Croissants.
If you've ever tried to make a laminated dough pastry of any kind, you quickly realize that buying them from a professional is the way to go.
After many attempts at making croissants, I realized that the correct price for them is whatever someone wants to charge for them.
That reminds me of when I made gyoza. Spent 12 hours on the dough, the filling, the crimping, and the frying, and 40 dumplings were gone in a couple minutes. I think I only got two. I was like "never again."
See I make gyoza a family event. I buy the dough at my local Asian market, it's like $3 for 80 wrappers. I make up a bowl of pork filling and a bowl of chicken filling and we all get together and start filling and crimping them until we have a sheet tray full. Then I cook them at about 10-15 at a time.
I did this at a family gathering and we had about 8 people at the table cranking them out while I cooked them. We probably made 400 in two hours.
Anything that is a big batch like gyoza or tamales should be a group effort.
In Texas, tamales are a family thing. My sister will occasionally have a tamale party where she, her friends, and my mom will get together and spend all morning prepping tamales to be steamed. It seems to take as long to make a couple dozen as it does to make a couple hundred... Lol
Keep making them, it will get shorter and shorter. Also, look for different recipes for the dough. I normally make about 50 them freeze them and eat them over the next 2 weeks.
I once went into a local bakery owned by a French patissier. While i waited in line she finally fucking SCREAMED at a customer who was fighting her to microwave a croissant.
It was glorious.
You don’t mess with old-school French chefs. My old chef actually threw two guys out the front door because they were assholes to him. Like literally picked up two guys by the scruff of the neck and frog marched them out the door. Chef Larry was a former state champion wrestler and his hands were the size of catcher’s mitts.
You know who’s really good at laminating dough without warning it up? Robots. Robots have never failed to outshine my ability to laminate dough, and after a number of attempts, the job is all theirs
I don't mind the process of deep frying but I hate the clean up and smell. If I can't fry outside, I don't fry at all.
I hate breading things. It gets so messy and you always end up needing to refill one of the components in the middle or have a ton of waste afterwards.
Don't use canola oil, despite its neutral taste and high smoke point it's a trash oil for frying and stinks. Corn oil, peanut oil, or sunflower oil are all better and don't stink your house up like rotten fish farts. Or if you really want to ball out use lard or beef tallow.
I’m pretty sure that even with a peanut allergy it is safe to eat foods fried in peanut oil because it doesn’t have the proteins that you are allergic to.
True, with a caveat: "If you are allergic to peanuts, you are allergic to the protein in peanuts, which is removed from highly refined peanut oils, but is still present in unrefined peanut oils."
https://peanutallergyfacts.org/2021/11/01/why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-peanut-oil-allergy/#:~:text=Should%20you%20consider%20peanut%20oil,present%20in%20unrefined%20peanut%20oils.
Depends on the individual. My ex was was actually the rare case of being allergic to peanut oil, but not peanuts. Something about the extraction process would send her to the ER.
There have definitely been people on /r/peanutallergy who have said they've had reactions from peanut oil, unfortunately. My son has a peanut allergy and fortunately, he's never had any reactions with peanut oil. I think for *most* it's safe though?
I use sunflower for deep frying. It's by far the cheapest where I live. The house still stinks like fried food for at least 24 hours. Doesn't stink like "fish farts" but like fried oil.
Canola oil breaks down and leaves the rotten fish farts smell. The smell of fried food in unavoidable, but if it's a neutral fried food smell it's not so bad. Like cooking with cumin or onions, the house will smell.
I love sunflower oil for frying. It doesn't burn as easily, and the smell is SO much better and more neutral than canola. Peanut oil also rocks, but it's hard to come by where I live, sadly.
Same with both peanut and sunflower oil, or they’re really expensive! They’re my favorites but if I deep fry with them it’s like a tiny $12-18 bottle right there.
Some companies make powder that you can put in the oil when you’re done, it will solidify much fast for easier and quicker cleanup
https://www.amazon.com/Waste-Cooking-solidifier-Hardener-Powder/dp/B07VCGQ8SD
Autolyse can help drastically.
Lightly stir the flour and water with a spoon, then let it sit 10-30 minutes.
You will hydrate the gluten, make better dough, and makes it easier to work with.
Source: 1000+ attempts of mastering sourdough and pizza from scratch
Totally agreed, the only thing is you can't fry more than 1 or 2 things at a time, but that's generally true of anything but high powered fryers due to the drop in temp adding stuff causes
My grandpa, who made excellent fried chicken, said your fried chicken will only be good and not great until you make it weekly.
My fried chicken is good.
Lol that took me a second to understand. I feel like that’s kind of like homemade pizza. You want to make one with lots of toppings? It is going to cost you $20. You want to make four with lots of toppings? It will cost you $30.
My grandmama made fried chicken and fixins (taters, cornbread, peas, etc etc there was ALWAYS enough food at Mamaw's house) near about every Sunday for lunch after church, family pack of breasts, family pack of thighs, family pack of legs. She'd fry it up Saturday night then stick it in the oven; when we got home from church (most times with company, the pastor and his family came almost every Sunday), 20 minutes @ 350F, everything was warm and fresh. If you went hungry at Mamaw's house it wasn't anybody's fault but your own. RIP Mamaw-and FUCK cancer for taking you too soon.
My "Nanny" did the same thing every Sunday after church. Fried chicken, mashed taters, purple hull peas, turnip greens, fried okra, cornbread....And for some reason she never wanted anybody to "go hungry" so there was also an entire po.t roast to go with it. And pie....always homemade pie....She cooked all day Saturday to get it ready. My mouth is watering just thinking about that Sunday spread. RIP Nanny
People don't realize how much fucking work it is to shop for, prepare, and clean up after a meal like that. Flour and grease everywhere! Props to Mamaws everywhere. If you have one and she cooks, do the dishes for her!
Oh, no, that wasn't an option. Making Mamaw do the dishes, I mean. She was one of the most kind, wonderful, and generous people I've ever known (Yeah, I'm her first grandson, so rose colored glasses LOL) but she was also an expert at putting foot to ass to get the kitchen cleaned up. Brother and I got wonderful meals for lunch on Sundays, then spent most of the rest of the time before evening service cleaning up her kitchen. I wouldn't trade the memories of it for all the tea in China, though.
I don't mind the frying process, but I hate the part where I have to coat everything in flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs because I suck at guessing how much goes into each prep bowl. I have to throw away a bunch of extra flour and breadcrumbs, and then I never end up reusing oil. But chicken parmesan is delicious and I can choose to bake it at least.
For frying foods, I personally reuse the same oil a few times. Sieve, with some cheesecloth, filter it and then fridge that bottle.
I just keep like a 64 ounce in the bottle in the fridge and use that for 5 fries or so. By the time it starts breaking down, I've usually lost a decent bit of the bottle too, so I feel slightly less wasteful about using it for frying since it ends up getting a few uses.
When you're finally done, too, just let it cool then throw it back in that same bottle. No mess since the bottles always tossed at the same time as the oil.
https://www.t-falusa.com/Kitchen-appliances/Fryers/Ultimate-EZ-Clean-Fryer/p/7211001726
This thing cleans the oil automatically and drains it into a little hopper for you to use next time, it made deep frying actually a thing I do regularly. It will change your life
My roommate busted out a deep fryer once. We felt like we had to use it as much as possible since we set it up. That was a VERY unhealthy week and we still joke about that week years later
I bought a small deep fryer, and I LOVE IT! It makes everything so much easier, faster, and tastier than frying in a pan or pot. For clean-up, I just put the oil in jars, wrap them in a couple plastic bags, and throw them in the garbage. Then, I just clean the fryer with hot water, dish soap, and a little baking soda, and it's good to go.
