kitchen disasters??
I'm "new" here. Like to start by seeing if anyone else has any good food DISASTERS they're willing to confess to?!?
Biggest one I can think of involved a BIG $$$ hunka beef tenderloin! My Dad was a BIG beef lover. I was maybe 17-18 yo (MANY years ago) and he decided Sunday dinner would be Beef Wellington. Pretty sure he saw it on Julia or Jeff Smith... when only cooking shows were on public TV and actually TAUGHT ya something. Looked simple enough... beef wrapped in pastry dough and baked. I was totally comfortable in the kitchen, so got to work. Was patting myself on the back as I assembled it, even made little leaf decorations outta scraps... it looked GREAT! When it came out of oven, looked like something right out of a fancy cookbook! We all sit down to eat... and you COULD NOT cut thru the crust!! My 14-15 yo brother was LITERALLY ROFL! My Grandfather kept saying things like "it's fine"! We almost had to CHISEL the crust off. Luckily, the meat was perfectly done inside, so not a total fail.
Another time, Dad wanted Won Ton soup... I KNOW this recipe came outta one of Jeff mith's cookbooks. Won ton noodles & broth from scratch. Looked great, broth was yummy... but noodles were so tough you could barely chew them!?!
Anybody wanna share their fails?
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jmcarthur8
Jun 17, 2012 01:55 PM
My little disaster was not nearly as exciting as mamachef's, but it was my first kitchen trauma. I was a newly married 20 year old, and wanted to make french onion soup for my husband. I'd never had it, but I'd read about it,and had my Joy cookbook to guide me. I think I'd seen it on one of the PBS cooking shows, too. I knew how to cook, but usually just had made simple pasta dishes for myself, salads, veggies or the standards I grew up with.
Anyway, I made good beef broth (which in itself was a new thing to me), I caramelized the onions, did whatever prep was involved. When it was time to serve, I carefully placed the bread on top, thinking it was supposed to float. It sank to the bottom, and sat there all wet and (I thought) icky. Somehow between the tears, I managed to brown the cheesy top and served the mess apologetically to my husband.
I didn't find out till I'd actually had french onion soup at a restaurant that I hadn't done anything wrong at all, and that my soup was pretty darn good! -
mamachef
Jun 17, 2012 07:05 AM
Well, welcome to Chowhound then, kseiverd!! If you snoop around you'll find many kitchen- and food-related disaster threads. They're pretty fun to see and participate in, and let me tell you, we all have our stories. This is more kitchen-related, and I may have written about it elsewhere, but my failure/disaster had everything to do with working too fast and not paying attention to details I should've been on top of. I was hired for a very small private event, to prepare dinner, and as is my habit, I turned the oven on immediately upon entering the kitchen. (It's just something that I was trained to do in the catering business, and in restaurants....the first thing you do, to make sure it actually gets done and doesn't get lost in the shuffle.) Anyhoo, I didn't check the oven space, and it never occurred to me that they might just be storing something in there, since they weren't much into cooking themselves, and I could tell that by the unused, pristine appearance of their kitchen. (And of course the fact that they'd hired someone to cook for them...)
Anyway, the gent. of the house was a pilot who flew internationally, and he was in the habit of picking up local duty-free spirits on his stops, and they stored them in the unused oven. Yeah, the same oven I didn't check. So when the explosions started and the fire broke out, it caught me totally unawares, and it ended up being a Very Bad, No-Good gig. Thank goodness for fire extinguishers.›1 Reply
