Failure thread

>decide to be Veeky Forums
>start simple and make my own flatbread with flour and yoghurt and olive oil
>cooked golden one side
>still white other side but charred in others
>tastes like shit

Lower heat and more lube

>decide to be Veeky Forums
>makes own food
you're doing it wrong

guess the pan wasn't nice and hot enough

l-lewd

>decide to be Veeky Forums
>didn't get the McChicken

You're doing it wrong, faggot.

you gotta re-oil between sides my dude, easy fix. once it's in the pan brush that top side with some more and give it a lil salty salt and it'll come out great. luckily breads are cheap. keep trying :o)

Who makes good bread? People who bake bread all the time. If you can casually whip out good bread lightning has struck. This is why small European towns have one or two families who bake most of the bread and Americans largely stopped baking when industrially baked became widely available. If you want good bread you either have to know someone who bakes on a regular basis or be the one who bakes on a regular basis.

this is so true. ive been making my own bread for a month now and its still always got one thing wrong with it (too yeasty, not kneaded enough, crust too hard). gotta make mistakes to learn fuckall with breadmaking

>spend an hour in publix looking for ingredients
>read my oven's instruction manual
>follow the recipe exactly, scientifically even
>it ends up looking and tasting like shit

some of us were not meant to be heroes

I suspect I will get shit for this and maybe even some dank "science of cooking" youtube links but cooking isn't about jihadi devotion to a recipe. You have to keep a loose hand on what you're doing, not treat it like the instructions for building a shed.

If you want paint-by-numbers get Blue Apron. If you want to cook, follow the recipe but also use some common sense. Learn what tastes good. Improvise!

What did you make? has a good point, only baking recipes should be strictly, scientifically followed.

This.
Veeky Forums is full of fucking retards that eat shit fast food 24/7 and can barely cook for themselves.

>can't even spell yogurt right
wow you're a massive fucking retard.

>a pinch of salt
>and a dash of love
>wa-la

Never follow the recipie

It's yoghurt you spastic cunt, and I'm not OP

There's a difference between a bit of improvisation and straight up not cooking your food, only to pass it off as your true intent all along.

Riddle me this bud: Why do you spell it "centre" when it's pronounced "senn-turr" on both sides of the pond?

On my side it's pronounced: Sen-Tah
M8
Why is it rough if we both say ruff?

*goghurt

>Rice.
>Water.
>Ceramic container.
>Place in microwave and follow instructions to a T.
>Smell burning
>I managed to fucking burn rice in a microwave.

We all start somewhere man, don't let that mistake bring you down and discourage you from cooking, keep practicing

>A lot of healthy for you food is green
>Can't eat anything green because the taste disgusts me

goddamn it stop putting everything in the fucking microwave
what the fuck are you people doing

>back when I was like 12-13
>parents arent home
>decide I want a hotdog, but not just a hotdog a grilled hotdog
>try to remember what dad taught me about the grill
>ok I have to turn the gas on and close the hood
>leave it like that for a while and I notice that the thermometer isnt going up
>realize I didnt ignite it so I turn the knob to start the clicker
>theres a huge boom, the hood flies open and all the hair on my right arm is gone

>hot oil for sear
>forgot to pat dry
>oil sputters so hard it hits me in the face a few time

Always pat dry my friends.

>1st attempt at making mushroom cream sauce
>find recipe somewhere online
>fry onions and mushrooms
>looks fine so far
>add flour
>add heavy cream
>add beef stock
>it becomes some horrendous mixture
>its basically beef stock with some clotted cream and clotted flour
Never again

Honestly, that was a great lesson for you to have because it didn't fuck you up irreparably, but enough to to scare you.

My advice for people learning to make a sauce is to learn making a roux and turning it into a bechamel. Once you make a fuckton of those to add to pasta or baked dishes, you can basically make gravies and move onto the other french mother sauces. Using a whisk is NOT a meme, although I might get a narrow one just for making sauces. Pic related is what I use and it's fucking excellent.

I'm not short enough to be in splatter range

>Making crepes yesterday because that's the custom celebration for Candlemas here in France
>See little sister flipping them
>Tries to
>It falls on the rim of the pan and get split

That's because you're a weeb and therefore stupid.

I'm stupid despite being a weeb.

>4am
>want over easy egg
>only ever made scrambled
>how hard can it be
>turn on stove
>let it heat up a little before i crack the egg into it
>just want to cook the whites a tad bit
>crack egg into pan
>the heat of 1000 suns instantly pulverizes the egg to the pan
>smoke everywhere holy fucking shit
>maybe ill just have scrambled

I am stupid. Therefore, I weeb.

How do you even flip a crepe?