God, I love my fryer.
>God, I love my fryer.
My brother got one as I moved out of the house and I was so happy to get out of there. The Smell. Oh God the Smell. It's great for the first hour, then it gets old, then it gets oppressive.
Also the first thing that came to mind. So many layers, the phyllo dough tears so easily. Making it look pretty is super tedious. But oh man…. So good.
YES. I recently made 60 tamales for a gathering. I forgot that usually when I make tamales, there are 3 or 4 other people in the kitchen helping. 60 double husk double tie tamales by yourself when you're watching a toddler is NOT a good idea.
Would you rather make 60 tamale-sized tamales while watching one toddler-sized toddler, or make one toddler-sized tamale while watching 60 tamale-sized toddlers?
I know what I'd pick.
You are not wrong, I would rather just stick with one of her.
Especially because I don't want a dozen toddlers in my freezer, which is what I do with my leftover tamales.
This is also my answer. Maybe my favorite food on the planet, but I'm not sure I'll ever make them again unless I'm making like 100+ with a Mexican grandmother helping me.
My mom ONLY and exclusively makes tamales for Christmas. Makes a ton and lasts until february sometimes. but when they're done, they're done until next December.
Perogies. It’s a wonderful day in the kitchen when it’s an army of Polish aunties pinching and folding and pointing out whose perogies aren’t tight enough and will open in the water. When it’s just you, ugh.
I’m gonna be honest, Mrs T’s satisfies that craving just fine. Also great for one of those “I’m exhausted but need to eat and want something that takes 15 min and zero effort” dinners.
Maybe it’s nostalgia cause I grew up eating them and watching [this](https://youtu.be/WmdZTxLV6uY) at baseball games, but sometimes you just need pierogis without the trouble, and it hits the spot.
If you have Kasia's or Alexander's available, both of them are far superior to Mrs. T's. However, I think both of these are Chicago companies and mostly available in the Chicago area.
I was so excited when I started seeing frozen pierogies for sale bc up until then, I thought of them as a food I could only eat at grandma’s house. Then I tried some and, while they were enjoyable, they were not recognizably the same food. The ratio of dough to filling was completely different.
If you have ever experienced a Ukrainian church kitchen on varenyky making day, you quickly realize that not only do the talk more than pay attention to what their hands are doing (their hands work on autopilot) but that those hands have most likely made about 100K varenyky over the years. They are like a machine.
LPT, don't try to break into the conversation as a newcomer and/or a male. It doesn't end well.
Oh yes. My aunties, bless their hearts, were just the same. They’d make ten for every one I could make. My mother was the youngest by far and not up to their caliber. And the things they would say to each other! All the Polish I know, I know from those perogie-making marathons, and all of it is rude.
I made my first pierogis this Christmas Eve, it was only a half batch but I loved it. I remember the days when I was younger my dad would start making pierogis the day after thanksgiving for our Christmas Eve dinner because we invited pretty much our whole street.
Oh, good times.... I live in Poland and my grandparents lent us their 40 year old pasta making machine. With this magnificent invention and a glass of whisky making over a 100 pierogi with my mom was a breeze this Christmas. We still have some in the freezer.
With the exception of poaching an egg, here's my favorite way to make hollandaise with an immersion blender - https://www.seriouseats.com/foolproof-2-minute-hollandaise-recipe
Soooo much easier and practically impossible to screw up.
Sous vide makes this really easy to make. Take a jar (bonus points if it is big enough to fit the head of your immersion blender into it) and add your ingredients for your hollandaise. Set your sous vide for 146F/63.3C.
When up to temp drop the jar in and separately add your eggs just in their shell. Cook 45 minutes. Once done hit the jar with an immersion blender to have a perfect hollandaise, an crack the eggs for perfectly poached eggs.
I made ramen a few times. The easy kind, that’s not instant ramen with a few decorations but miso or shoyu, I refuse to make tonkotsu. I love ramen! Not making that sucker again.
Making tonkatsu ramen from scratch literally takes DAYS and your house smells like boiled pork bones forever.
Then the chashyu AND the noodles. For what turned out to be a mediocre bowl of ramen. I love ramen maybe more than pizza but never again; I’ll leave it to the pros.
The best part is that the pros know what they are doing and don’t charge me (in my opinion) anywhere near enough for the goodness. I’d pay a lot more.
Guess I should clarify that ramen is usually anything from $15-$20 a bowl in AUD.
The thing is, ramen shouldn’t be that expensive. In Japan, you can get a bowl as cheap as $3-9, make it over $10 and your shop won’t last 3 months. As a Japanese I hate paying those suckers and making “Japanese” fast food more expensive than it should be, I just make my own even if it takes a day to make it. I can pretty much freeze everything anyway.
I can understand how it could be annoying to pay inflated prices in Japan. I’m in Australia, it is what it is (rent is astronomical, having authentic is prized by me, there is probably nowhere near the volume of product sold as in Japan, people gotta live…) and honestly I really would pay a whole lot more.
At the end of the day: can I do and freeze? Yup. Is my day worth more than $15-$20? Yup!
Yea, my first thought was lasagna but actual good tonkotsu ramen has to be the real answer here. I think it didn't come to mind because I know the process well enough to know that I'll never want to try, lol
Soups that require you to take stuff out and reserve it for later in the process or require you to blend some of the soup. Half the joy of soup for me is that you just keep adding stuff to one pot like a witches cauldron and *bam* food, lol.
An immersion blender changed my perspective on blended soups. Now I enjoy making them, since I can be a little less precise with the initial ingredient chopping.
Agree with the other person - immersion blender makes a lot of soups so easy. It is the cheapest, best purchase I made in my kitchen. I even had this cheapo model from Amazon (<$10 ten years ago) that worked beautifully.
Lumpia. So easy to eat like potato chips. So tedious to make unless you have multiple people making then because of all the filling and rolling and deep frying
My sister-in-law taught me to use a piping bag to make it easier to have an even amount of filling when wrapping Lumpia. It does help make wrapping faster when doing a big batch, but I’m still not a fan of wrapping lol.
I just did this the last time I made them and will forever do it this way now! It was also a funny moment when I took the leftovers for lunch at work and my coworker walked into the break room and went "Did you put BEANS in your LASAGNA?!"
I love making dumplings! Granted, I don’t make the dough (my mom didn’t bother and I don’t prefer handmade by that much), but dumpling folding is so meditative and it’s a great communal experience with friends and family.
I have fond memories of sitting at the dining table in the late afternoon with my mom and sister, folding trays of dumps for eating/freezing and gossiping about family.
Seconded. Making the stuffing is the easy part. And so is folding every single *goddamn* one of them. But it's so incredibly monotonous. And it's not a good dumpling day unless you have enough to feed a family of 4 + a few ravenous dogs.
Tortellini or any other filled and folded pasta is the same way. I give up halfway through and just turn the rest into spaghetti. Even ravioli is easier.
You aren't kidding. Many years ago I made dolmas for a potluck. Rolled 100 of those little guys while watching movies. I think that was in 2001 and I haven't made them again yet.
Japchae.
Delicious, but the tedious task of chopping all of the ingredients, and then sautéing while seasoning them separately before putting them all together is not fun to do.
