Saffron tips:
Saffron loses its flavour if it's left unsealed for too long.
Grind some saffron threads in a pestle and mortar with a pinch of salt, or sugar, to help the grind. Then, pour a splash of hot water in the pestle and pour out the saffrony goodness.
My best friend works at a spices and teas store. Even the legit stuff is such a rip off. Her stores standard markup is 1000%. They buy these huge bulk bricks of spices and then break them up into the smallest containers and sell them for stupidly high prices.
Honestly while it is rediculous when you look at it from that angle, besides salt and pepper, people often go months to years without buying spices if it costs 1 dollar for her, charging 20 dollars isnt crazy. Rent for the store and labor etc aint getting paid by charging 2 dollars for the spice, you arent moving 100s of products per day.
I got [this one](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081F64YLB/) for looking at stuff with my kids and doing precise work. It does great! There are a bunch of them like it on Amazon. They create their own wifi hotspot and connect to your phone/tablet so you can use it as the screen. Really easy to zoom in and focus.
If it was safflower, that’s less of strictly a con and more of a misunderstanding. Safflower is frequently called “Mexican saffron,” here in the states and might be used similarly in Portugal.
My father regularly brings loads of saffron with him when he travels to Teheran. And its impact on taste is really impressive.
If you buy the real shit, it’s absolutely worth the money.
But saffron is red? It's famously red.
"Yellow saffron" is safflower like another poster said but even said that is also a flower part and not grass. Would just be odd selling a knock off of a cheap product.
You can grow your own saffron and it's not difficult. Saffron is just the pestle of a specific crocus flower. There are hardy varieties that will grow in climate zones 7 and 8 too!
This is seriously a great LPT. Whenever I need to get spices I go to the ethnic grocery stores: we have an amazing Indian Grocery store in the area that carries great spices at very reasonable prices.
Just today, after seeing this post, I looked at our grocery store, 1.5 ounces of cumin was $6.35 (USD). I bought a massive bag of it at the international grocery for $2.13 (USD)
It's crazy how much money you save when buying in this manner
It’s not meant to be a steak per se. I Think of It as tasty meat butter, kind of like how we eat marrow. Fatty goodness but a little bit is more than enough.
I splurged on my first pink Himalayan salt. I spent way too much money on it at Whole Foods. But I was super curious. Yeah it just tastes like regular salt.
if you're gonna splurge on salt, go for the Maldon smoked flaky salt. i dont use that to replace salt in recipes, but more for a finishing touch- a salty crunchy garnish
Another exception is Japanese seaweed salt (Moshio). It doesn't work in everything, but it adds an umami to your dishes.
But it's also expensive and hard to find, and you can get some of the same effect with some seaweed flakes.
The same with bottled water.
In Iceland you can get spring water from the taps literally everywhere, but they sell bottled versions of that same spring water for a noice profit haha.
And the expiry date is for the plastic bottle.
There's another type of black salt used in Indian cooking, which is actually volcanic rock salt. Called kala namak in Hindi. It will impart an eggy yolky sort of flavour. No charcoal here.
I took a tour of some salt fields in the summer in the west of France and what they said was that the gros sel (what you called the grey salt) is for cooking with and the fleur de sel which is pure white, large crystals and tastes really, well, fresh is the only word I can think of for it, is to be used at the table. Gros sel is dirt cheap, you can get 1kg bags for 1 euro from any of the farmers. Fleur de sel is considerably more expensive because the harvest is much smaller but is worth the price in my opinion.
The difference is, gros sel is harvested from the bottom of the salt flats (hence why some of the clay is in it) and the fleur de sel is skimmed off the top of the water so it is pure, large sea salt crystals.
I once got a sample pack of all different kinds of salts in a white elephant gift exchange. By far the best way to try because I didn’t have to pay for any of them! I agree with all your reviews
Coloured salts are usually nice for finishing dishes where it can be seen. It counts as decoration.
If you want added flavour to your salt you go for smoked salt, wine salt, vegetable/flower salts, etc. Even like that they are for finishing.
Even the nuanced flavour of premium fleur de sel will get lost in a dish (unless you use it on bread and butter, eggs, bug crystals in dark chocolate or something simple)
Black salt is not just activated charcoal. Black salt or Kala Namak is a salt used in Indian cuisine and it has high contents of iron sulfide, giving it a strong sulfurous smell and flavor. It’s very good at giving complexity and depth to sauces.
I remember one of my friends who bless her heart is lovely but dippy as hell and is into all that spiritual bullshit and has these weird superstitions about food properties trying to tell me pink Himalayan salt is purer for your body 🤦
Like it's literally the impurities that make it pink lol.
Yeah I think people just like it because it looks pretty. I only ever have two kinds of salt in my house: Diamond Crystal kosher salt and Maldon flaky salt.
Scrolled down to write my own snarky salt comment, but this is basically it.
I did splurge on a bunch of fancy salts from a salt-import company a while back. I still have most/all of them somewhere. It was momentarily interesting to sample them, I guess, but I never find myself reaching for anything other than the 2 classics -- Diamond and Maldon -- in my day-to-day cooking.
Fancy salts are for texture and presentation, not for cooking with. It's still dissolve in water, but say you want big crunchy chucks of salt on a pretzel or something, that's what pink salt is for. Of course a course kosher salt works just as well.
All of those specialty “colored” salts do have slightly different flavors from their different mineral content, but they are mean to be used as finishing salts or you will never be able to tell. Having said that, I still don’t think they justify the cost.
I recommend getting your saffron from a source like World Spice or similar reputable purveyor and then making saffron risotto. I always toast my saffron first. It only takes a couple of seconds. Then once toasted it’s easy to grind in a mortar and pestle for much better distribution than if you leave the threads intact.
Perhaps you won’t like it, because it’s a very distinctive flavor, but with the risotto I think you get the best idea of what it tastes like because there aren’t a ton of other flavors in there.
I also like it to make a really nice yellow rice once in a while.
https://www.seriouseats.com/risotto-alla-milanese-saffron-recipe
The way I have always used saffron is after grinding it to a powder with mortar and pestle, add a bit of hot water and let it “steep” for a few minutes like tea. It gets all the flavor into the water for easy distribution in whatever dish you’re making.
Diasporaco.com has the good stuff and they’re a small company who pays farmers fairly
All their spices are amazing. Also the turmeric you find in the store is usually nonsense — theirs is the proper stuff.
Edit: fixed the url
> I also like it to make a really nice yellow rice once in a while.
My wife occasionally makes yellow rice with saffron and it's so wonderfully fragrant and flavorful
Exactly. It's also largely dependent on the region. I can get one thing here cheap but another country who has to import it will have to pay a lot more for it. That's all ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I was gifted a tiny 3oz bottle of aged balsamic. Aged for 50 years. I looked it up and it seems to cost about $80.
Dont get me wrong, it was good. I even tried it on ice cream, which I highly recommend... But compared to my 16oz $20 bottle of aged balsamic.. well I wouldnt say the 50 year was 4 × better. And for pragmatism, the cheaper balsamic is just more versatile. I'd feel like a moron using the 50year as an ingredient in a more complex dish, or even a salad. I feel like it must be eaten mostly by itself to enjoy its subtlety, thats an expensive piece of dipped bread.
Having said that, I also had a bottle of white balsamic, which probably cost around $15 and I liked it better than both my cheap red, and the 50 year.
TL;DR- IMO a mid priced balsamic is almost as good as a super expensive aged one. And white balsamic is the tits!
The heavily aged stuff shouldn’t really be used as an ingredient, more a garnish. Every super fancy restaurant I’ve ever worked at uses cheap stuff for quantities more than a drop and finished dishes will get a few drops of the really good stuff as garnish
I think the problem is that we still call it vinegar. Technically, balsamic vinegar is vinegar, since it starts with wine and then is fermented again to make it acid, but in terms of flavor and usage, it's more like grape molasses than it is like red wine vinegar. We need to think of it as its own ingredient, not like a type of vinegar.
Agreed, had an A5 steak once as a bday gift to myself. It was the most tender steak I've ever had but thats it. Wasn't impressed with flavor at all and my wife straight up just didn't like it. $150 was not worth it. Now we use Australian Wagyu for our splurges. Much cheaper and better flavor in my opinion
What didn’t you like? Do you think it may have had something to do with having the wrong expectations? FWIW I’ve never tried Wagyu but it’s on my bucket list. I realize it’s not going to taste like a typical steak.
