ITT your achilles tendon

Black bean burgers.

They always come out dry and crumbly.

Mud cake? (Kladdkaka)

Somehow i always manage to fuck up rice.

That torte is raw...

It should have this texture.

let's make this thread about actual achilles tendon dishes, i bought a package saturday to make oden now that it's fall and promptly got a string of 35° days.

if i'm going to make radioyaki, how long should i cook them? should i try the parboil, vacuum-pack, then cook submerged in rice cooker method?

Falafel

Another thing I've never seen in a Spanish omelette. The ones I've had only had potatoes, onions, and eggs.

Put the ramekins in deep tray and fill it with boiling water after you put in in the oven, enough that the ramekins are almost fully covered and that's how you get perfect non eggy creme.

This. I try and try and try to make eggs but I always just end up shitting.

Of you're not brown it ain't gonna happen, falafel is 90% genetic.

Cottage Pie. I can never get my seasonings right.

I'm terrible at making roasts

I did a pork shoulder roast rubbed with paprika and other spices at 450 for 20 minutes and then reduced to 325 until my probe thermometer read 185 (like an hour and a bit) and it came out tough as leather

Maybe I should have covered it to keep the moisture in? The recipe I used omitted that detail

super easy if you have a blender and a pressure cooker

not sure how it stacks up to "real" authentic green chili tho, but it still tastes really good.

seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/04/pressure-cooker-fast-and-easy-chicken-chile-verde-recipe.html

Just make tendies.

That's because it's not a torte. It's a Kladdkaka

Underrated/10

I've been trying to master Hiroshima style okonomiyaki, but I can't get it anywhere near the level of the place I used to go when I lived there. Unlike the more popular Osaka style, where everything is mixed together and then fried like a pancake, the ingredients are layered and there are fried noodles and a fried egg on it. It's so damn good.

I feel ya man. At the very least if I cook the rice right, there is always a good amount burnt to the pan.

Any kind of pleated dumpling, I'm just too cack handed.

Cocktails in general. I have this beautifully-furnished bar, a lineup of 500ml bottles of home-extracted schnapps that would cause significantly more than 500ml of juices in the panties of an etsy-ite if I ever decided to try in life rather than rely on pornhub and "massages"

i get home, chug 750ml of a 2l bottle of coke zero, dump a bottle of braveheart in to fill, and nurse that for a day or two. if i run out and i'm too drunk to find my car keys, the schnapps get tapped and shot in descending order of alcohol content, even if that means going from the 45% abv coffee straight to the 40% lavender (and i suppose the 35% oak is just as conflicting but by that point i can't feel my tongue anyway)

blackheart whatever the $10 95-proof one

Eggs are an ingredient, not a dish.

Well, yeah once it reaches 185 you have to keep cooking it for a few hours. 3-4 hours total cook time is normal.

caramelized onions

Fried squid. Always comes up tough like rubber.

This. I never can seem to find the sweet spot between clear cooked onions and burnt onions. I try going low and slow, wait about 45 minutes, onions aren't caramelized so I crank up the heat a little, and then they start to burn.

attempted beef wellington once but i used the wrong kind of pastry recipe for it. the meat tasted superb but the pastry was fucked.

tried fettucine pasta from scratch a couple of times. i get the dough correct but i can't quite get it thin enough with a rolling stick. if i had a passing machine i could.

VERY low heat
Cut your onions in half then into pieces lengthwise, so you have slivers
Olive oil in the pan, not butter
Throw in the onions and turn to coat
Cook stirring CONSTANTLY. The key is patience, should take about 30 minutes

Yes, pork shoulder should be covered for most of the cooking time, you can uncover to try to get a bit of bark on it in the stage of cooking. I have never had a pork shoulder in the oven for less than 5 hours either.

french baguette

i use exact same ingredients and process every time and get completely different results every time

Roast Chicken

How do you get it so tender you that teeth are optional? I buy small high quality roasting chickens, brine them in saltwater for a few hours, and every time they come out with great flavor, but it's not fall off the bone. I use a thermometer and pull it when the thigh hits 160. What am I doing wrong?

Either low heat or parboil before roasting.

>so I crank up the heat a little
Well, I found your problem. Good caramelized onions can take hours.

bearnaise sauce

I don't fail every time tho, it's probably around 50/50

Problem is I try to make it when we're having a dinner party and there's usually 6+ people

is it just not possible to make bearnaise for a large crowd? I made it the other day and shit actually split at one point but I managed to save it

the sauce is god tier tho so I'll continue my endeavour

have you tried brining your chicken and slow cooking it? When you're about to eat crank up the heat to crisp up the skin and let just it rest for a bit

southern white guy reporting in. It's pretty easy really.

what trouble are you having specifically?

You've only tricked yourself into thinking you know, real falafel is genetic, it has to be made by an old, brown fat guy

I've actually come across a great work around for this. Put onions with a little salt and olive oil in a dutch oven and sit in a 400F oven with lid on. Check every 30 minutes or so to stir a little. I've let it go almost an hour without checking and it hadn't burnt. I'll take 5 big onions and shrink them down to a little over a cup. Takes about 3 hours.

Orange flan
Like half of it always comes out delicious and perfect, then the other half is always just goo
I even bought a special pan to make it in after a the retro technique didn't work, still didn't help

Hash browns, I can never manage to make them like they do in restaurants; evenly cooked, crispy but not "flat" or dry and with decent thickness

afraid I'm stealing your culture Achmed?

I ain't no sand nigger, just making my observations.