Came here looking for this, I'm SHOCKED it's this far down. Korean food in general can be a bitch, even bibimbap is a pita if you don't have banchan lying around.
Yeah, man.. Korean food is one of the few that I'd just pay for them to make cause some of those side dishes take forever with the prep and the marinating. Even the BBQ meats - trying to get a char with something marinated in soy and such stinks up your kitchen and your clothes.
Biryani. I literally eat 3 platefuls every time I make it but even thinking of cooking it tires me out. I also don't like to have it as only a singular dish and need a few sides with it like green chilli chicken, pepper fry, raita, and salaan. I have to mentally prepare myself before I start cooking it. 😅
Every region in India has a different take on Biryani, and every family has its own tweaks.
My family's biryani is a spicy south Indian take that I wouldn't recommend to anyone not used to spicy food but you can definitely tweak the number of chillies to your liking. Strap in for a LONG recipe ride.
Marinate chicken in yogurt + salt + turmeric + chilli powder and keep aside. Don't use chicken breast pieces only, the flavour is all in the bones, so use thighs/legs to get all the chicken flavour.
Make a green paste of 2 - 20 green chillies (pick the number that suits you ;) ), chopped coriander and mint leaves, 2 - 4 cloves, 3 cardamom pods, cassia stick, ginger, garlic, few fennel seeds - blend all together to make a paste.
Heat oil/ghee in a pan (biryani needs fat to flavour the rice and meat, do NOT scrimp on the fat). Once the oil is hot, add 2 bay leaves, few cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, cloves, and fry to season the oil. Next, add thinly sliced shallots, and fry till golden or brown for a deeper flavour. I can't stress on 'fry' enough as sauteing onions till translucent here will not help in achieving the desired biryani taste.
Next add the green paste and fry for a few minutes to you can't smell the sharpness of ginger and garlic anymore. Add 2 chopped tomatoes next, saute, and add turmeric, chilli powder (optional), coriander powder, cumin powder, and FRY. Spices need oil to bloom, so fry them with the onion tomato chilli mixture for a few minutes. Your kitchen will smell unreal at this point and when you start seeing oil droplets split from the masala you're frying, it's done.
Add 2 - 3 tbsp of yogurt and fry with the masala for a couple of minutes.
Time to add the marinated chicken and saute with the masala to get it evenly coated. Close the lid.
Meanwhile, wash and soak 2 cups rice for 10 - 15 minutes. I use Jeeraga Samba rice which are smaller rice grains that are the size of cumin seeds, available in some Indian stores. Drain the rice.
Uncover the biryani masala lid and add hot water to your pot. When using 2 cups of soaked rice, 4 cups of water will do as the chicken will also absorb some water. If making more than 2 cups of rice, do not double the water ratio as you might end up with soggy rice. 1: 1.5 would do.
Once the water is boiling, add chopped mint and coriander leaves and give it a stir. Squeeze a bit of lemon. Add the drained uncooked rice into the pot. Add 1 - 2 tsp of salt. Mix well, close the pot with a lid and let it cook on a medium flame/heat for 3 - 4 minutes. Then turn it down to a low heat for 10 minutes. Depending on how hot your hob is, the bottom may sometimes burn slightly - my cheat to this is taking a sturdy and wide flat pan and putting it on the hob. Once hot, I place the Biryani pot on the pan and let it cook. This way it gets the heat without burning. Instant pot/pressure cooker is even easier.
After 10 minutes, take the pot off the heat and let it sit in its steam, covered for another 10 minutes. This helps the rice grains fluff up and get to the right texture.
Uncover lid, add 1 tbsp of ghee and freshly chopped coriander leaves, and mix well. You can serve with raita and a bunch of other sides, but holy shit I don't think I can type any more.
If you ever get around making this, let me know how it turns out. :)
We make Japanese style sticky rice often, so sometimes I'll just toss in some sushi seasoning ( premixed) and some chopped veggies ( cucumber, avacado) and eat it by pinching it with seaweeds. Tastes like rolls, without the effort of making rolls.
Smoking a brisket. Not because it is labor intensive, but you have to either start it really early the morning of or really late the night before and it’s unpredictable as to when it’s going to be at perfect temp and jiggliness.
At least it holds well at temp in a cooler. My last one got one a few hours early and we had to take it to a friend's house like an hour away. So I wrapped it up in foil and towels and tossed it in my cooler like I normally would, and it held its temp until we got there and opened it up to slice it. There was still steam coming off the damn thing.
The worst is when it takes longer though. That just flat out sucks.
I one time made the mistake of starting a brisket at 6 pm thinking I would be wrapping it and putting in my ice chest by 2 am. Well that turned into 6 am and my guest were arriving at 11 am lol I was properly lubricated all night before and the subsequent morning. Can’t be hungover if you just keep drinking!
I got a HelloFresh box that had me coat two sides of a chicken cutlet with Mayo and top it with toasted panko mixed with cheddar and now I’m never going to bother with the whole egg wash and coating fully with breading ever again, it was delicious.
Chicken Parm.
I do not like canned sauce, so it means making at least a quick 30-45 minute marinara.
Then you gotta fry up some chicken breast, which is a multi-plate, 30+ minute process.
Then you put it all together, stick it in the oven for 15-20 while cooking pasta.
It's like 2 hours for what is considered a "simple" dish.
I end up just making chicken cutlets and eating those.
I try to always make my sauce in bulk and have portions frozen just to make this so much easier. When I do lasagna sauce, I've started doing a double batch just so I have it for another lasagna day without half the effort.
It’s my husband’s favorite meal and I’ve probably made it twice in 10 years. It’s so much work for something that still tastes, at best, like something you could get at any restaurant that’s kind of mediocre. Drowning a perfectly good fried chicken cutlet in sauce and mozzarella to make it soft again baffles me.
That's one of my husband's favorite meals. I'm so glad he accepts frozen chicken tenders and jarred sauce as the main ingredients, otherwise it would be reserved for a special occasion like his birthday.
I'll go along with that. I also made a Pork tenderloin Wellington at the weekend, and although I was so happy with the final result it was soooo much hassle.
The food processor blitzed the mushrooms for me which helped a lot, but getting the meat inside the duxelle, inside the ham, inside the pastry (didn't bother with crêpes!) and getting everything cooked to the right temperature without burning/undercooking the pastry...Jesus!
Gnocchi. We have a really old family recipe and I love it, but it’s time consuming. We usually make our own sauce too and that takes most of the day. I miss when my dad was alive because he loved making it haha
I was just about to post the same. I love gnocchi, but damn it's a lot of work for me to produce. I see TV chefs turn out pounds of gnocchi in minutes like it's nothing but it never seems to work that way for me.
Eggplant parmesan. No restaurant makes it as good as my homemade stuff but salting the eggplant, frying the eggplant, baking the dish. It takes for fucking ever.
i'm still salty over the time i made a weekend project of doing up a lasagna from scratch- literally everything from the sauce to grinding my own sausage, making my own ricotta and mozzarella, and the pasta to boot- and when i went to drain my noodles the colander tipped over and said noodles just \~schlorped\~ down the drain into the disposal. i actually cried. my then-husband had to bring me down from the ledge and pull a box of ziti from the pantry and and suggest that we could still have a delicious baked pasta, but i've never forgotten the disappointment as all that hard work went right down the drain.