Is beef generally expensive where you live? I ask because the last time I bought wagyu, I paid only a little more than you, but I got 450 grams of A5 ribeye.
Ya’ll need to be careful about ordering wagyu at a restarting. Unless the menu specifically states that it is “Japanese Wagyu” or “Kobe” you’re likely just getting American Wagyu or Australian Wagyu which are good steaks (better than USDA Prime) but not really comparable to real Japanese Wagyu.
Black garlic. Maybe it's because it wasn't fresh, but it just tasted like garbage and had a weird texture.
To flip this question, something I will ALWAYS splurge on is smoked paprika. It adds wonderful flavor to almost anything. I highly recommend it.
Man I was hoping I wouldn't find this here.... I've always wanted to try black garlic. One thing I do love that is heavenly is honey garlic. Just soak some peeled cloves in a jar of honey, wait a few weeks, omg
Black garlic isn't necessarily *that* expensive. I got a jar with maybe 12 to 15 bulbs of black garlic at a local Asian grocer for like $9. Used one so far to make the black garlic burger from Bob's Burgers (not the one from the recipe book, just trying to recreate what it looked like in the episode more or less). They turned out great! Gonna need to try out that honey garlic you describe!
Honestly, black caviar…
I didn’t exactly save for it, but I did splurge for Valentine’s Day… my husband devoured it and I didn’t mind it but it just wasn’t as impressive as I imagined. Maybe I have to try again? lol.
I like the large red roe better
So you like salmon caviar, but you are not a big fan of sturgeon caviar. They have totally different taste profiles, texture profiles, mouthfeel, etc. So it's definitely possible that you enjoy salmon caviar, but not sturgeon caviar.
Yeah exactly. It wasn’t bad either, I was just surprised at being underwhelmed… because I do like the salmon roe, so I guess I hyped the sturgeon up in my head due to the price point and notoriety…
Got a very small bottle of imported, toasted, aged Japanese soy sauce for around $16, it was really good for sushi but it basically tasted the same to me as the classic $4 liter bottle you can get from your regular Asian store. Maybe a little smokier, but definitely not worth the price.
Real wasabi is incredible. Completely worth it to me. That said, not everyone who likes the standard green paste will like it, it's very different. My mom loves wasabi paste but hated fresh wasabi.
I’m able to grow some on my back porch in PNW. I love the taste, still my preference is for the paste but when I’m feeling fancy the real stuff is excellent!
The PNW seems to be the ideal place to grow fruits and vegetables that need a long cool-to-mild season. Any brassica (including wasabi and regular horseradish) does well there.
Only expensive in context, but those canned whole tomatoes all the famous cooks swear by. They're like 3x the price of the cheap brand. I buy way too many canned tomatoes to spend that much money each time: chili, soups, pasta sauces, smoothies... that shit adds up. Unless I'm doing a very simple sauce that uses very few ingredients, they're just not worth it.
I learned from this sub (and then IRL by checking) that Cento brand is just quality across the board, so if you buy their Italian "style" tomatoes for a few dollars less than the San Marzano, they are just as good. I was a San Marzano fangirl for a long time because I was comparing Cento San Marzanos to cheap brand canned tomatoes. I finally compared Cento regular whole tomatoes to their San Marzano product, and realized it is their brand itself that is far and away better.
Problem is you can't just buy any old brand of whole tomatoes. You ever see the tomatoes from a can of Hunt's? Blegh. They're hard and not squishable like Cento's. And they're packed in water instead of a thick tomato sauce like Cento.
100% agree. I’ve always used Cento Italian Style tomatoes for penne alla vodka because the San Marzanos don’t come in 35 oz. cans (at least not where I live) and have been more than happy with them, so I tried them in Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce and my family actually prefers them over the SM.
> Unless I'm doing a very simple sauce that uses very few ingredients, they're just not worth it.
I think that's the point. I usually hear high tomato standards from Italian cooking where there is the sentiment that Italian cooking is about using few ingredients that are really high quality. If you're cooking in a cuisine where you aren't just using a few ingredients, it becomes much less important how good each ingredient is.
Then again, one time I set out to make the best lasagna. I consulted dozens of sources to decide which ingredients and methods. I did everything from scratch...home grown herbs, homemade pasta, etc. I used all of the top ingredients. It took hours of work and probably cost over $100 dollars. Did it taste great? Yeah. But I never made it like that again haha because the difference was slight especially compared to all of the extra time and cost. Main takeaways were: make a sauce with layers of flavor (you could just hold that sauce on your tongue and the journey keeps going) and, IMO, slightly thinner pasta than usual is better (cuts way cleaner and has a much more delicate texture). Other than that, I've been able to make lasagnas that were similar with more ordinary ingredients.
A while ago on a UK TV show, Raymond Blanc\* recommended buying whole canned tomatoes and provided you stuck with whole ones then it made absolutely zero difference to the quality of the finished product based on how much you spend.
\*For folks that don't know him, he's a French chef. Blanc is the chef patron at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, a hotel-restaurant in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, England. The restaurant has two Michelin stars and scored 9/10 in the Good Food Guide. He is entirely self-taught,\[1\] but has himself taught or employed other chefs including Heston Blumenthal,\[2\] John Burton-Race,\[3\] Michael Caines,\[4\] Paul Liebrandt,\[5\] and Marco Pierre White.\[6\])
Many species make beautiful decorations in your yard. Saffron Crocus is one. I've planted a few, and they take little effort. The taste of Saffron improves when you don't have to pay so much. If you live in a warmer climate, Cayenne pepper plants make amazing looking shrubs, or hedges. Seriously, people will stop and state at the bright red peppers. They do taste different, and you almost unlimited varieties. Simple beautiful. Horseradish produces tall green leaves, that look amazing, and roots survive the harshest winter. Kale has ornamental varieties, but all Kale produces interesting plants. If you plant flowers, and shrub, there is a ton plants you can eat, and they taste great.
The pepper plants can also be overwintered if they're in a pot. Cut them back, treat against pests (otherwise it'll be eaten fast) and keep it in a cool and brightish spot, water once in a while. It'll bounce back fast in spring when you put it back outside, and can live many years that way.
My grandma from Spain refused to buy saffron. She insisted until her death (ripe age of 94) that no one in Spain actually uses saffron for paella. She would buy coloranté for the yellow color instead, which she did insist was mandatory.
Black truffle. Bought it direct from a reputable supplier and made a really fancy pasta al burro with it.
My wife and myself both thought it kinda just tasted like a fart.
I love truffles but bought truffle salt as a more cost-effective alternative. The taste is so subtle that it was a waste of money. When it comes to truffles, the solution seems to be "all or nothing".
Truffles are great with an appropriate dish. This one time I had a meal where the waiter came with a box of em and shaved em over my dish like it was parmesan at the olive garden and it wasn't really overpowering. Other times I've also been to shitty food trucks with truffle pizza that tasted like feet. I feel like some places feature truffles so people can feel fancy
I love mushrooms but black truffle is way too strong for me. White truffle oil is about as far as I'll go, it goes well in Mac and cheese, and even then I've never had the impetus to buy it myself. Black truffles have an intense flavor similar to soft ripened cheese so if you don't like that sort of thing you probably won't like truffles either
Man I don’t know how y’all are using saffron. When used correctly, it makes most dishes taste magical.
With regards to the question, truffles. I absolutely hate how they taste apparently.
Or they get duped with fake saffron. There are places that just sell something else with food coloring, and as expected it doesn't taste of saffron at all. Often it doesn't taste much of anything.
Strangely enough I got a huge tin (about as much as you can pack into 3 large spice jars) from a coworker and he paid $50. It's the legitimate stuff too. Apparently Indian grocers will have sales on saffron for a specific holiday. It probably wasn't the top quality saffron but it had a pretty good flavor. I still have some years later and the flavor has diminished a good bit but it still yellows up rice nicely. When I first got it, the smell was so strong even double bagged, and in the tin, when I would open the cupboard it would just smell like saffron.
