When Recipes Fail
Mistakes in the kitchen can be fatal to the family budget, can't they? Sometimes they really can't be fixed, either- a badly and thoroughly scorched soup may be suitable only for the pig trough, if you have a pig, the garbage disposal otherwise. But sometimes there are some tricks to salvage some food mishaps.
Burned cookies and toast, you probably know, can be salvaged by taking the edge of a table knife to them and scraping the charred bits off and into the sink or trash can (not if they are burned all the way through).
If you scorch the soup and realize it in time- quickly turn it off and whatever you, don't stir. Carefully ladle out the top 3/4- slowly, carefully, taste testing along the way to be sure you don't have any scorched flavor in it. Toss the rest.
If you make yogurt and it fails to 'yogh' you can still use it in bread, biscuits, and coffee cake- wherever sour milk or buttermilk is called for.
Last week my daughter made the following recipe, and it really didn't turn out as we had hoped. I wouldn't say it was a failure- it tasted good. It just had little things that made it not as huge a success as she usually achieves. It was rather gloppy. The tortillas just dissolved into the mixture so you couldn't tell they were there. It was a little strong in flavor- saltier than we like. But we found some delicious ways to 'fix' it. Here is the recipe, and the fixes follow:
6 cups cooked ground beef-
1 tsp ground cumin
2 jar (16 oz) salsa
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomato
2 can (4 oz) chopped green chilis
2.5 cups cooked pinto beans (or kidney or black, or refried beans)
corn tortillas (8-in)- 5 or 6
cheese, grated combination of cheddar, monterey jack, or colby
Toppings: sour cream and chopped tomato; cilantro, if available
spray pans with foil (for ease of prep I bought disposable pie tins. You can line your own pie pans with foil, spray the foil, and then freeze the dishes, removing the food and wrapping it better after it's frozen).
Mix the meat with ground cumin, chili powder etc. Stir in salsa, tomato, chiles and beans.
alternate layers of meat and bean mixture with tortillas. Put in crockpot- really, this should have been an oven recipe, not a crockpot recipe (in fact, here's the version for the oven, and it makes a nice freezer meal, too). But it was made in the crockpot and we had a lot leftover. I can't really describe the flavor- it wasn't really bad, it was just a bit overpowering, and the texture was unpleasant as a main dish on the center of the plate- not strongly so, just not quite what we wanted. It was good enough for everybody to eat it without going hungry, but not quite good enough to face as leftovers without wistfully wishing for something else.
Fixes:
It made a dandy dip for corn chips, especially with extra salsa mixed in with it
We spooned it into flour tortillas, rolled them, baked it, and then topped with sour cream and salsa, or topped it with a dip made of cream cheese and salsa melted and whisked together.
It would also make a hearty soup if you whisked it into this taco soup.
It would have made a tasty filling for empanadas, too.
What are some of your tricks and tips for recipes that don't turn out quite as planned?
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One Response to “When Recipes Fail”
September 24th, 2010 at 7:36 am
Mix it with eggs, and call it an omelet. That’s what my dad did with any type of leftover, and a friend of mine laughed until he tried it with jambalaya.
Or, if it’s a dessert item, put ice cream and/or chocolate sauce over it and no one will notice!
Beyond that, we have a handy little book called “How to Repair Food.” (A third edition is coming out in a few months.) I probably use it most often when I’ve started a recipe without checking to see I have all the ingredients (yes, yes, I was taught as a child NEVER to do that), and even now we have a pot of leftover chili waiting for me to add some cut potato to draw out some of the salt.
I like the empanada idea!
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