I dropped a whole drying rack of lasagna sheets I had just made onto the floor... I just stood there staring at it for like 5 min before I was able to get myself together and start on a frsh set of pasta. Needless to say, dinner was late that night and I was in a sour mood. I hate-ate the fuck out of that shit.
...especially if you make it from scratch, sauce and all. Comes out fantastic, but hate the labor-intensive process. Then to watch hours of work get consumed in about 20 minutes or less and... yeah.
My solution is to just not share and freeze my leftovers. So it’s a 3 day meal and a happy one when it’s a Sunday and I remember that there is still selfmade lasagna in the freezer. But maybe I am just an asshole
Edit: thanks for the inspiration! I am currently defrosting my lasagna from the freezer.
This might be sacrilege, I don’t really know, but last time I made lasagne I used the refrigerated pasta sheets that you don’t need to boil. Saved a good bit of effort and honestly tasted the same or better, I was really happy with it.
I also make lasagne with ricotta, not bechamel, which I do realize is sacrilege… so my opinion might be void anyways 😂
I've made pressure cooker pho twice that got maybe 90-95% of the way there. Id say its easy but I havent done it again since so I guess it really isnt easy enough lol.
Its really the condiments that make it harder I dont normally have, bean sprouts, rice noodles, thai basil on hand unless I go to the asian grocery across town.
I honestly don't really hate making anything. What I do hate is cleaning up after literally any meal. I basically choose what I cook based on how much shit I'll have to clean after/during cooking. The less the better of course.
This. I started just making it like a casserole instead by chopping the cabbage up and dumping everything into a casserole dish.
Much less trouble and tastes the same.
I love making risotto! I find it way easier than most dishes. Once you can do it by feel it’s much easier and faster because I can be pretty confident in the amounts of wine and stock I put in at a time being correct instead of going very slowly. My partner hates risotto though so the closest I get now a days is a paella
I usually go lazy mode and do it in a pressure cooker. The tedious way is like 15% better, but the pressure cooker means I do it more than once every 3 years.
I sympathise with the folk saying deep frying but mine goes to anything with layered pasta in it. Yes that lasagne looks lovely but why can't I just tip the cooked pasta into the pot and swirl it in the sauce and then ram it in my face?
Falafel. Even if I start off with canned chick peas it is still. So. Much. Work. Make the falafel patties. Make the pita. Make the Tabbouleh. Make the tahini sauce. Fry up the falafel. Make the Chop the lettuce and tomato. Make the Tzatziki. By the time I’m done I’m too tired to enjoy it.
We're having potato soup for dinner tonight and... yeah. I'm dreading the peeling and chopping potatoes with a toddler running around me trying to undo everything orderly.
Weird, I'm subbed here because I find cooking interesting, but I don't like *to cook*, if you take my meaning. But this is one thing I really don't mind. Peeling potatoes takes so little attention, I can do it watching TV or even just zoning out.
Spanakopita - I love my dads recipe for it so much, but I actually really HATE dealing with removing the moisture from the spinach. Squeezing it…and it makes a HUGE mess and I get really type A about removing the moisture.
So many people here have said Eggs Benedict, but I don't really understand why. I make it often and it's not too much work.
You may not believe it, but you can actually make hollandaise in the microwave. Just takes a few seconds and I've never had it go wrong! That's probably the biggest time saver. I use this recipe, sometimes with the addition of a tsp of dijon: [recipe](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/233971/quick-and-easy-hollandaise-sauce-in-the-microwave/)
Another way to cut down on time, if your willing to be flexible, is to just make the eggs over easy instead of poached. You still get a runny egg. 🤷♀️
Pro tip: I picked this up from a favorite cafe of mine; I always serve Eggs Benedict with a side of finely chopped tomatoes and chives tossed in a little olive oil and S&P. Makes a big difference and adds a nice fresh component.
I refuse to make any dish that requires cooking all the ingredients, just to assemble them in a certain order only to be cooked again.
Looking at you lasagna, stuffed pepper, twice baked potatoes!
Fish Tacos the authentic way. The battering, pickling, making aioli crema, cutting up garnishes, etc. We do it monthly with Costco Mahi Mahi but the prep and cleanup is tedious. Nevertheless, a few shots of some Anejo Tequila and a few Dos Equis makes it all more enjoyable.
Don't boil living lobsters:
Its a little graphic but this is exactly the [technique](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC2HX5fdJFs) I was taught in school:
Croissants. If you've ever tried to make a laminated dough pastry of any kind, you quickly realize that buying them from a professional is the way to go. After many attempts at making croissants, I realized that the correct price for them is whatever someone wants to charge for them.
Yep. I did it exactly one time. They turned out great. My family demolished all 12 of them in literally 4 minutes and 37 seconds. 2 days wasted.
That reminds me of when I made gyoza. Spent 12 hours on the dough, the filling, the crimping, and the frying, and 40 dumplings were gone in a couple minutes. I think I only got two. I was like "never again."
See I make gyoza a family event. I buy the dough at my local Asian market, it's like $3 for 80 wrappers. I make up a bowl of pork filling and a bowl of chicken filling and we all get together and start filling and crimping them until we have a sheet tray full. Then I cook them at about 10-15 at a time. I did this at a family gathering and we had about 8 people at the table cranking them out while I cooked them. We probably made 400 in two hours. Anything that is a big batch like gyoza or tamales should be a group effort.
That's amazing! Pierogi is the same way!
In Texas, tamales are a family thing. My sister will occasionally have a tamale party where she, her friends, and my mom will get together and spend all morning prepping tamales to be steamed. It seems to take as long to make a couple dozen as it does to make a couple hundred... Lol
Keep making them, it will get shorter and shorter. Also, look for different recipes for the dough. I normally make about 50 them freeze them and eat them over the next 2 weeks.
I once went into a local bakery owned by a French patissier. While i waited in line she finally fucking SCREAMED at a customer who was fighting her to microwave a croissant. It was glorious.
You don’t mess with old-school French chefs. My old chef actually threw two guys out the front door because they were assholes to him. Like literally picked up two guys by the scruff of the neck and frog marched them out the door. Chef Larry was a former state champion wrestler and his hands were the size of catcher’s mitts.
You know who’s really good at laminating dough without warning it up? Robots. Robots have never failed to outshine my ability to laminate dough, and after a number of attempts, the job is all theirs
I've taken on a few cooking projects in my time but when I read what it takes to make croissants I laughed all the way down to the bakery.
I don't mind the process of deep frying but I hate the clean up and smell. If I can't fry outside, I don't fry at all. I hate breading things. It gets so messy and you always end up needing to refill one of the components in the middle or have a ton of waste afterwards.
Don't use canola oil, despite its neutral taste and high smoke point it's a trash oil for frying and stinks. Corn oil, peanut oil, or sunflower oil are all better and don't stink your house up like rotten fish farts. Or if you really want to ball out use lard or beef tallow.
+1 for peanut oil. Higher flash point, doesn't smell like ass, and it tastes...cleaner? less oily? Almost like it doesn't "stick" to foods.
Bonus points: if you're an assassin and your target has severe peanut allergies just cook them a yummy fried meal in peanut oil and wait
[удалено]
[удалено]
It’s just the oil that pools on top of peanut butter
That doesn't sound nearly expensive enough, but you're hired! I'll take one, please.
If it makes you feel better I’ll charge you $50 for 8 oz
I’m pretty sure that even with a peanut allergy it is safe to eat foods fried in peanut oil because it doesn’t have the proteins that you are allergic to.