>32 years old
>Tried frying potatoes last year
>Failed
>Never tried cooking again

Besides why bother, I am a wizard and so can afford to eat out every day or get premade food

>Learn about souffles
>oh, ok these don't seem so bad, seems kind of fun, actually
>go out and get some medium-sized individual souffle dishes
>proceed to make a cheese souffle adapted from alton brown's recipe with some really nice aged gruyere
>taste my base, think y'know what would be great?
>Garlic.
>get out the 'ol garilc press and squeeze a couple of cloves in the base, taste again
>seems really strong, but I bet the garlic will cook out....right?
>proceed to finish souffle, dish them out, put in oven, gorgeous rise and browning, looks like absolutely flawless technique for my first time
>so excited I call wife (then girlfriend) over, we ooh and ahh over it, I deliberately make her wait for them to cool a bit
>bite into it, holy fuck that garlic is strong, TOO strong
>look at wife, she looks back at me, her face all screwed up
>bursts into laughter
>we order pizza

What an utter failure. I didn't cook another souffle for a long time after that cause she kept teasing me.

You take the cooked side and invert it.

I didn't ask for the definition of flipping
I asked about the technique to do it

>read my oven's instruction manual
you had never used an oven before?

you probably picked a shit recipe to follow.

Stick something underneath cooked side, and turn it over, preferably quickly to avoid folding back on itself.

I use this guy and a nonstick pan. A cake spatula could work, too. I like to flip them with something thin, I tear them less if they're made correctly.

>Go to brother's friend's house
>It's their birthday
>They decided they'd have a cookout for the occasion
>Grill wouldn't work so they cooked burgers indoors
>Made one for everyone
>Take a bite
>warm, gooey, raw beef inside
>The hamburger was practically cooked blue because it was too thick
>No one says anything about it
>Okay, so I guess we're all just eating raw beef then.

I took a big second bite just to get as much of it down as I could so I didn't come off as rude...

To be honest there is only handful of things you need to learn to be able to make good bread.
It's surprisingly easy, I used to be afraid of baking anything cause it seemed like such rocket science but I make great fucking pizza and used to make pizza dough every week so I learned a lot about dough and just one day decided to learn to make bread. Wasn't that hard after all.
Though if you have no one to teach you it might be kinda hard.

Trial and error aint so bad as long as you aren't really serious about it. I just got a big 'ol sack of flour at costco and a pound of yeast from amazon that I keep in the fridge for super cheap. With my stainless bowls, scale, and dutch oven I just kept cranking out loaves until I got some results that were good enough for me. Failed loaves were sent to the toaster and turned into breadcrumbs or french toast. I learned that it's almost always better to overbake bread than underbake. The dutch oven really helps, too.

Hahaha wow faggot i replied just to laugh at you and let you know you're a fucking retard. Cooking is not hard just kys if you can't do it

>recipe

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

>>get out the 'ol garilc press
This is how you know the """""""person""""""" (american) cannot actually function properly in society.

I got lazy, so sue me. I hate mincing garlic that finely, and I thought chunks or slices would've been inappropriate.

perhaps ice soup is more your speed

>goddamn it stop putting everything in the fucking microwave

I don't have an oven or a burner only a microwave and a kettle

I'm so sorry

>it takes me longer than 2 minutes to mince an entire bulb of garlic (let alone a few cloves) with a knife.

Just stop posting here until you can actually cook. It's ok, you're just ignorant of the skills required, but you'll learn in time, youngin'.

Posting

Dude, fuck off. I can mince garlic just fine. I wanted it pureed, and I own a garlic press and it works for me most of the time. I've worked in a kitchen when I was younger, so don't be a condescending prick about how if I use a tool it automatically makes me an inferior babby cook. Do you look down on people who use mandolins? Or citrus squeezers instead of hand reamers?

>Do you look down on people who use mandolins? Or citrus squeezers instead of hand reamers?

Yes

Surely make a roux first with flour and butter otherwise adding flour later you just get..... lumps.

I did that once with custard made from cornflour. "Hmm it's not thickening enough. I don't want to burn it by increasing heat. I'll add more corn flour" dumped it straight in without mixing it with hot water or milk or whatever beforehand. Epic lumps.

>Oh yum user this custard is great
They said to not hurt my feelings

My face was JUST

t. has never cooked for a crowd
How does it feel to have no friends?

Pretty great actually

Surely make a roux first with flour and butter otherwise adding flour later you just get..... lumps.

I did that once with custard made from cornflour. "Hmm it's not thickening enough. I don't want to burn it by increasing heat. I'll add more corn flour" dumped it straight in without mixing it with hot water or milk or whatever beforehand. Epic lumps.

>Oh yum user this custard is great
They said to not hurt my feelings

My face was JUST

>sauerkraut is supposed to be super fucking easy
>buy glass jars, little weights, and special caps to vent them without letting mold in
>patiently wait for over a month before tasting it
>it's so salty that it's inedible
>lose all will to try again
>now I have all these glass jars and canning stuff collecting dust

I drank from my Father's gin bottle when I was 7. I've been an alcoholic for 18 years

How much salt did you add per cabbage weight? Did you use kosher or pickling salt?

Don't give up, but yes the predominate flavor is not salt but sour, so you made a mistake somewhere. I suspect you added too much salt.

>If you can casually whip out good bread lightning has struck.

Well actually, all you need to make good bread is a reliable formulation, a good scale, and climate controlled conditions. As long as you have those things, a trained monkey could turn out good bread.

I can casually turn out good bread, because I took the time to learn a reliable process. And since I'm not a poverty stricken degenerate, my house has good insulation and stable interior temperature & humidity; that means I don't have to worry about whether or not it's raining like a dumb poorfag who has to adjust their recipe to account for moisture variation in the air. These are the things you learn with a little life experience and money.

tl;dr don't be a poor

I suspect it's because the recipe gave cabbage to salt ratio based on cabbage weight, and I don't have a scale or anything to weigh cabbage. Used regular kosher salt.

I also tried pickling okra when it was in season and it was a disappointment too. That time the flavor came out alright, but the okra were wimpy and slimy instead of crisp like the kind I get from the store.

Walmart sells scales that are cheap and while not reliable to fractions of grams, they will be adequate for fermenting vegetables. I think it would be worth it for you because homemade sauerkraut is far better than store mass produced crap in the US.

Go onto Amazon. AmazonBasics kitchen scale. Costs like 15 bucks at most.

I burnt some fucking mug brownies inside out.
The unburnt part was great tho.

Not Veeky Forums but same with cough syrup.

>Who makes good bread? People who bake bread all the time. If you can casually whip out good bread lightning has struck.

get a bread machine. either new or used. they're cheap.

Use the dough setting. after 30 minutes of kneading, pull the dough out. it will be warm and perfectly kneaded.

roll it out put it in a pan, whatever, then let it rise for 1-2 hours, then bake. it's easy. I make bread constantly this way. It's easy and there is no mess at all, and you can experiment without making a huge mess.

have way too much shit to post in here pretty much everything ive cooked sucks

>be like 12
>home alone
>never made food for myself outside cereal and basic sandwiches
>boxed mac and cheese in the pantry
>have no idea what I'm doing, never even touched a stove
>mom walks me through what to do
>okay boil water first
>I grab a pot that's waaay too big and has a built in strainer
>use exact measurements of water stated on box
>wait for it to boil
>somehow all the water boils out without me noticing
>keep pot on burner for like an hour or two thinking its not boiling for some reason
>figure out what happened
>parents get home, laugh at me, then make me mac and cheese
God damn, I was a retard.

>Tried to make lemon poppy seed cake donuts.

Outside was burnt, inside was literally still twist-able.

>Be me a NEET living with parents
>obviously severely obese
>spend 18 hours a day on computer
>mom and dad out one day and hungry
>try to make pb&j
>try to spead peanut butter on bread
>spread too hard and rip bread in half smearing peanutbutter all over the counter
>pissed at mom for not being in the fucking kitchen to make me a pb&j
>decide to eat entire jar of peanut butter with a spoon and then shit it all out into my shorts for mommy to clean

That learned her

I need to get myself a saucier because trying to whisk in a saucepan is a pain in the ass

>only ever made scrambled

what the fuck are you doing with your life?

just wearing down the batteries until sweet sweet death

>decide to make French toast
>everything's working smoothly, smell is god-tier.
>used shitty skillet
>despite ample butter spray, French toast adheres to the shitty skillet and ruins it.
>mfw I managed to fuck up French toast

>slicing fish
>manage to stab a hole my own hand
And that's how instead of a 5 dollar dinner I had a 10 000 dollar trip to the hospital

Did you tip the doctor before you left?

>gonna make homemade chicken noodle soup
>grab all those rotisserie chicken carcasses I've been saving in the freezer
>empty out the fridge of all those carrot tops, celery and onion ends.
>dried herbs from the garden
>8 hours later, broth is rich and gold, house smells great.
>put colander in sink
>fuck this is gonna be good
>wife is gonna suck my dick tonight cause of this soup
>pour all the broth right down the drain

To be fair souffles ARE a bitch because they require you to be familiar with certain things you can only understand with experience. Recipe is a base, but you need to know shit like does your oven spread the heat evenly, how will your ramekin affect baking time, etc.

I imagine it has more to do with acquiring knife skills. Once you actually get good all the kitchen accessories will be slower compared to what you can do with just a knife.

I'm pretty good with a knife though. One thing that I can do with a garlic press that I can't with my knife? Throw it in the dishwasher. Also everytime I do a superfine mince on garlic my hands smell and I hate that shit, not to mention I didn't need my knife to make a souffle so I never add something I gotta handwash. Better than using this shit, right?

>My dad and his girlfriend both claim to like salmon but constantly buy this really cheap, shitty, frozen marinated salmon-side from Aldi that's grotesquely soft and tastes terrible
>They serve this fucking thing at every party they have, everyone hates it
>Dad invites me round for dinner, says we're having salmon as usual
>Oh boy
>I show up early to help out with other stuff, at least I can make some other decent things
>Amazingly, the salmon is actually a fresh side for once, looks and smells good
>It's going to be cooked with lime-juice, chilli, coriander, lemongrass etc
>I let my hopes get up
>His girlfriend starts chopping the sandy coriander with all the finesse of a charging bull without washing it
>I put it in a strainer and wash it quickly before it gets dumped on the fish so we don't end up eating half a ton of sand
>She puts the rest of the stuff on the salmon, wraps it up with foil
>'Maybe this won't be so bad'
>She puts the salmon in the hot oven until the guests arrive, which is roughly forty minutes to an hour later
>Impossible to tell, the bitch made the active choice to put it in until people arrived, it's not like she just made a mistake or forgot about it or anything
>'I love this recipe because the oil stops the salmon getting overcooked, you can leave it in as long as you like'
>Unsurprisingly the salmon is overcooked, dry and tasteless and less than half of it gets eaten

you know they make knives you can put in the dishwasher, right? they're not expensive or hard to find or anything

>'I love this recipe because the oil stops the salmon getting overcooked, you can leave it in as long as you like'
Literally what

What exactly is your point? God forbid I use a garlic press to quickly get a paste, but I should practice knife skills to do this faster than said press, and you should also have crappy dishwater-safe knives as well? Pretty much any knife worth having in the kitchen isn't gonna fare well in the dishwasher, or are you just playing devil's avocado? I don't think I'm making an irrational decision, unless you truly buy that using a press makes me worse than Satan.

What's wrong with a simple hand tool for convenience? It's not like I bust out a SlapChop™ every time I chop an onion.

How do I pat the oil dry?

>start simple
>baking bread
you went wrong here m8, baking anything is pretty easy to fuck up

start with something actually simple

What's the problem with the flatbread? What kind of oil are you using? Are you making a chapati?

Try a focaccia instead. Easy. Hard to fuck up. Watch the dough and know when it's got enough flour, not too much. Dough is a living thing. Try not to kill it.

I think something people underestimate about cooking is picking good recipes. People who rarely or never cook have a hard time finding a decent recipe to follow. The more experience you have in the kitchen the more likely you are to pick something that will turn out well.

I have no fucking idea.
She was worried that the salmon would be undercooked when it was taken out, I think she might have had some sort of complex about fish not being cooked all the way though because of germs or something. Doesn't explain why she didn't think to wash the coriander if that was her fear though.

After chopping garlic, which (at least for me) is the last part of my prep cycle, do some washing and tidying up with a new sink of water and washing-up liquid

Completely controls that shit

>Improvise
>It tastes good to me!
That's because you've never tasted anything good
There are plenty of people who have been cooking all their lives and still suck because their frame of reference is based on shit recipes, shit ingredients, and shit taste. Also, a recipe that works well in one part of the world may be terrible in another because of differences in ingredients. A lot tends to go unsaid, like if the recipe just says "vinegar" it's understood to mean one thing in one country, a totally different thing in another country. With the internet people have been getting better about contextualizing this stuff but a flyover who thinks meat comes from "the store" and that the differences in food are some kind of liberal hoax to make him feel stupid is going to recoil at the suggestion that there's more than one kind of vinegar or that "chicken" could be different depending on the breed and the age of the bird.

Holy shit, this.

>hungry late at night
>decide to pop the digiorno's pizza I have in the freezer into the oven
>no huge trays so I use a cookie tray
>wasn't aware my parents bought a new set of kitchenware
>two new cookie trays thin as all hell resting together, stacked
>didn't realize
>cooked the pizza with two trays
>confused as to why it came out the way it did
>eat an undercooked digiorno's pizza anyways

I felt so fucking stupid

While everything you said is also true it does not refute my point. If people who have been cooking their whole lives still suck, I'm willing to bet they never cared to get better in the first place.

There are a lot of reasons people suck at cooking and a lot of people out there that suck. These people are undoubtedly putting their shit recipes on the internet, and people can't recognize that they are trash. You can still put a good meal together with subpar ingredients if you have a quality recipe.