomach the idea of 8 days only chicken/meat, so separately I made fish for me and the kids.)

First meal home. The fish balls look amazing. DH takes one bite and makes a face. I'm thinking, OK, so I made it the first time, and it's not *exactly* like your mother's. Big deal. No compliment. Another grimace. Then he says, it's a little salty.

And again, I'm thinking, I worked so hard to make this for you, and that's all you can say?! So what it's a little salty! Just swallow it and pretend! But I didn't say anything.

I sit down to eat and put the first bite into my mouth. I SPIT IT OUT!!! My gentle DH was trying to be nice by saying it's a little salty. It was a piece of salt!!! Totally inedible. And there he was forcing himself to swallow those first few bites before I had tasted it in order not to offend me.

What went wrong? The original recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon salt. I rewrote into the margin half of that 1/4. But I didn't write 1/4 teaspoon. The ingredient before that was 1/4 cup. So I just read the measurements going down: 1/4 cup of ____ and 1/4 - automatically assuming - cup of salt. I didn't think into it if it makes sense. I was just following what it said.

I dumped the entire batch. So much for being an aishes chayil. Good thing I had some fish...

amother

Sapphire

Fri, May 11 2018, 12:04 am

amother wrote:

My friend once took out a pan of potato kugel from the freezer, put it in the oven to warm up. Half hour later something smelled funny, she uncovered it and realized that she 'baked' a pan of homemade sherbet!

I had a very similar oops. I took a couple containers of frozen chicken broth from the freezer and dropped them into the crockpot for shabbos. I was pregnant, feeling under the weather, and really wanted to have hot nourishing chicken soup available all shabbos.
Anyhow, Friday night I was gagging from the weird smells. Turns out it wasn't chicken soup. It was cantaloupe sorbet. Can't begin to tell you how bad hot cantaloupe sorbet tastes.

bigsis144

Fri, May 11 2018, 8:58 am

My son requested Baked Alaska for his birthday - he had heard of this seemingly magical dessert in which a layer of cake is covered in ice cream which is then covered in a thick layer of meringue and baked - warm fluffy exterior while the ice cream remains frozen.

I made my best attempt at it, and BEHOLD

He dubbed it Failed Alaska.
Alas, my hubris to even attempt such a project... like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun and ‘‘twas my melty undoing...

amother

Lavender

Fri, May 11 2018, 10:59 am

bigsis144 wrote:

He dubbed it Failed Alaska.
Alas, my hubris to even attempt such a project... like Icarus, I flew too close to the sun and ‘‘twas my melty undoing...

Looks yum

cooksallday

Sat, May 12 2018, 10:04 pm

amother wrote:

I didn't want to minimize the op's distress on the cracked cheesecake thread, but as I was reading it, my own flops came to mind.

My biggest cheesecake flop: I forgot to take the paper wrapping off the farmer cheese before blending it all. I didn't realize until I took my first bite and got a mouthful of paper shreds embarrassed

What were your biggest kitchen flops?

Lol! This happened to me too! I had no idea about the paper, but I figured it out once I started mixing it. I went thru the batter with my hands and took it all out. Not fun but I'll know for next time 😂