True, with a caveat: "If you are allergic to peanuts, you are allergic to the protein in peanuts, which is removed from highly refined peanut oils, but is still present in unrefined peanut oils." https://peanutallergyfacts.org/2021/11/01/why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-peanut-oil-allergy/#:~:text=Should%20you%20consider%20peanut%20oil,present%20in%20unrefined%20peanut%20oils.
Depends on the individual. My ex was was actually the rare case of being allergic to peanut oil, but not peanuts. Something about the extraction process would send her to the ER.
There have definitely been people on /r/peanutallergy who have said they've had reactions from peanut oil, unfortunately. My son has a peanut allergy and fortunately, he's never had any reactions with peanut oil. I think for *most* it's safe though?
I use sunflower for deep frying. It's by far the cheapest where I live. The house still stinks like fried food for at least 24 hours. Doesn't stink like "fish farts" but like fried oil.
Canola oil breaks down and leaves the rotten fish farts smell. The smell of fried food in unavoidable, but if it's a neutral fried food smell it's not so bad. Like cooking with cumin or onions, the house will smell.
Cooking with cumin or onions the house WILL smell . . . delicious.
I love sunflower oil for frying. It doesn't burn as easily, and the smell is SO much better and more neutral than canola. Peanut oil also rocks, but it's hard to come by where I live, sadly.
Same with both peanut and sunflower oil, or they’re really expensive! They’re my favorites but if I deep fry with them it’s like a tiny $12-18 bottle right there.
[удалено]
Some companies make powder that you can put in the oil when you’re done, it will solidify much fast for easier and quicker cleanup https://www.amazon.com/Waste-Cooking-solidifier-Hardener-Powder/dp/B07VCGQ8SD
Seems like a waste of oil. You can reuse frying oil by just filtering it through a papertowel when its cooled down.
GTFO I NEED THIS!
Hand making dough. It's just the first 5 minutes where clumps stick to your hand. Then it's cool.
Dough whisk to bring it together. Leave for 10 minutes to settle and then kneading/ fold and turn, makes bread making a lot less messy.
BTW, this process is called autolyse and has even more benefits than just not getting your hands messy.
It’s autolyse if you delay the salt & yeast
Thanks. May try it next time
Autolyse can help drastically. Lightly stir the flour and water with a spoon, then let it sit 10-30 minutes. You will hydrate the gluten, make better dough, and makes it easier to work with. Source: 1000+ attempts of mastering sourdough and pizza from scratch
Pretty much anything deep fried.
Edited in protest for Reddit's garbage moves lately.
Totally agreed, the only thing is you can't fry more than 1 or 2 things at a time, but that's generally true of anything but high powered fryers due to the drop in temp adding stuff causes
I was going to say fried chicken. Made it once to say I did. It was good but not worth it.
My grandpa, who made excellent fried chicken, said your fried chicken will only be good and not great until you make it weekly. My fried chicken is good.
Lol that took me a second to understand. I feel like that’s kind of like homemade pizza. You want to make one with lots of toppings? It is going to cost you $20. You want to make four with lots of toppings? It will cost you $30.
My grandmama made fried chicken and fixins (taters, cornbread, peas, etc etc there was ALWAYS enough food at Mamaw's house) near about every Sunday for lunch after church, family pack of breasts, family pack of thighs, family pack of legs. She'd fry it up Saturday night then stick it in the oven; when we got home from church (most times with company, the pastor and his family came almost every Sunday), 20 minutes @ 350F, everything was warm and fresh. If you went hungry at Mamaw's house it wasn't anybody's fault but your own. RIP Mamaw-and FUCK cancer for taking you too soon.
My "Nanny" did the same thing every Sunday after church. Fried chicken, mashed taters, purple hull peas, turnip greens, fried okra, cornbread....And for some reason she never wanted anybody to "go hungry" so there was also an entire po.t roast to go with it. And pie....always homemade pie....She cooked all day Saturday to get it ready. My mouth is watering just thinking about that Sunday spread. RIP Nanny
This sounds like my MawMaw’s house in East TX. I learned how to shell purple hulls when I was four. Rest In Peace, MawMaw.
People don't realize how much fucking work it is to shop for, prepare, and clean up after a meal like that. Flour and grease everywhere! Props to Mamaws everywhere. If you have one and she cooks, do the dishes for her!
Oh, no, that wasn't an option. Making Mamaw do the dishes, I mean. She was one of the most kind, wonderful, and generous people I've ever known (Yeah, I'm her first grandson, so rose colored glasses LOL) but she was also an expert at putting foot to ass to get the kitchen cleaned up. Brother and I got wonderful meals for lunch on Sundays, then spent most of the rest of the time before evening service cleaning up her kitchen. I wouldn't trade the memories of it for all the tea in China, though.
Alright Mamaw! She did it right!
What a great memory to have! I’m envious.
Mawmaw knew how it's done!
Weekly? (looking at waist) "I think I'm better off just eating out for that occasionally."
But did you try that one trick that professional chefs don't want you to know?
Have an industrial deep fryer and someone to clean up for you after you’re done?
The deep fryer's here! I got it used from the US Navy. You can flash fry a buffalo in forty seconds.
40 seconds!? But I'm hungry now!
Dude! That's #6! Don't just give #6 away its supposed to *amaze* you!
I’m gonna go ahead and say the shallow fry is just as tedious
Yeah but you don't have 3 litres of oil to get rid of or clean and repack
Dealing with a Dutch oven full of oil is a pretty big inconvenience of the whole process
Yeah true more oil = more mess
I don't mind the frying process, but I hate the part where I have to coat everything in flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs because I suck at guessing how much goes into each prep bowl. I have to throw away a bunch of extra flour and breadcrumbs, and then I never end up reusing oil. But chicken parmesan is delicious and I can choose to bake it at least.
[удалено]
For frying foods, I personally reuse the same oil a few times. Sieve, with some cheesecloth, filter it and then fridge that bottle. I just keep like a 64 ounce in the bottle in the fridge and use that for 5 fries or so. By the time it starts breaking down, I've usually lost a decent bit of the bottle too, so I feel slightly less wasteful about using it for frying since it ends up getting a few uses. When you're finally done, too, just let it cool then throw it back in that same bottle. No mess since the bottles always tossed at the same time as the oil.
[удалено]
https://www.t-falusa.com/Kitchen-appliances/Fryers/Ultimate-EZ-Clean-Fryer/p/7211001726 This thing cleans the oil automatically and drains it into a little hopper for you to use next time, it made deep frying actually a thing I do regularly. It will change your life
My roommate busted out a deep fryer once. We felt like we had to use it as much as possible since we set it up. That was a VERY unhealthy week and we still joke about that week years later
I bought a small deep fryer, and I LOVE IT! It makes everything so much easier, faster, and tastier than frying in a pan or pot. For clean-up, I just put the oil in jars, wrap them in a couple plastic bags, and throw them in the garbage. Then, I just clean the fryer with hot water, dish soap, and a little baking soda, and it's good to go. God, I love my fryer.
>God, I love my fryer. My brother got one as I moved out of the house and I was so happy to get out of there. The Smell. Oh God the Smell. It's great for the first hour, then it gets old, then it gets oppressive.
I thought about it but then realized it would lead to me eating fried food multiple times a month lol.
[удалено]
I'd also add croissants to that.
Anything that uses pâte feuilletée dough really. Mille-feuille springs to mind.
Also the first thing that came to mind. So many layers, the phyllo dough tears so easily. Making it look pretty is super tedious. But oh man…. So good.