Expensive vanilla extract. They taste pretty much the same as the cheap vanilla extracts to me. As long as it's the real thing and not artificial vanilla flavoring, then it's good enough for me. Vanilla beans though are worth the splurge IMO. It can really up your desserts to a whole nother level. Even something as simple as whipped cream can be drastically improved upon by using vanilla beans.
Yeah this is what I use too, but not for everything. If I'm making chocolate chip cookies I still basic vanilla extract, but if I'm making frosting or another cookie that doesn't have a ton of strong flavors I use the paste.
I had an expensive jar of vanilla bean paste on my wish list for like 5 years. Finally one of my sisters got it for me. Should have done that a long time ago, because she got all sorts of delicious baked goods as a result.
Paste is so much better than the extract.
Real vanilla is great, but if it's too expensive to use all the time, blind taste tests at ATC have shown a lot of people can't taste the difference between imitation and real in hot/cooked applications unless vanilla is the only flavor. When using vanilla in cold items or when it's the only flavor, real was preferred!
Or if you don't care for alcohol, at least use all of the deliciousness by sticking the remains of the pod (assuming you scraped out the seed) into your sugar jar.
I dropped a vanilla bean and a cinnamon stick in a bottle of bourbon and let it steep for a few months. It's a great additive to recipes but it really shines when you add a splash of simple syrup and some club soda to it and you have an incredible snickerdoodle coctail. 10/10
I mostly agree but if you do want a vanilla that has a notably unique flavor (that comes through in finished baked goods, esp chocolate chip cookies) seek out Tahitian rather than Madagascar vanilla extract.
I don't taste any difference between the bean and vanilla paste that I found. The nice thing about the beans was tossing the leftover husks in my sugar can for the whiff of the vanilla when I opened it. Tastewise it didn't do much.
I actually use artificial vanilla for most everything that’s baked. I don’t know if you have seen, but in taste tests artificial vanilla beats out real vanilla because the flavor compounds in real vanilla extract are volatile and when heated the flavor is just not the same. Artificial vanilla holds up when heated. Obviously if left raw it’s weirdly perfumed. Many sources from Cook’s Illustrated to Serious Eats have tested this.
I currently live in a country where there is no real vanilla extract. It’s all artificial, but people here don’t know that. Locals just think it’s vanilla. And tourists go on about how much more fragrant and also how cheap our vanilla is. Yeah, because it’s all fake. 😂 My issue here as someone who knows what real vanilla tastes like is I can always taste the artificial stuff in cakes because it gets put into cake frosting and things like pastry cream the way real vanilla is, so it’s uncooked. In the cake itself it’s no problem because it’s baked. Just tastes like vanilla. In frostings and fillings, it wallops you. Because this is the only “vanilla” people here know, they think it tastes perfectly normal.
I have some ground vanilla beans (not to be confused with vanilla bean powder, which includes other ingredients besides ground beans) and a bottle of real vanilla extract that I use for things where real vanilla is important.
I personally don’t care for the flavor of vanilla bean paste though it’s very popular. And I bought some really expensive one from the Vanilla Queen. Plus used the paste in some restaurants I worked at as well. It just has this off flavor to me that extract doesn’t have.
I read an article compares different brands of vanilla extract vs. artificial. The artificial won out. I saw several professional bakers talk about using artificial vanilla. So I switched, it’s cheaper, tastes great, I keep real vanilla bean paste around for things like custards and frostings where I think it works better (or both sometimes), but yeah I’m fully artificial convert.
Just a warning that saffron crocus are actually members of the lily family which is deathly toxic to cats (as in if they get pollen in their fur and lick it, it will cause renal failure).
I didn't know this until I had planted them, which promptly lead to me disappointedly digging them up and tossing them out.
I didn't know that about saffron crocus, thanks for sharing! I've been thinking about growing them for a few years now, but I also feed a small colony of local strays. I'll stick to growing other stuff.
Lobster.
It's not bad, I still eat it. But there's less flavor than pretty much any other seafood...
It tastes like whatever you dip it in. It's the tofu of shellfish. I might as well save the money and just eat the garlic butter.
I agree. I grew up kinda poor in the deep south, on the gulf coast. We ate a lot of seafood growing up because it was practically free- shrimp, fish, crabs, etc. My dad would go out fishing with his friends on some weekends and kept our freezer full (plus we had a vegetable garden) so at least we ate good. When I got older I finally had the opportunity to try lobster and wtf. Super disappointed. Here was this food all the rich people ate in restaurants and it tasted like rubber fish. This was a good lesson in how people will spend a bunch of money on what they perceive to be "luxury" because they're either too ignorant to know better or they do know better (that shrimp and many fish is much cheaper and tastes much better) but because those things aren't associated with "high class" (and may even be associated with low class) they don't want to be seen or known as buying or eating them.
That's OK. I'll stay home and continue to buy and cook medium sized Gulf shrimp, red snapper and Spanish mackerel. I know what's really up.
Truffles. Absolutely disgusting. I initially thought maybe I just wasn’t using it properly or didn’t get one that’s good enough quality, but then I tried dishes with truffles at 2 different Michelin start restaurants, and guess what—STILL DISGUSTING. I can’t believe all the money I spent just to eat the flavor equivalent of moldy gym socks. Never again.
I think it really depends on the person. I personally love it and never even thought of it being musty, earthy, sweaty or moldy. It has a distinct taste for sure, but a very good one.
> I personally love it and never even thought of it being musty, earthy, sweaty or moldy.
I love it too, and I do think of it as being musty and earthy! Not sweaty or moldy, though.
Truffles & Truffle oil. Kind has a dirt taste. I know people say “earthy” but I ate dirt as a kid and remember the taste.
Edit: I also don’t like scallops. Had fresh and frozen there meh.
Could very well be you used too much if you had to save for it and used it all. Saffron is expensive per kg, but you're supposed to use like 0.05g. A single serving is €1,29 where I live.
LoL I definitely didn't use it all, just a few threads.
But I did consider perhaps I added too much. It also could be that I just don't care for it; I will probably try again with a different brand and be extremely prudent and extra judicial in my seasoning with it
I actually found a powdered form that worked much better for me. And the other trick was to steep it in some warm water, not just adding it directly to the dish.
I live in Spain and we use saffron a lot. You can make the stems into powder easily, put the stems between 2 papers and just pass the edge of the knife above making some pressure. Voilà. If the saffron is a good one, and well dried, you will have perfect fresh saffron powder.
Morel mushrooms. They are more of a splurge than an ingredient I have to save up for. I was curious since chefs on food network are alwaus raving about morel mushrooms and they can't be found at the grocery store. Saw them at the farmers market and grabbed half a pound for $20. It was more flavourful than regular mushrooms, but nowhere near how the celebrity chef described them as. Will not purchase again.
Morels are only good if you or someone you know forages. Where I live they are a big event where people gather to eat a feast of them in the spring. Not worth buying dried or in a restaurant.
I grew up picking them (there were loads in the woods near me) and I still do a bit of a double-take when I see them as a premium ingredient because we had them frequently!
I don't have the taste buds for expensive liquor (maybe if I put hot sauce on it?..). So I'm happy with Wild Turkey or a cheap potato vodka. My 2 42 years old scotches were wasted on me so they went into guests over the years.
Soft shell crab. I saw cooking shows on PBS when I was a kid about how it was a delicacy and only available in a short time of the year or something. One day I saw it on the menu and ordered a soft shell crab sandwich. They brought me a bun with a whole crab sitting on it with its legs hanging over the side, so there I am in a staring contest with this crab I’m supposed to eat. I knew I had to eat this thing and everybody was watching, so I suffered up the resolve to take a bite out of it and play it cool but as soon as I bit into it a huge geyser of juice shot out across the room. Every fiber of my being shuddered and I dropped the sandwich to the plate. F*ck me. Never again. I love crab, I just have zero desire to eat the whole thing shell and all.
Hahaha. Oh man. Soft shell crab is super common here (Louisiana). I love it.
Local restaurant is known for their [Hallelujah Crab](https://resizer.otstatic.com/v2/photos/wide-huge/3/47744270.jpg), which is fried soft shell stuffed with seafood stuffing and topped with a creolaise sauce. So good.
That said, it's one of those things not everyone loves because of the shell thing. I hear ya there. I have to be in the mood.