I have never been able to make okonomiyaki, but I have also never actually had an authentic one because it's impossible to find in my flyover hellhole

Nice, crispy chicken in a kung pao (americanized) stir-fry. All the flavor is there, but while the chicken is moist, it lacks that sharp sauce-infused crust. I'm 99% sure this is due to lack of heat in the wok. I'm just using an open range stovetop, which lacks the heat for proper sichuan stir-fry.

When I buy a proper wok burner I will report back, but even through the flavor is outstanding, I can't seem to get that light crispy coating on the chicken like the hole-in-the-wall shops in Chengdu did for their chicken dishes.

I've noticed this, too.
Even old brown guys who are skinny fuck it up somehow.

What secrets does the fat hold?

Been chasing after the white whale of decent batter-based corn tortillas for a while now. I tend to just end up with shitty crumbly cornbread that I can't even flip without it disintegrating.
Saw a recipe the other day that uses buckwheat flour that I'll probably try. Need to buy more Masa tho

You could be using too much sauce

i can't make hashbrowns to save my life. i shred the potatoes, soak them, dry them, and then fry them but they always come out too oily and not cooked all the way through, if I cook them long enough they burn and if I lower the heat they're not crispy. i just can't make hashbrowns.

Try cast iron, thin layers, and salting the hash before cooking to let that draw more moisture out

im a decent cook but i honestly always fuck up pancakes

Fair analysis. But I refuse to add sauce until the chicken is cooked. There is just some magical means to ensure the chicken cuts are crispy, and I'm guessing that "magic" is 400F oil temp.

Yeah, I'm not that user. But sweating your tater matchsticks and draining prior to the fry might make that salting worth while.

Muffins

They always come out too dense, or there's too much of a flour taste. I can't do it

Butterfly your chicken, get a roasting bag, and roast it at 220C for ~35-40 minutes.

In the meantime, parboil some celery, and potato, fry it for about ~5 minutes with some shallot, and then put it in the roasting tray with the chicken.

When the 40 minutes elapses, cut open the chicken bag and remove it, letting all the juices flow onto the veges, and put it back in at 180 for the next 15-20 minutes.

You'll get better results with a brined chicken.

>cooking pork shoulder for only an hour and 20 minutes
What did you expect, you fucking idiot?

key lime pie/lemon pie. they just never set

can never get the meat/lettuce/mayo ratio right in my mcchickens

so you gave up on getting better. nice to know

if you really wanna experiement you can use a chimney starter and put the wok on top of that

But that's even more effort than picking up a couple extra shifts at work and buying a proper wok burner.

Re: hand rolling pasta:

Heavily flour the sheet of rolled pasta and fold it on itself and roll again. Unfold it and roll the crease out. Repeat rolling layers of 2, 4, 8, even 16 as necessary. Just flour a lot and unfold, remove crease each time so your dough doesn't get all tenty.

chillies and tendons is my achilles tendon dish. never get the amount of chillies right and I always undercook the tendons.

What's so difficult about a spanish tortilla? I made it for the first time last week and it turned out fine without too many issues. Is your egg/potato ratio off? Not enough oil? Trying to flip instead of using the oven?

Fried rice.

>spanish tortilla
its called a spanish omelette

Looks like a tortilla to me, unless you refuse to call a tortilla with ingredients other than eggs, potatoes and onions a tortilla. I guess that makes sense, considering we're on the melt chicken board.

What happens with your sauce? It starts to split?
If so, then you either haven't whisked enough, or you gave it too much heat, too fast.
Just add a few spoons of cold water while whisking like a madman and you'll be able to save in a minute or so.
I can whisk up a sauce from scratch in 20 minutes now in a single pot.

Oh, and take the pot off the heat while you whisk after it has split, obviously.

And I forgot to ask just how much butter do you use?
The most I've made sauce for in one batch is eight people, and that was about 500g. No problems there.

Can't make pancakes or fried eggs.

I can do a fair amount of "advanced" dishes but I always fuck these up. Though it's possible it's because my pans are shit.

Poached eggs. They can go fuck themselves. I'm using a mould exclusively now.

A spanish omelette only has those three ingredients except for extra virgin olive oil and a touch of good salt. If it has other ingredients I don't think it can be called a spanish omelette.

...

you can get a machine real cheap and you will not regret it

Try it this way :)
youtube.com/watch?v=JceGMNG7rpU

I can't for the fucking life of me make a decent mac'n'cheese

Just follow the instructions on the box

Anything breaded and deep fried. I never get a good coat.

are you ready? here is how you do this

julienne onions .25 in, into an almost dry pan, just a scant amount of oil. basically none. blast the heat all the way.
stir constantly, when the onions start to brown on the bottom of the pan, like a fond, add a splash of water, stirring to deglaze completely and coat the onions in the liquid.
repeat. til you're satisfied with the color they've taken on.
IMPORTANT do not season with salt til the end, otherwise the salt will pull out the moisture and the pan will be a mess and you will make sad soubise

Mayonaise
;_;

maybe in bongistan but in spain its a tortilla de patata

I probably have to say okonomiyaki as well.

how the fuck do you fuck up putting 4-5 ingredients in a bowl and then mixing them together?

it can split you know

Southern Peach Cobbler.

This "batter at the bottom" shit is beyond me.

Best cobbler crust is the simplest one. One cup sugar one cup flour one egg.

I've seen mild peppers and dry chorizo in spain, it's usually along side a plain one

Bump

For me it's the McChicken. The best fast food sandwich.

Mussels, oysters
They're just too much of a pain in the ass to clean and prepare and I get impatient. Also they always seem to cook inconsistantly.

Any kind of braised meat. I can boil meat, I can roast meat, I can fry meat but for some reason even a simple slow-cooker method ends up with stringy, tough, unappealing slop.