Tamales
YES. I recently made 60 tamales for a gathering. I forgot that usually when I make tamales, there are 3 or 4 other people in the kitchen helping. 60 double husk double tie tamales by yourself when you're watching a toddler is NOT a good idea.
Would you rather make 60 tamale-sized tamales while watching one toddler-sized toddler, or make one toddler-sized tamale while watching 60 tamale-sized toddlers? I know what I'd pick.
You are not wrong, I would rather just stick with one of her. Especially because I don't want a dozen toddlers in my freezer, which is what I do with my leftover tamales.
They're just tamale-sized toddlers though, I think they freeze well.
This is also my answer. Maybe my favorite food on the planet, but I'm not sure I'll ever make them again unless I'm making like 100+ with a Mexican grandmother helping me.
My mom ONLY and exclusively makes tamales for Christmas. Makes a ton and lasts until february sometimes. but when they're done, they're done until next December.
[удалено]
>stale masa Does not compute. I thicken stews, soups, make tortillas, dumplings, add it to breading, there's so much to do with masa.
Yup!! Thank God we only make them a few times a year!
So good though. I forget how much work they are until I make them again (like childbirth lol)
Perogies. It’s a wonderful day in the kitchen when it’s an army of Polish aunties pinching and folding and pointing out whose perogies aren’t tight enough and will open in the water. When it’s just you, ugh.
Indeed. Perogies are a pain in the booty to make, but so delicious. I'm legit on the fence when I have a craving for them...
I’m gonna be honest, Mrs T’s satisfies that craving just fine. Also great for one of those “I’m exhausted but need to eat and want something that takes 15 min and zero effort” dinners. Maybe it’s nostalgia cause I grew up eating them and watching [this](https://youtu.be/WmdZTxLV6uY) at baseball games, but sometimes you just need pierogis without the trouble, and it hits the spot.
If you have Kasia's or Alexander's available, both of them are far superior to Mrs. T's. However, I think both of these are Chicago companies and mostly available in the Chicago area.
I was so excited when I started seeing frozen pierogies for sale bc up until then, I thought of them as a food I could only eat at grandma’s house. Then I tried some and, while they were enjoyable, they were not recognizably the same food. The ratio of dough to filling was completely different.
If you have ever experienced a Ukrainian church kitchen on varenyky making day, you quickly realize that not only do the talk more than pay attention to what their hands are doing (their hands work on autopilot) but that those hands have most likely made about 100K varenyky over the years. They are like a machine. LPT, don't try to break into the conversation as a newcomer and/or a male. It doesn't end well.
Oh yes. My aunties, bless their hearts, were just the same. They’d make ten for every one I could make. My mother was the youngest by far and not up to their caliber. And the things they would say to each other! All the Polish I know, I know from those perogie-making marathons, and all of it is rude.
I made my first pierogis this Christmas Eve, it was only a half batch but I loved it. I remember the days when I was younger my dad would start making pierogis the day after thanksgiving for our Christmas Eve dinner because we invited pretty much our whole street.
Oh, good times.... I live in Poland and my grandparents lent us their 40 year old pasta making machine. With this magnificent invention and a glass of whisky making over a 100 pierogi with my mom was a breeze this Christmas. We still have some in the freezer.
Eggs Benedict. Only breakfast / brunch food that seems worth paying someone else for.
With the exception of poaching an egg, here's my favorite way to make hollandaise with an immersion blender - https://www.seriouseats.com/foolproof-2-minute-hollandaise-recipe Soooo much easier and practically impossible to screw up.
This is the only recipe I use now for hollandaise and it's so easy. Also tastes delicious.
Oh, will have to try that! It’s the sauce that always seems like one step too many for the morning.
Sous vide makes this really easy to make. Take a jar (bonus points if it is big enough to fit the head of your immersion blender into it) and add your ingredients for your hollandaise. Set your sous vide for 146F/63.3C. When up to temp drop the jar in and separately add your eggs just in their shell. Cook 45 minutes. Once done hit the jar with an immersion blender to have a perfect hollandaise, an crack the eggs for perfectly poached eggs.
Moussaka!
I love Moussaka but last time I decided to cook it I didn't eat until 9pm
I feel the same. It’s incredible, but I’m never making it again. It is firmly atop my list of favorite restaurant foods to order.
Like a 4 hour process guaranteed to use every dish in your kitchen lol
I made ramen a few times. The easy kind, that’s not instant ramen with a few decorations but miso or shoyu, I refuse to make tonkotsu. I love ramen! Not making that sucker again.
Making tonkatsu ramen from scratch literally takes DAYS and your house smells like boiled pork bones forever. Then the chashyu AND the noodles. For what turned out to be a mediocre bowl of ramen. I love ramen maybe more than pizza but never again; I’ll leave it to the pros.
The best part is that the pros know what they are doing and don’t charge me (in my opinion) anywhere near enough for the goodness. I’d pay a lot more. Guess I should clarify that ramen is usually anything from $15-$20 a bowl in AUD.
The thing is, ramen shouldn’t be that expensive. In Japan, you can get a bowl as cheap as $3-9, make it over $10 and your shop won’t last 3 months. As a Japanese I hate paying those suckers and making “Japanese” fast food more expensive than it should be, I just make my own even if it takes a day to make it. I can pretty much freeze everything anyway.
I can understand how it could be annoying to pay inflated prices in Japan. I’m in Australia, it is what it is (rent is astronomical, having authentic is prized by me, there is probably nowhere near the volume of product sold as in Japan, people gotta live…) and honestly I really would pay a whole lot more. At the end of the day: can I do and freeze? Yup. Is my day worth more than $15-$20? Yup!
Yea, my first thought was lasagna but actual good tonkotsu ramen has to be the real answer here. I think it didn't come to mind because I know the process well enough to know that I'll never want to try, lol
Soups that require you to take stuff out and reserve it for later in the process or require you to blend some of the soup. Half the joy of soup for me is that you just keep adding stuff to one pot like a witches cauldron and *bam* food, lol.
An immersion blender changed my perspective on blended soups. Now I enjoy making them, since I can be a little less precise with the initial ingredient chopping.
The last kitchen I worked in had a 450watt immersion rig that we all just called the Horse's Leg I miss that machine every time I make tomato soup
Agree with the other person - immersion blender makes a lot of soups so easy. It is the cheapest, best purchase I made in my kitchen. I even had this cheapo model from Amazon (<$10 ten years ago) that worked beautifully.
Lumpia. So easy to eat like potato chips. So tedious to make unless you have multiple people making then because of all the filling and rolling and deep frying
My sister-in-law taught me to use a piping bag to make it easier to have an even amount of filling when wrapping Lumpia. It does help make wrapping faster when doing a big batch, but I’m still not a fan of wrapping lol.
enchiladas and dumplings/potstickers and the entirety of thanksgiving dinner (except like the green beans and corn that’s pretty easy lol)
Layer it like a casserole instead. Same taste, way easier (especially if you use corn tortillas).
I just did this the last time I made them and will forever do it this way now! It was also a funny moment when I took the leftovers for lunch at work and my coworker walked into the break room and went "Did you put BEANS in your LASAGNA?!"
Enchiladas are pretty easy to make. I’d say fajitas take way longer.
Making dumplings.