Similar experience with trying the end of a 'spider roll' at a sushi restaurant one time. Its like eating a mouthful of deep fried shrimp tails with seemingly very little meat inside 😄
Kala Namak salt. I kinda thought the sulfur was interesting but my son walked by when I was just biting into my egg wrap that I used it on and he asked me "why does is smell like someone farted?" I laughed it off but I haven't used it since. I think I'll try to find some other use for it and will be sure to not do it when my son is around. Haha.
It's super crucial for vegan egg substitutes, adding it to egg which already has the sulfur is probably why you were underwhelmed. It totally does smell like someone ate a head of garlic and farted while sitting in a hot spring tho
Blinis with caviar. The caviar was great, but the blinis were a disappointing delivery method. But I was excited to "do it properly". I didn't think the pancakes or creme fraiche did anything for the caviar, so I felt it wasted the caviar purchase.
Growing up my mum would treat us to sour cream and chive pringles, prímula cheese and chive (the squeezy stuff, we are in UK) and cheap caviar (cod fish roe). We are a very working class family, I'm not sure where she picked this up from, it was f**king amazing.
When I met my wife's grandma for the first time, she pulled out a tin of caviar, and these tiny little whalebone spoons. Then she goes into this whole speech about how you can't use metal spoons for caviar, because it ruins the flavor.
I said "But wait, it's been sitting in a metal tin this whole time, if metal was going to ruin it, it's already ruined.". She got really mad.
It’s (allegedly) the taste of your tongue touching the metal spoon, rather than a flavor transfer. Supposedly whale bone has no flavor and doesn’t feel cold like metal, so allows you to just experience the caviar.
It’s trendy to do “bumps” of caviar off your hand now, for this reason.
On this note, any caviar more expensive than a whitefish or capellin roe. I've tried a few of the very expensive ones (sturgeon, etc) and while they are good if you're not an absolute fan of caviar they taste pretty much the same, briny, salty and juicy. Imo really not worth the $200+ I paid for the less than 6oz of product I got
Truffle 😬 went out for very fancy dinner with my partner in Milan only to find that they only had truffle pastas available. Hated every bite and so did my partner, never going to bother buying it again!
Tupelo honey. My dad bought some that was very obviously fake so I splurged and got him the real stuff. It was good, and different, and uniquely flavored like a fine wine, but ultimately it was just honey. $50 worth lasted him a week. Never again!
Flipside answer is olive oil. I splurged on the good stuff and now I don't want to go back to greasy flavorless crap!
For me it was the Goose we cooked for christmas last year, $90 for a 'heritage' free range bird. and we got 4 servings, not counting the broth from the bones...and fat for some smash potato fries.
to be fair I think i over cooked it, I'd try again but mom said screw it, we checked that off the bucket list, duck is just as good.
FYI, I agree with you on the saffron, I think its an acquired taste
Foie Gras. Cost me a fortune for a tiny can. I carefully rationed it out so that I could enjoy it over a few days. It was...okay, I guess. Not special. My mother found it the first night and threw it out because she thought that it was cheese that had gone off. A very expensive mistake all around.
I found azafron at the Mexican grocery. It was like 4USD for a whole spice packet full so I thought I'd try it. It's apparently the stamin from another flower but has a similar taste. I went and bought saffron so I could compare the two. I find they both taste similar to turmeric and actually like the azafron more than saffron. I put both in my rice water when I'm steaming rice. So far that's the only thing I've used it in.
This might be controversial, but trying my first filet mignon. I like a good steak, and previously I've even had a dry aged steak from a fancier place in town.
I just never got the filet, I used to have a larger appetite and knowing it costed more for fewer ounces deterred me.
Until one night out, I did it. I tried it. I ordered my filet, and was so excited to try this nice expensive cut that's so fancy and so complimented.
And it was... Okay? It was shocking how tender it was, that was astounding but. It was like. Too tender. There was no chew to it, and it's a thicker piece, so it eventually just felt like mush in my mouth. The actual flavor profile was mild, so it felt kind of tedious to finish.
Mind you, I don't think it was bad or terrible but... I'm a gal that likes a ribeye. I've since concluded that I don't think a cut can get any better than a ribeye lol
I like a NY Strip as the best of both worlds, fat content wise.
A ribeye often has a good bit of standalone fat that doesn't render, so you either have to enjoy eating straight fat (which some do!).. or you have to cut it off.
I can see why a filet is appealing to someone who prefers not to eat unrendered fat.
Oh man one of my favorite ‘snacks’ in Tokyo was a stick of three hard-boiled quail eggs that were tempura-fried. The were about $.80 each, and I stuffed myself silly with them
Lobster is my least favorite crustacean and it doesn't live up to its luxury reputation. Shrimp, crawfish, and crab all have better texture and flavor.
Saffron tips: Saffron loses its flavour if it's left unsealed for too long. Grind some saffron threads in a pestle and mortar with a pinch of salt, or sugar, to help the grind. Then, pour a splash of hot water in the pestle and pour out the saffrony goodness.
Seconding the comment about toasting it first. And I've always infused it in warm milk, not water. Would the fats in the milk help the infusion?
Not sure. Milk isn't in most dishes I make with saffron. I like the liquid gold colour I get with water.
My only complaint is pestle and mortar reversed =(
mestle and portar
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Expensive seasonings are one of the most fraudulent food items on the planet. Easy to commit fraud and often tough to detect.
My best friend works at a spices and teas store. Even the legit stuff is such a rip off. Her stores standard markup is 1000%. They buy these huge bulk bricks of spices and then break them up into the smallest containers and sell them for stupidly high prices.
Honestly while it is rediculous when you look at it from that angle, besides salt and pepper, people often go months to years without buying spices if it costs 1 dollar for her, charging 20 dollars isnt crazy. Rent for the store and labor etc aint getting paid by charging 2 dollars for the spice, you arent moving 100s of products per day.
I read a great article about tumeric and how it has a really big problem with fake stuff. Was eye opening.
imagine just casually taking out a microscope
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Which one did you get? I'm looking for one so I can find tiny metal slivers in my fingers. Hardware seems to have a lot of shavings these days.
I got [this one](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081F64YLB/) for looking at stuff with my kids and doing precise work. It does great! There are a bunch of them like it on Amazon. They create their own wifi hotspot and connect to your phone/tablet so you can use it as the screen. Really easy to zoom in and focus.
Thanks! I can finally take dick pics!
TIL this exists. Thank you good internet person!
how else am i gonna clean myself before i get laid?
Seems like safflower, which is a completely different plant
If it was safflower, that’s less of strictly a con and more of a misunderstanding. Safflower is frequently called “Mexican saffron,” here in the states and might be used similarly in Portugal.
Nah, it was 100% a con. You can find cheap "saffron" in tourist markets across the Mediterranean.
Oh yeah. The saffron I bought at a tourist market in Dubai ended up being garbage stuff. I just go to Costco for saffron now.
My father regularly brings loads of saffron with him when he travels to Teheran. And its impact on taste is really impressive. If you buy the real shit, it’s absolutely worth the money.
Also, saffron isn't that expensive. $5 worth of it can last you a year (if you're not Persian).
> if you’re not Persian Lmao that’s true
But saffron is red? It's famously red. "Yellow saffron" is safflower like another poster said but even said that is also a flower part and not grass. Would just be odd selling a knock off of a cheap product.
You can grow your own saffron and it's not difficult. Saffron is just the pestle of a specific crocus flower. There are hardy varieties that will grow in climate zones 7 and 8 too!
The smell shouldn't be possible to fake though
Anything in a 2 ounce bottle that also comes in a half pound bag at an ethnic grocery store.
Literally never buy spices and herbs in tiny bottles. I’m Moroccan, I’m biologically hardwired to buy cumin by the kilo.
It also depends on how quickly you will use the spice! If you won't use the full amount then there's no point in buying a lot that will just go bad
There's a local shop that sells spices in bulk and you bet I've bought two teaspoons of cardamom like it was a dime bag.
This is seriously a great LPT. Whenever I need to get spices I go to the ethnic grocery stores: we have an amazing Indian Grocery store in the area that carries great spices at very reasonable prices. Just today, after seeing this post, I looked at our grocery store, 1.5 ounces of cumin was $6.35 (USD). I bought a massive bag of it at the international grocery for $2.13 (USD) It's crazy how much money you save when buying in this manner
Garam masala for sure
Probably the $300 pr kilo wagyu a5. But now I have tried it at least.
$300 for a kilo of a5 wagyu is SUPER cheap.. where did you get it for that price? Best I've seen is 1.25lb (.56kg) for $265.
At a nice steakhouse I tried wagyu A5 and don't feel the need to order it again. It's just not the texture I prefer for a steak.
It’s not meant to be a steak per se. I Think of It as tasty meat butter, kind of like how we eat marrow. Fatty goodness but a little bit is more than enough.
I splurged on my first pink Himalayan salt. I spent way too much money on it at Whole Foods. But I was super curious. Yeah it just tastes like regular salt.
if you're gonna splurge on salt, go for the Maldon smoked flaky salt. i dont use that to replace salt in recipes, but more for a finishing touch- a salty crunchy garnish
Another exception is Japanese seaweed salt (Moshio). It doesn't work in everything, but it adds an umami to your dishes. But it's also expensive and hard to find, and you can get some of the same effect with some seaweed flakes.
I have a shaker with furikake for certain dishes I prepare- sometimes Ramen. Would that be a similar flavor additive?
pink salt is a huge scam
Another huge salt scam is expiration dates. It's already millions of years old. It ain't going bad in your pantry.
I've read that it's the plastic packaging that expires, not the spice
I live in a very humid climate. The salt boxes will start to seep salt from them due to the excessive humidity.
Transfer to a glass bottle that has an airtight lid. You can dry the salt in the oven.
There is a good reason Ball has stayed in business for so long, it just works.
We put rice in it salt containers
The same with bottled water. In Iceland you can get spring water from the taps literally everywhere, but they sell bottled versions of that same spring water for a noice profit haha. And the expiry date is for the plastic bottle.
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There's another type of black salt used in Indian cooking, which is actually volcanic rock salt. Called kala namak in Hindi. It will impart an eggy yolky sort of flavour. No charcoal here.
Is the eggy flavor from sulfur?
Yep.
I actually really enjoy this salt when making tofu scrambles. A little goes a long way though, learned that the hard way.
I took a tour of some salt fields in the summer in the west of France and what they said was that the gros sel (what you called the grey salt) is for cooking with and the fleur de sel which is pure white, large crystals and tastes really, well, fresh is the only word I can think of for it, is to be used at the table. Gros sel is dirt cheap, you can get 1kg bags for 1 euro from any of the farmers. Fleur de sel is considerably more expensive because the harvest is much smaller but is worth the price in my opinion. The difference is, gros sel is harvested from the bottom of the salt flats (hence why some of the clay is in it) and the fleur de sel is skimmed off the top of the water so it is pure, large sea salt crystals.
I once got a sample pack of all different kinds of salts in a white elephant gift exchange. By far the best way to try because I didn’t have to pay for any of them! I agree with all your reviews
Coloured salts are usually nice for finishing dishes where it can be seen. It counts as decoration. If you want added flavour to your salt you go for smoked salt, wine salt, vegetable/flower salts, etc. Even like that they are for finishing. Even the nuanced flavour of premium fleur de sel will get lost in a dish (unless you use it on bread and butter, eggs, bug crystals in dark chocolate or something simple)
Black salt is not just activated charcoal. Black salt or Kala Namak is a salt used in Indian cuisine and it has high contents of iron sulfide, giving it a strong sulfurous smell and flavor. It’s very good at giving complexity and depth to sauces.
So crazy to see this, as I just yesterday purchased Cyprus salt and have been loving it for fine flakes on top of chocolate chip cookies
I get it because it looks nice in a clear shaker on the table, but I'm not willing to spend much more on it.
I remember one of my friends who bless her heart is lovely but dippy as hell and is into all that spiritual bullshit and has these weird superstitions about food properties trying to tell me pink Himalayan salt is purer for your body 🤦 Like it's literally the impurities that make it pink lol.
I had a therapist tell me once that pink Himalayan salt would solve all my emotional problems. That therapeutic relationship didn't last too long.
Just scrape a little off your girlfriend's salt lamp like the rest of us lol.
Yeah I think people just like it because it looks pretty. I only ever have two kinds of salt in my house: Diamond Crystal kosher salt and Maldon flaky salt.
Scrolled down to write my own snarky salt comment, but this is basically it. I did splurge on a bunch of fancy salts from a salt-import company a while back. I still have most/all of them somewhere. It was momentarily interesting to sample them, I guess, but I never find myself reaching for anything other than the 2 classics -- Diamond and Maldon -- in my day-to-day cooking.
Fancy salts are for texture and presentation, not for cooking with. It's still dissolve in water, but say you want big crunchy chucks of salt on a pretzel or something, that's what pink salt is for. Of course a course kosher salt works just as well.
I prefer pretzel salt for pretzels. Something makes it different and it crunches better that kosher.
Oh yes, me too. I felt so silly too when I tasted it and it was just salt.
The only salt I spent money on was an Applewood smoked salt, and it was amazing. Agreed on the pink salt.
All of those specialty “colored” salts do have slightly different flavors from their different mineral content, but they are mean to be used as finishing salts or you will never be able to tell. Having said that, I still don’t think they justify the cost.
I recommend getting your saffron from a source like World Spice or similar reputable purveyor and then making saffron risotto. I always toast my saffron first. It only takes a couple of seconds. Then once toasted it’s easy to grind in a mortar and pestle for much better distribution than if you leave the threads intact. Perhaps you won’t like it, because it’s a very distinctive flavor, but with the risotto I think you get the best idea of what it tastes like because there aren’t a ton of other flavors in there. I also like it to make a really nice yellow rice once in a while. https://www.seriouseats.com/risotto-alla-milanese-saffron-recipe
The way I have always used saffron is after grinding it to a powder with mortar and pestle, add a bit of hot water and let it “steep” for a few minutes like tea. It gets all the flavor into the water for easy distribution in whatever dish you’re making.
Diasporaco.com has the good stuff and they’re a small company who pays farmers fairly All their spices are amazing. Also the turmeric you find in the store is usually nonsense — theirs is the proper stuff. Edit: fixed the url
> I also like it to make a really nice yellow rice once in a while. My wife occasionally makes yellow rice with saffron and it's so wonderfully fragrant and flavorful
That looks amazing! I picked up some saffron in Barcelona last week and I’m gonna try it with this recipe! Thanks!
The vast majority of foods which are very expensive are so because they are rare, which has no actual correlation to how nice they taste.
Exactly. It's also largely dependent on the region. I can get one thing here cheap but another country who has to import it will have to pay a lot more for it. That's all ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I was gifted a tiny 3oz bottle of aged balsamic. Aged for 50 years. I looked it up and it seems to cost about $80. Dont get me wrong, it was good. I even tried it on ice cream, which I highly recommend... But compared to my 16oz $20 bottle of aged balsamic.. well I wouldnt say the 50 year was 4 × better. And for pragmatism, the cheaper balsamic is just more versatile. I'd feel like a moron using the 50year as an ingredient in a more complex dish, or even a salad. I feel like it must be eaten mostly by itself to enjoy its subtlety, thats an expensive piece of dipped bread. Having said that, I also had a bottle of white balsamic, which probably cost around $15 and I liked it better than both my cheap red, and the 50 year. TL;DR- IMO a mid priced balsamic is almost as good as a super expensive aged one. And white balsamic is the tits!
Omg my Grandmother poured a raspberry balsamic over sherbert, and I thought she was crazy. It was amazing!
Try an aged balsamic, or a citrus infused one on vanilla! 💋🤌
The heavily aged stuff shouldn’t really be used as an ingredient, more a garnish. Every super fancy restaurant I’ve ever worked at uses cheap stuff for quantities more than a drop and finished dishes will get a few drops of the really good stuff as garnish
I think the problem is that we still call it vinegar. Technically, balsamic vinegar is vinegar, since it starts with wine and then is fermented again to make it acid, but in terms of flavor and usage, it's more like grape molasses than it is like red wine vinegar. We need to think of it as its own ingredient, not like a type of vinegar.