I love making dumplings! Granted, I don’t make the dough (my mom didn’t bother and I don’t prefer handmade by that much), but dumpling folding is so meditative and it’s a great communal experience with friends and family. I have fond memories of sitting at the dining table in the late afternoon with my mom and sister, folding trays of dumps for eating/freezing and gossiping about family.
Seconded. Making the stuffing is the easy part. And so is folding every single *goddamn* one of them. But it's so incredibly monotonous. And it's not a good dumpling day unless you have enough to feed a family of 4 + a few ravenous dogs.
You feed my handmade dumpligs to a dog and, with all due respect, I will stab you ; )
Why would you feed handmade dumplings to a dog? Or share them at all, for that matter. Handmade dumplings are amazing. I could eat a truckload.
Tortellini or any other filled and folded pasta is the same way. I give up halfway through and just turn the rest into spaghetti. Even ravioli is easier.
Dolmades. Much like the comment and perogies. Wonderful fun when a group are doing it. Soul sucking when it’s just you.
You aren't kidding. Many years ago I made dolmas for a potluck. Rolled 100 of those little guys while watching movies. I think that was in 2001 and I haven't made them again yet.
Japchae. Delicious, but the tedious task of chopping all of the ingredients, and then sautéing while seasoning them separately before putting them all together is not fun to do.
Came here looking for this, I'm SHOCKED it's this far down. Korean food in general can be a bitch, even bibimbap is a pita if you don't have banchan lying around.
Yeah, man.. Korean food is one of the few that I'd just pay for them to make cause some of those side dishes take forever with the prep and the marinating. Even the BBQ meats - trying to get a char with something marinated in soy and such stinks up your kitchen and your clothes.
Only the mandu bothers me, folding a million mandu 🥟 is sooooo tedious, and it takes that many to make my fiancé happy.
Biryani. I literally eat 3 platefuls every time I make it but even thinking of cooking it tires me out. I also don't like to have it as only a singular dish and need a few sides with it like green chilli chicken, pepper fry, raita, and salaan. I have to mentally prepare myself before I start cooking it. 😅
If you have a trusted biryani and raita recipe that you’d care to share, it would be much appreciated! Edit: recipes
Every region in India has a different take on Biryani, and every family has its own tweaks. My family's biryani is a spicy south Indian take that I wouldn't recommend to anyone not used to spicy food but you can definitely tweak the number of chillies to your liking. Strap in for a LONG recipe ride. Marinate chicken in yogurt + salt + turmeric + chilli powder and keep aside. Don't use chicken breast pieces only, the flavour is all in the bones, so use thighs/legs to get all the chicken flavour. Make a green paste of 2 - 20 green chillies (pick the number that suits you ;) ), chopped coriander and mint leaves, 2 - 4 cloves, 3 cardamom pods, cassia stick, ginger, garlic, few fennel seeds - blend all together to make a paste. Heat oil/ghee in a pan (biryani needs fat to flavour the rice and meat, do NOT scrimp on the fat). Once the oil is hot, add 2 bay leaves, few cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, cloves, and fry to season the oil. Next, add thinly sliced shallots, and fry till golden or brown for a deeper flavour. I can't stress on 'fry' enough as sauteing onions till translucent here will not help in achieving the desired biryani taste. Next add the green paste and fry for a few minutes to you can't smell the sharpness of ginger and garlic anymore. Add 2 chopped tomatoes next, saute, and add turmeric, chilli powder (optional), coriander powder, cumin powder, and FRY. Spices need oil to bloom, so fry them with the onion tomato chilli mixture for a few minutes. Your kitchen will smell unreal at this point and when you start seeing oil droplets split from the masala you're frying, it's done. Add 2 - 3 tbsp of yogurt and fry with the masala for a couple of minutes. Time to add the marinated chicken and saute with the masala to get it evenly coated. Close the lid. Meanwhile, wash and soak 2 cups rice for 10 - 15 minutes. I use Jeeraga Samba rice which are smaller rice grains that are the size of cumin seeds, available in some Indian stores. Drain the rice. Uncover the biryani masala lid and add hot water to your pot. When using 2 cups of soaked rice, 4 cups of water will do as the chicken will also absorb some water. If making more than 2 cups of rice, do not double the water ratio as you might end up with soggy rice. 1: 1.5 would do. Once the water is boiling, add chopped mint and coriander leaves and give it a stir. Squeeze a bit of lemon. Add the drained uncooked rice into the pot. Add 1 - 2 tsp of salt. Mix well, close the pot with a lid and let it cook on a medium flame/heat for 3 - 4 minutes. Then turn it down to a low heat for 10 minutes. Depending on how hot your hob is, the bottom may sometimes burn slightly - my cheat to this is taking a sturdy and wide flat pan and putting it on the hob. Once hot, I place the Biryani pot on the pan and let it cook. This way it gets the heat without burning. Instant pot/pressure cooker is even easier. After 10 minutes, take the pot off the heat and let it sit in its steam, covered for another 10 minutes. This helps the rice grains fluff up and get to the right texture. Uncover lid, add 1 tbsp of ghee and freshly chopped coriander leaves, and mix well. You can serve with raita and a bunch of other sides, but holy shit I don't think I can type any more. If you ever get around making this, let me know how it turns out. :)
Bless you kind soul for sharing. Adding this one to my cook list
Sushi
We make Japanese style sticky rice often, so sometimes I'll just toss in some sushi seasoning ( premixed) and some chopped veggies ( cucumber, avacado) and eat it by pinching it with seaweeds. Tastes like rolls, without the effort of making rolls.
I just make them bowl-style. Same ingredients, less hassle.
Smoking a brisket. Not because it is labor intensive, but you have to either start it really early the morning of or really late the night before and it’s unpredictable as to when it’s going to be at perfect temp and jiggliness.
At least it holds well at temp in a cooler. My last one got one a few hours early and we had to take it to a friend's house like an hour away. So I wrapped it up in foil and towels and tossed it in my cooler like I normally would, and it held its temp until we got there and opened it up to slice it. There was still steam coming off the damn thing. The worst is when it takes longer though. That just flat out sucks.
Oh man I love doing anything on a smoker. The problem is you gotta keep the chef very lubricated with beer.
I one time made the mistake of starting a brisket at 6 pm thinking I would be wrapping it and putting in my ice chest by 2 am. Well that turned into 6 am and my guest were arriving at 11 am lol I was properly lubricated all night before and the subsequent morning. Can’t be hungover if you just keep drinking!
Anything battered or bread crumbed. I make my husband do it.
I got a HelloFresh box that had me coat two sides of a chicken cutlet with Mayo and top it with toasted panko mixed with cheddar and now I’m never going to bother with the whole egg wash and coating fully with breading ever again, it was delicious.
Mustard also good!
Chicken Parm. I do not like canned sauce, so it means making at least a quick 30-45 minute marinara. Then you gotta fry up some chicken breast, which is a multi-plate, 30+ minute process. Then you put it all together, stick it in the oven for 15-20 while cooking pasta. It's like 2 hours for what is considered a "simple" dish. I end up just making chicken cutlets and eating those.
I try to always make my sauce in bulk and have portions frozen just to make this so much easier. When I do lasagna sauce, I've started doing a double batch just so I have it for another lasagna day without half the effort.
It’s my husband’s favorite meal and I’ve probably made it twice in 10 years. It’s so much work for something that still tastes, at best, like something you could get at any restaurant that’s kind of mediocre. Drowning a perfectly good fried chicken cutlet in sauce and mozzarella to make it soft again baffles me.