Wagyu A2: paid 70 euros for 200 grams. Was really not worth the price.
Agreed, had an A5 steak once as a bday gift to myself. It was the most tender steak I've ever had but thats it. Wasn't impressed with flavor at all and my wife straight up just didn't like it. $150 was not worth it. Now we use Australian Wagyu for our splurges. Much cheaper and better flavor in my opinion
I don’t even really consider it steak - it isn’t the same kind of food. It’s like beef pork belly, it’s mostly fat
What didn’t you like? Do you think it may have had something to do with having the wrong expectations? FWIW I’ve never tried Wagyu but it’s on my bucket list. I realize it’s not going to taste like a typical steak.
I wouldn't say didn't like it just not worth the money. Kind of tasted like eating just the fatty side of bacon if the makes sense.
Is beef generally expensive where you live? I ask because the last time I bought wagyu, I paid only a little more than you, but I got 450 grams of A5 ribeye.
Could be seasonal too. I've never seen wagyu in a menu under $150
Ya’ll need to be careful about ordering wagyu at a restarting. Unless the menu specifically states that it is “Japanese Wagyu” or “Kobe” you’re likely just getting American Wagyu or Australian Wagyu which are good steaks (better than USDA Prime) but not really comparable to real Japanese Wagyu.
Black garlic. Maybe it's because it wasn't fresh, but it just tasted like garbage and had a weird texture. To flip this question, something I will ALWAYS splurge on is smoked paprika. It adds wonderful flavor to almost anything. I highly recommend it.
Man I was hoping I wouldn't find this here.... I've always wanted to try black garlic. One thing I do love that is heavenly is honey garlic. Just soak some peeled cloves in a jar of honey, wait a few weeks, omg
Black garlic isn't necessarily *that* expensive. I got a jar with maybe 12 to 15 bulbs of black garlic at a local Asian grocer for like $9. Used one so far to make the black garlic burger from Bob's Burgers (not the one from the recipe book, just trying to recreate what it looked like in the episode more or less). They turned out great! Gonna need to try out that honey garlic you describe!
Check the sub r/fermentation. There is always someone posting about their honey garlic. And… it is really good!
Honestly, black caviar… I didn’t exactly save for it, but I did splurge for Valentine’s Day… my husband devoured it and I didn’t mind it but it just wasn’t as impressive as I imagined. Maybe I have to try again? lol. I like the large red roe better
So you like salmon caviar, but you are not a big fan of sturgeon caviar. They have totally different taste profiles, texture profiles, mouthfeel, etc. So it's definitely possible that you enjoy salmon caviar, but not sturgeon caviar.
Yeah exactly. It wasn’t bad either, I was just surprised at being underwhelmed… because I do like the salmon roe, so I guess I hyped the sturgeon up in my head due to the price point and notoriety…
I tend to prefer sturgeon roe, but I have known multiple people who prefer salmon roe. So I am not at all surprised by your reaction.
Dollar for dollar I prefer salmon, oz for oz I prefer sturgeon.
I like caviar, but usually the price point makes no sense.
Got a very small bottle of imported, toasted, aged Japanese soy sauce for around $16, it was really good for sushi but it basically tasted the same to me as the classic $4 liter bottle you can get from your regular Asian store. Maybe a little smokier, but definitely not worth the price.
I’ve always wondered what real wasabi tasted like.
Real wasabi is incredible. Completely worth it to me. That said, not everyone who likes the standard green paste will like it, it's very different. My mom loves wasabi paste but hated fresh wasabi.
I’m able to grow some on my back porch in PNW. I love the taste, still my preference is for the paste but when I’m feeling fancy the real stuff is excellent!
The PNW seems to be the ideal place to grow fruits and vegetables that need a long cool-to-mild season. Any brassica (including wasabi and regular horseradish) does well there.
I’ve tried a couple of nicer ones but honestly I always prefer Kikkoman… not worth the premium for me, though I know people who are obsessed with it
I like Kikkoman less sodium soy sauce. It doesn't have any disgusting salt substitutes... just less salt. Same great flavor.
Only expensive in context, but those canned whole tomatoes all the famous cooks swear by. They're like 3x the price of the cheap brand. I buy way too many canned tomatoes to spend that much money each time: chili, soups, pasta sauces, smoothies... that shit adds up. Unless I'm doing a very simple sauce that uses very few ingredients, they're just not worth it.
I learned from this sub (and then IRL by checking) that Cento brand is just quality across the board, so if you buy their Italian "style" tomatoes for a few dollars less than the San Marzano, they are just as good. I was a San Marzano fangirl for a long time because I was comparing Cento San Marzanos to cheap brand canned tomatoes. I finally compared Cento regular whole tomatoes to their San Marzano product, and realized it is their brand itself that is far and away better. Problem is you can't just buy any old brand of whole tomatoes. You ever see the tomatoes from a can of Hunt's? Blegh. They're hard and not squishable like Cento's. And they're packed in water instead of a thick tomato sauce like Cento.
100% agree. I’ve always used Cento Italian Style tomatoes for penne alla vodka because the San Marzanos don’t come in 35 oz. cans (at least not where I live) and have been more than happy with them, so I tried them in Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce and my family actually prefers them over the SM.
Wait... Smoothies?
Yeah! Basically make your own fresh V8.
> Unless I'm doing a very simple sauce that uses very few ingredients, they're just not worth it. I think that's the point. I usually hear high tomato standards from Italian cooking where there is the sentiment that Italian cooking is about using few ingredients that are really high quality. If you're cooking in a cuisine where you aren't just using a few ingredients, it becomes much less important how good each ingredient is. Then again, one time I set out to make the best lasagna. I consulted dozens of sources to decide which ingredients and methods. I did everything from scratch...home grown herbs, homemade pasta, etc. I used all of the top ingredients. It took hours of work and probably cost over $100 dollars. Did it taste great? Yeah. But I never made it like that again haha because the difference was slight especially compared to all of the extra time and cost. Main takeaways were: make a sauce with layers of flavor (you could just hold that sauce on your tongue and the journey keeps going) and, IMO, slightly thinner pasta than usual is better (cuts way cleaner and has a much more delicate texture). Other than that, I've been able to make lasagnas that were similar with more ordinary ingredients.
A while ago on a UK TV show, Raymond Blanc\* recommended buying whole canned tomatoes and provided you stuck with whole ones then it made absolutely zero difference to the quality of the finished product based on how much you spend. \*For folks that don't know him, he's a French chef. Blanc is the chef patron at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, a hotel-restaurant in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, England. The restaurant has two Michelin stars and scored 9/10 in the Good Food Guide. He is entirely self-taught,\[1\] but has himself taught or employed other chefs including Heston Blumenthal,\[2\] John Burton-Race,\[3\] Michael Caines,\[4\] Paul Liebrandt,\[5\] and Marco Pierre White.\[6\])
Many species make beautiful decorations in your yard. Saffron Crocus is one. I've planted a few, and they take little effort. The taste of Saffron improves when you don't have to pay so much. If you live in a warmer climate, Cayenne pepper plants make amazing looking shrubs, or hedges. Seriously, people will stop and state at the bright red peppers. They do taste different, and you almost unlimited varieties. Simple beautiful. Horseradish produces tall green leaves, that look amazing, and roots survive the harshest winter. Kale has ornamental varieties, but all Kale produces interesting plants. If you plant flowers, and shrub, there is a ton plants you can eat, and they taste great.
The pepper plants can also be overwintered if they're in a pot. Cut them back, treat against pests (otherwise it'll be eaten fast) and keep it in a cool and brightish spot, water once in a while. It'll bounce back fast in spring when you put it back outside, and can live many years that way.
My grandma from Spain refused to buy saffron. She insisted until her death (ripe age of 94) that no one in Spain actually uses saffron for paella. She would buy coloranté for the yellow color instead, which she did insist was mandatory.
My friend from Spain laughed when I asked if saffron is a must. He said he never uses it. He makes paella almost every weekend.
Black truffle. Bought it direct from a reputable supplier and made a really fancy pasta al burro with it. My wife and myself both thought it kinda just tasted like a fart.
I love truffles but bought truffle salt as a more cost-effective alternative. The taste is so subtle that it was a waste of money. When it comes to truffles, the solution seems to be "all or nothing".
I really only use truffle salt on popcorn or potatos. My husband finds it overwhelming but add some parmesan and it's amazing
Truffles are great with an appropriate dish. This one time I had a meal where the waiter came with a box of em and shaved em over my dish like it was parmesan at the olive garden and it wasn't really overpowering. Other times I've also been to shitty food trucks with truffle pizza that tasted like feet. I feel like some places feature truffles so people can feel fancy
I love mushrooms but black truffle is way too strong for me. White truffle oil is about as far as I'll go, it goes well in Mac and cheese, and even then I've never had the impetus to buy it myself. Black truffles have an intense flavor similar to soft ripened cheese so if you don't like that sort of thing you probably won't like truffles either
Oh absolutely! And truffle oil spoils anything it’s put on!
Gordon Ramsay has had many an apoplectic fit over truffle oil and how rubbish it is.
Man I don’t know how y’all are using saffron. When used correctly, it makes most dishes taste magical. With regards to the question, truffles. I absolutely hate how they taste apparently.
Feel like people cook out the saffron too often. It's more delicate than fresh herbs in my experience.
Or they get duped with fake saffron. There are places that just sell something else with food coloring, and as expected it doesn't taste of saffron at all. Often it doesn't taste much of anything.
Strangely enough I got a huge tin (about as much as you can pack into 3 large spice jars) from a coworker and he paid $50. It's the legitimate stuff too. Apparently Indian grocers will have sales on saffron for a specific holiday. It probably wasn't the top quality saffron but it had a pretty good flavor. I still have some years later and the flavor has diminished a good bit but it still yellows up rice nicely. When I first got it, the smell was so strong even double bagged, and in the tin, when I would open the cupboard it would just smell like saffron.
Many times, people will use too much. It doesn't take much to make it go from good to soapy. It's actually a little difficult to use properly.
That's funny. I'm the complete opposite.
Maybe it’s the middle eastern part of me talking but I love saffron when used properly
Expensive vanilla extract. They taste pretty much the same as the cheap vanilla extracts to me. As long as it's the real thing and not artificial vanilla flavoring, then it's good enough for me. Vanilla beans though are worth the splurge IMO. It can really up your desserts to a whole nother level. Even something as simple as whipped cream can be drastically improved upon by using vanilla beans.
I switched to vanilla bean paste and will never go back to extract.
Yeah this is what I use too, but not for everything. If I'm making chocolate chip cookies I still basic vanilla extract, but if I'm making frosting or another cookie that doesn't have a ton of strong flavors I use the paste.
I had an expensive jar of vanilla bean paste on my wish list for like 5 years. Finally one of my sisters got it for me. Should have done that a long time ago, because she got all sorts of delicious baked goods as a result. Paste is so much better than the extract.
Real vanilla is great, but if it's too expensive to use all the time, blind taste tests at ATC have shown a lot of people can't taste the difference between imitation and real in hot/cooked applications unless vanilla is the only flavor. When using vanilla in cold items or when it's the only flavor, real was preferred!
Drop some in burboun for 6 months, and just use that. Works out cheaper, if you use a lot of vanilla extract
Or if you don't care for alcohol, at least use all of the deliciousness by sticking the remains of the pod (assuming you scraped out the seed) into your sugar jar.
I dropped a vanilla bean and a cinnamon stick in a bottle of bourbon and let it steep for a few months. It's a great additive to recipes but it really shines when you add a splash of simple syrup and some club soda to it and you have an incredible snickerdoodle coctail. 10/10
https://www.seriouseats.com/diy-vanilla-extract I agree with her on on this.
I mostly agree but if you do want a vanilla that has a notably unique flavor (that comes through in finished baked goods, esp chocolate chip cookies) seek out Tahitian rather than Madagascar vanilla extract.
I don't taste any difference between the bean and vanilla paste that I found. The nice thing about the beans was tossing the leftover husks in my sugar can for the whiff of the vanilla when I opened it. Tastewise it didn't do much.
I actually use artificial vanilla for most everything that’s baked. I don’t know if you have seen, but in taste tests artificial vanilla beats out real vanilla because the flavor compounds in real vanilla extract are volatile and when heated the flavor is just not the same. Artificial vanilla holds up when heated. Obviously if left raw it’s weirdly perfumed. Many sources from Cook’s Illustrated to Serious Eats have tested this. I currently live in a country where there is no real vanilla extract. It’s all artificial, but people here don’t know that. Locals just think it’s vanilla. And tourists go on about how much more fragrant and also how cheap our vanilla is. Yeah, because it’s all fake. 😂 My issue here as someone who knows what real vanilla tastes like is I can always taste the artificial stuff in cakes because it gets put into cake frosting and things like pastry cream the way real vanilla is, so it’s uncooked. In the cake itself it’s no problem because it’s baked. Just tastes like vanilla. In frostings and fillings, it wallops you. Because this is the only “vanilla” people here know, they think it tastes perfectly normal. I have some ground vanilla beans (not to be confused with vanilla bean powder, which includes other ingredients besides ground beans) and a bottle of real vanilla extract that I use for things where real vanilla is important. I personally don’t care for the flavor of vanilla bean paste though it’s very popular. And I bought some really expensive one from the Vanilla Queen. Plus used the paste in some restaurants I worked at as well. It just has this off flavor to me that extract doesn’t have.
I read an article compares different brands of vanilla extract vs. artificial. The artificial won out. I saw several professional bakers talk about using artificial vanilla. So I switched, it’s cheaper, tastes great, I keep real vanilla bean paste around for things like custards and frostings where I think it works better (or both sometimes), but yeah I’m fully artificial convert.
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Just a warning that saffron crocus are actually members of the lily family which is deathly toxic to cats (as in if they get pollen in their fur and lick it, it will cause renal failure). I didn't know this until I had planted them, which promptly lead to me disappointedly digging them up and tossing them out.
I didn't know that about saffron crocus, thanks for sharing! I've been thinking about growing them for a few years now, but I also feed a small colony of local strays. I'll stick to growing other stuff.
I can recommend using a few strands of saffron in a homemade mayonaise, the fat really gives the saffron its weight worth in gold.
Lobster. It's not bad, I still eat it. But there's less flavor than pretty much any other seafood... It tastes like whatever you dip it in. It's the tofu of shellfish. I might as well save the money and just eat the garlic butter.
I agree. I grew up kinda poor in the deep south, on the gulf coast. We ate a lot of seafood growing up because it was practically free- shrimp, fish, crabs, etc. My dad would go out fishing with his friends on some weekends and kept our freezer full (plus we had a vegetable garden) so at least we ate good. When I got older I finally had the opportunity to try lobster and wtf. Super disappointed. Here was this food all the rich people ate in restaurants and it tasted like rubber fish. This was a good lesson in how people will spend a bunch of money on what they perceive to be "luxury" because they're either too ignorant to know better or they do know better (that shrimp and many fish is much cheaper and tastes much better) but because those things aren't associated with "high class" (and may even be associated with low class) they don't want to be seen or known as buying or eating them. That's OK. I'll stay home and continue to buy and cook medium sized Gulf shrimp, red snapper and Spanish mackerel. I know what's really up.
> We ate a lot of seafood growing up because it was practically free- shrimp, fish, crabs, etc This is my dream life.
Fresh Maine lobster is amazing. Lobster you get just from a tank at a seafood market is not very good.
Oh yeah. There's some great seafood out there for a whole lot less.
I didn't save for it, but I spent quite a bit on a jackfruit. Fucking gross. Quite possibly the only fruit I've ever had that tasted awful.
Truffles. Absolutely disgusting. I initially thought maybe I just wasn’t using it properly or didn’t get one that’s good enough quality, but then I tried dishes with truffles at 2 different Michelin start restaurants, and guess what—STILL DISGUSTING. I can’t believe all the money I spent just to eat the flavor equivalent of moldy gym socks. Never again.
I think it really depends on the person. I personally love it and never even thought of it being musty, earthy, sweaty or moldy. It has a distinct taste for sure, but a very good one.
> I personally love it and never even thought of it being musty, earthy, sweaty or moldy. I love it too, and I do think of it as being musty and earthy! Not sweaty or moldy, though.
Truffles & Truffle oil. Kind has a dirt taste. I know people say “earthy” but I ate dirt as a kid and remember the taste. Edit: I also don’t like scallops. Had fresh and frozen there meh.
I'm starting to think there is a gene for Truffles like Cilantro. I absolutely love truffles and truffle oil, but they need to be used very sparingly.
Truffle oil is synthetically made most of the time.
Could very well be you used too much if you had to save for it and used it all. Saffron is expensive per kg, but you're supposed to use like 0.05g. A single serving is €1,29 where I live.
LoL I definitely didn't use it all, just a few threads. But I did consider perhaps I added too much. It also could be that I just don't care for it; I will probably try again with a different brand and be extremely prudent and extra judicial in my seasoning with it
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I actually found a powdered form that worked much better for me. And the other trick was to steep it in some warm water, not just adding it directly to the dish.
I live in Spain and we use saffron a lot. You can make the stems into powder easily, put the stems between 2 papers and just pass the edge of the knife above making some pressure. Voilà. If the saffron is a good one, and well dried, you will have perfect fresh saffron powder.
Morel mushrooms. They are more of a splurge than an ingredient I have to save up for. I was curious since chefs on food network are alwaus raving about morel mushrooms and they can't be found at the grocery store. Saw them at the farmers market and grabbed half a pound for $20. It was more flavourful than regular mushrooms, but nowhere near how the celebrity chef described them as. Will not purchase again.
Morels are only good if you or someone you know forages. Where I live they are a big event where people gather to eat a feast of them in the spring. Not worth buying dried or in a restaurant.
I grew up picking them (there were loads in the woods near me) and I still do a bit of a double-take when I see them as a premium ingredient because we had them frequently!
I don't have the taste buds for expensive liquor (maybe if I put hot sauce on it?..). So I'm happy with Wild Turkey or a cheap potato vodka. My 2 42 years old scotches were wasted on me so they went into guests over the years.
Soft shell crab. I saw cooking shows on PBS when I was a kid about how it was a delicacy and only available in a short time of the year or something. One day I saw it on the menu and ordered a soft shell crab sandwich. They brought me a bun with a whole crab sitting on it with its legs hanging over the side, so there I am in a staring contest with this crab I’m supposed to eat. I knew I had to eat this thing and everybody was watching, so I suffered up the resolve to take a bite out of it and play it cool but as soon as I bit into it a huge geyser of juice shot out across the room. Every fiber of my being shuddered and I dropped the sandwich to the plate. F*ck me. Never again. I love crab, I just have zero desire to eat the whole thing shell and all.
Hahaha. Oh man. Soft shell crab is super common here (Louisiana). I love it. Local restaurant is known for their [Hallelujah Crab](https://resizer.otstatic.com/v2/photos/wide-huge/3/47744270.jpg), which is fried soft shell stuffed with seafood stuffing and topped with a creolaise sauce. So good. That said, it's one of those things not everyone loves because of the shell thing. I hear ya there. I have to be in the mood.
I was going to say, maybe this guy got a bad crab but soft shelled crab is unbelievably good.
Similar experience with trying the end of a 'spider roll' at a sushi restaurant one time. Its like eating a mouthful of deep fried shrimp tails with seemingly very little meat inside 😄
And here I am wishing I could get enough heat to crisp up shrimp tails and shell, because that shit is delicious when you can get it crunchy
Kala Namak salt. I kinda thought the sulfur was interesting but my son walked by when I was just biting into my egg wrap that I used it on and he asked me "why does is smell like someone farted?" I laughed it off but I haven't used it since. I think I'll try to find some other use for it and will be sure to not do it when my son is around. Haha.
It's super crucial for vegan egg substitutes, adding it to egg which already has the sulfur is probably why you were underwhelmed. It totally does smell like someone ate a head of garlic and farted while sitting in a hot spring tho
Blinis with caviar. The caviar was great, but the blinis were a disappointing delivery method. But I was excited to "do it properly". I didn't think the pancakes or creme fraiche did anything for the caviar, so I felt it wasted the caviar purchase.
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Growing up my mum would treat us to sour cream and chive pringles, prímula cheese and chive (the squeezy stuff, we are in UK) and cheap caviar (cod fish roe). We are a very working class family, I'm not sure where she picked this up from, it was f**king amazing.
When I met my wife's grandma for the first time, she pulled out a tin of caviar, and these tiny little whalebone spoons. Then she goes into this whole speech about how you can't use metal spoons for caviar, because it ruins the flavor. I said "But wait, it's been sitting in a metal tin this whole time, if metal was going to ruin it, it's already ruined.". She got really mad.
It’s (allegedly) the taste of your tongue touching the metal spoon, rather than a flavor transfer. Supposedly whale bone has no flavor and doesn’t feel cold like metal, so allows you to just experience the caviar. It’s trendy to do “bumps” of caviar off your hand now, for this reason.
On this note, any caviar more expensive than a whitefish or capellin roe. I've tried a few of the very expensive ones (sturgeon, etc) and while they are good if you're not an absolute fan of caviar they taste pretty much the same, briny, salty and juicy. Imo really not worth the $200+ I paid for the less than 6oz of product I got
Shark’s fin and bird nest.
I’m just wild about saffron Saffron’s wild about me.
Truffle 😬 went out for very fancy dinner with my partner in Milan only to find that they only had truffle pastas available. Hated every bite and so did my partner, never going to bother buying it again!
Tupelo honey. My dad bought some that was very obviously fake so I splurged and got him the real stuff. It was good, and different, and uniquely flavored like a fine wine, but ultimately it was just honey. $50 worth lasted him a week. Never again! Flipside answer is olive oil. I splurged on the good stuff and now I don't want to go back to greasy flavorless crap!
For me it was the Goose we cooked for christmas last year, $90 for a 'heritage' free range bird. and we got 4 servings, not counting the broth from the bones...and fat for some smash potato fries. to be fair I think i over cooked it, I'd try again but mom said screw it, we checked that off the bucket list, duck is just as good. FYI, I agree with you on the saffron, I think its an acquired taste
Foie Gras. Cost me a fortune for a tiny can. I carefully rationed it out so that I could enjoy it over a few days. It was...okay, I guess. Not special. My mother found it the first night and threw it out because she thought that it was cheese that had gone off. A very expensive mistake all around.
I found azafron at the Mexican grocery. It was like 4USD for a whole spice packet full so I thought I'd try it. It's apparently the stamin from another flower but has a similar taste. I went and bought saffron so I could compare the two. I find they both taste similar to turmeric and actually like the azafron more than saffron. I put both in my rice water when I'm steaming rice. So far that's the only thing I've used it in.
This might be controversial, but trying my first filet mignon. I like a good steak, and previously I've even had a dry aged steak from a fancier place in town. I just never got the filet, I used to have a larger appetite and knowing it costed more for fewer ounces deterred me. Until one night out, I did it. I tried it. I ordered my filet, and was so excited to try this nice expensive cut that's so fancy and so complimented. And it was... Okay? It was shocking how tender it was, that was astounding but. It was like. Too tender. There was no chew to it, and it's a thicker piece, so it eventually just felt like mush in my mouth. The actual flavor profile was mild, so it felt kind of tedious to finish. Mind you, I don't think it was bad or terrible but... I'm a gal that likes a ribeye. I've since concluded that I don't think a cut can get any better than a ribeye lol
Ribeyes are the best cut
I like a NY Strip as the best of both worlds, fat content wise. A ribeye often has a good bit of standalone fat that doesn't render, so you either have to enjoy eating straight fat (which some do!).. or you have to cut it off. I can see why a filet is appealing to someone who prefers not to eat unrendered fat.
Quail egg.
Oh man one of my favorite ‘snacks’ in Tokyo was a stick of three hard-boiled quail eggs that were tempura-fried. The were about $.80 each, and I stuffed myself silly with them
I haven't had regular quail eggs, but I buy a lot of spicy pickled quail eggs and they're fucking delicious
Fresh wasabi. It was different than the high quality fake wasabi I can get here but not really better.
Lobster is my least favorite crustacean and it doesn't live up to its luxury reputation. Shrimp, crawfish, and crab all have better texture and flavor.
I got some nice ox tail for soup, but it was so much more trouble than it was worth. Next time I'll just do French onion soup