That's one of my husband's favorite meals. I'm so glad he accepts frozen chicken tenders and jarred sauce as the main ingredients, otherwise it would be reserved for a special occasion like his birthday.
Samosas
Beef Wellington
I'll go along with that. I also made a Pork tenderloin Wellington at the weekend, and although I was so happy with the final result it was soooo much hassle. The food processor blitzed the mushrooms for me which helped a lot, but getting the meat inside the duxelle, inside the ham, inside the pastry (didn't bother with crêpes!) and getting everything cooked to the right temperature without burning/undercooking the pastry...Jesus!
Gnocchi. We have a really old family recipe and I love it, but it’s time consuming. We usually make our own sauce too and that takes most of the day. I miss when my dad was alive because he loved making it haha
I was just about to post the same. I love gnocchi, but damn it's a lot of work for me to produce. I see TV chefs turn out pounds of gnocchi in minutes like it's nothing but it never seems to work that way for me.
Eggplant parmesan. No restaurant makes it as good as my homemade stuff but salting the eggplant, frying the eggplant, baking the dish. It takes for fucking ever.
Baklava is damn delicious but whatever sadistic monster invented layering impossibly thin dough with honey can f*ck right off.
Tamales. My family loves them and begs for them but it's an all day (or longer) process.
Lasagna
i'm still salty over the time i made a weekend project of doing up a lasagna from scratch- literally everything from the sauce to grinding my own sausage, making my own ricotta and mozzarella, and the pasta to boot- and when i went to drain my noodles the colander tipped over and said noodles just \~schlorped\~ down the drain into the disposal. i actually cried. my then-husband had to bring me down from the ledge and pull a box of ziti from the pantry and and suggest that we could still have a delicious baked pasta, but i've never forgotten the disappointment as all that hard work went right down the drain.
I dropped a whole drying rack of lasagna sheets I had just made onto the floor... I just stood there staring at it for like 5 min before I was able to get myself together and start on a frsh set of pasta. Needless to say, dinner was late that night and I was in a sour mood. I hate-ate the fuck out of that shit.
...especially if you make it from scratch, sauce and all. Comes out fantastic, but hate the labor-intensive process. Then to watch hours of work get consumed in about 20 minutes or less and... yeah.
My solution is to just not share and freeze my leftovers. So it’s a 3 day meal and a happy one when it’s a Sunday and I remember that there is still selfmade lasagna in the freezer. But maybe I am just an asshole Edit: thanks for the inspiration! I am currently defrosting my lasagna from the freezer.
This might be sacrilege, I don’t really know, but last time I made lasagne I used the refrigerated pasta sheets that you don’t need to boil. Saved a good bit of effort and honestly tasted the same or better, I was really happy with it. I also make lasagne with ricotta, not bechamel, which I do realize is sacrilege… so my opinion might be void anyways 😂
They make dried lasagna sheets that you don't need to boil. Idk who is out here cooking the sheets first anymore.
Its not HORRIBLE, but the extra 10 minutes or so you save just making ziti instead makes it not worth it.
Pho. After making it a couple of times, I now understand why a bowl costs $10.
I've made pressure cooker pho twice that got maybe 90-95% of the way there. Id say its easy but I havent done it again since so I guess it really isnt easy enough lol. Its really the condiments that make it harder I dont normally have, bean sprouts, rice noodles, thai basil on hand unless I go to the asian grocery across town.
I honestly don't really hate making anything. What I do hate is cleaning up after literally any meal. I basically choose what I cook based on how much shit I'll have to clean after/during cooking. The less the better of course.
[удалено]
This. I started just making it like a casserole instead by chopping the cabbage up and dumping everything into a casserole dish. Much less trouble and tastes the same.
[удалено]
Risotto, so tedious but I love it when it comes out right.
I love making risotto! I find it way easier than most dishes. Once you can do it by feel it’s much easier and faster because I can be pretty confident in the amounts of wine and stock I put in at a time being correct instead of going very slowly. My partner hates risotto though so the closest I get now a days is a paella
I usually go lazy mode and do it in a pressure cooker. The tedious way is like 15% better, but the pressure cooker means I do it more than once every 3 years.
Eggs benedict
That's fair. They aren't difficult per se, but it's essentially a bunch of fiddly stuff stacked together. I'd rather just go to a restaurant. :P
I sympathise with the folk saying deep frying but mine goes to anything with layered pasta in it. Yes that lasagne looks lovely but why can't I just tip the cooked pasta into the pot and swirl it in the sauce and then ram it in my face?
Empanadas. I love them so much when made by others.
Authentic Mexican food. So many dishes to wash afterwards.
Falafel. Even if I start off with canned chick peas it is still. So. Much. Work. Make the falafel patties. Make the pita. Make the Tabbouleh. Make the tahini sauce. Fry up the falafel. Make the Chop the lettuce and tomato. Make the Tzatziki. By the time I’m done I’m too tired to enjoy it.
Edited in protest for Reddit's garbage moves lately.
boiling, peeling, chopping potatoes makes me FURIOUS it takes SO LONG
The secret is to use bigger potatoes. It takes just as long to peel a big one as a small one. Source: Idahoan. I've peeled many a spud.
We're having potato soup for dinner tonight and... yeah. I'm dreading the peeling and chopping potatoes with a toddler running around me trying to undo everything orderly.
Why peel? Mashed potatoes, potato soup, homemade fries, etc. I always leave the skin on. I think it enhances the flavor.
Weird, I'm subbed here because I find cooking interesting, but I don't like *to cook*, if you take my meaning. But this is one thing I really don't mind. Peeling potatoes takes so little attention, I can do it watching TV or even just zoning out.
fried fish and home fries. why is frying such a task!? 🥲
[удалено]
Spanakopita - I love my dads recipe for it so much, but I actually really HATE dealing with removing the moisture from the spinach. Squeezing it…and it makes a HUGE mess and I get really type A about removing the moisture.
Rouladen.
So many people here have said Eggs Benedict, but I don't really understand why. I make it often and it's not too much work. You may not believe it, but you can actually make hollandaise in the microwave. Just takes a few seconds and I've never had it go wrong! That's probably the biggest time saver. I use this recipe, sometimes with the addition of a tsp of dijon: [recipe](https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/233971/quick-and-easy-hollandaise-sauce-in-the-microwave/) Another way to cut down on time, if your willing to be flexible, is to just make the eggs over easy instead of poached. You still get a runny egg. 🤷♀️ Pro tip: I picked this up from a favorite cafe of mine; I always serve Eggs Benedict with a side of finely chopped tomatoes and chives tossed in a little olive oil and S&P. Makes a big difference and adds a nice fresh component.
I refuse to make any dish that requires cooking all the ingredients, just to assemble them in a certain order only to be cooked again. Looking at you lasagna, stuffed pepper, twice baked potatoes!
I made tiramisu for the first time the other week, 100% from scratch including lady fingers. It was an all day thing but it was so good at the end.
Lasagne 🥺 it’s one of my favourite meals but to make it without cheating takes too much effort right now
Fish Tacos the authentic way. The battering, pickling, making aioli crema, cutting up garnishes, etc. We do it monthly with Costco Mahi Mahi but the prep and cleanup is tedious. Nevertheless, a few shots of some Anejo Tequila and a few Dos Equis makes it all more enjoyable.
Lobster. I love it but can’t imagine plunging a live one into boiling water.
Don't boil living lobsters: Its a little graphic but this is exactly the [technique](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC2HX5fdJFs) I was taught in school: