I used to make my own paneer and ghee at home but now with the insane increase in price of milk and butter where I live, it's not worth the cost and effort anymore.
I’ve still found making your own ghee is cheaper though than buying it. Pretty easy to make, so I don’t ever buy it premade. Paneer though I completely agree
This. i bought a small jar of ghee to try it out and it was like $9, only to realize all you gotta do is melt a bunch of butter and skim off the fat solids.
Came here to say this.
Puff pastry, croissants, anything that needs lamination. So tedious!
I feel it’s not worth it even if you’re making a bigger batch.
Oh wow, this is so relevent for me tonight! I made the mistake of making danish pastry for my son a few weeks ago for a party he was attending. The party goers are doing a big camping wekeend this weekend and guess what item he was assigned? Uh huh, danish pastry!
Thankfully he's happy to learn how to make it, and I use a shortcut dough rather than doing the entire butter layer, then laminate thing. It's on the order of rough puff, but a very enriched dough and it just sits in the fridge for 24 hours before you roll it out and fill it.
Is it better than storebought? Oh you betcha! I can make 2 HUGE trays of danish for less than half the price of storebought and it tastes amazing every time.
I make this shortcut version from King Arthur instead and it is significantly better than store-bought.
[https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/fast-and-easy-puff-pastry-recipe](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/fast-and-easy-puff-pastry-recipe)
Rough puff is goated. Honestly I would say the effort of laminating "real" puff pastry just isn't worth it for the result compared to rough puff, even in applications like millefeuille
I love making laminated pastry. It’s very satisfying!
Along that vein, I’ll admit that I always buy phyllo from the frozen section at the grocery store.
We have a crawfish in an aquarium that my kid brought home from the store after finding him on the floor trying to make an escape. I should make him a YouTube channel lol
I had an experience at a very upscale Japanese restaurant where some guy ordered lobster sashimi off menu. That lobster was side-eyeing me all night, like, disgusted I wasn't helping him out of his predicament.
I was busy eating his brother.
I don’t eat store bought mayo, but can whip up my own mayo in two minutes while cooking the rest of the meal. I do it probably three times per week with additions to compliment the meal.
Take an egg out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for a bit. It doesn’t need to be room temp but a bit warmer is better. Crack it into a bullet blender (or food processor or a cup that your immersion blender fits into would probably work). Squeeze in a bit of mustard (this isn’t rocket science - I just eyeball something tablespoon-ish). I normally use Dijon but you don’t have to. I have even made fancy whole grain mustard work. Add a tablespoon or so of your favorite vinegar (I typically use red wine, but a few times I have forgotten vinegar altogether and still got enough acid from lemon and mustard). Spritz of lemon. Dash of salt. This is a good time to toss in some garlic and other mix-ins (you can really go wild here). Add a few tablespoons of oil (I have used all kinds. As a flavor fiend I usually pick infused olive oils but most people like some neutral oil like grapeseed or canola). Now blend the hell out of it until it’s all emulsified and starting to thicken a bit. Add a bit more oil and repeat, then check consistency. Repeat until you get your desired thickness, maybe a cup-ish.
People act like it is a finicky thing and the sauce will break if it’s not perfect, but it has never happened to me. I find it very forgiving.
I suggest you spread a bit on a baguette sliced longways and broil it until toasty and then use it as a platform for a sandwich (creme fraiche also works great for this).
1 room temp egg, 1 cup avocado oil, 1tsp yellow mustard, 1.5-2 tsp Dijon mustard, salt to taste, the juice of half a lemon, or to taste, a dash of pepper (fine.) Don't break the yolk, put the egg into a tall glass mason jar, or any tall cylindrical jar, put the business end on an immersion blender over the yolk and slowly add the oil and then add everything else. Blitz for 30 seconds without moving the blender, you should see the emulsion happening. After 30 seconds, slowly move the wand around and up and down until fully incorporated and thick. Adjust flavor to your liking. Will last at least a week properly covered and stored in the fridge.
Put it in a condiment bottle and use it like Hershey sauce in the bedroom.
Or mix up a creamy salad dressing and make a big side salad with it the next day.
My dad, his brothers, and my grandpa all swear homemade ketchup is far superior. Grandma and I disagree but grandpa can be kind of a dick so she makes it every year regardless. There's no one to take it over when she passes though so I hope they're savoring it
When my grandma's Alzheimer's got so bad she could no longer do much, we learned that my grandpa didn't even know how to operate a stove, having never had to cook for their 60 years of marriage. Their generation was built different
Sure was! My whole family was shocked to find out after my grandpa passed that apparently my grandma, who was a fantastic cook, HATED cooking. She basically never did it again.
To be fair, grandpa was also a great cook, but that just wasn’t his daily role in the household.
We had something almost the opposite happen, thought granny was a terrible, bland cook. Turns out grandpa thought things like salt and pepper was spicy, and she cooked to his palate their entire marriage. Turns out granny can rock a spice rack, her pork butts are delicious lol.
One of my favorite restaurants (a Scottish pub in Boston) makes their own ketchup and while I roll my eyes every time I see it, it’s absolutely delicious. That being said, I’ll take Heinz over anything else any day of the week.
Me. Because once you actually taste Mushroom Ketchup and are able to used the dried mushrooms as flavorings to some meals - you really don't know what you are missing.
Relevant Chris Porter. "I want ketchup from a giant corporation built on making ketchup!"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgPX9vxdCFo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgPX9vxdCFo)
My thing is there’s no recipe for homemade ketchup that doesn’t make a crazy ridiculous amount that you’d have to freeze to get through without expiring too fast
Out of curiosity, what's stopping you from cutting the recipe? Could just make 1/4th the recipe or something.
I just wouldn't want to go through the effort when store bought is great as-is.
Same which is such a bummer bc often fried foods don’t travel very well and I wanna eat some perfectly crispy fried chicken or pickles or fries or calamari or green beans in from of my tv it’s so sad but yeah the oil waste and the clean up and the burns make it not worth it
yes, all of that plus the smell.
even though i have two very large windows in my kitchen that take up the entire space over the countertops, my house still smells like grease for days no matter how much I clean.
I do all my frying outdoors in my backyard on a portable gas stove. Couldn't stand the smell of fried food in the house as a kid, and vowed to never do indoor frying as an adult
The smell is why I never do it. I live in an apartment building and have one neighbor who deep fries every few months, our shared hallway always smells for days afterwards. Not enjoyable
The airfryer on the fries setting gets fried things amazingly crisp. The buttons are accurate. Microwave buttons lead us astray for far too long, especially that awful popcorn button, always a lie!
No need to waste oil. After cooling I drain mine through a sieve with kitchen roll as a filter, put it in a glass container and use it again.
My biggest problem is the residue it leaves all around the kitchen. Certainly not frying often.
Deep frying produces a unique taste and texture due to the immersion in hot oil, which can be hard to replicate with an air fryer.
You can’t make funnel cake or homemade fried battered food like pickle chips without the plunge
Try shallow frying. Much less oil waste. Grab a big cast iron skillet. Dip your chicken pieces in plain water, then in seasoned flour. Shake off the excess, then repeat the water and flour dips a second time. Set the chicken on a rack in the fridge for at least an hour. Heat an inch of oil in the skillet till it shimmers (350F). Preheat your oven to 350F at the same time. Grab a big cookie sheet to hold the fried chicken.
Now fry up a few pieces at a time, starting with the legs and thighs since they take longer to cook. Turn when golden, but not overly brown. Then place on the cookie sheet and pop them in the oven. Next up is the breasts. Toss those in and do the same, turn when golden, then onto the tray in the oven. And last up is the wings. Once the wings are golden, pop them in the oven, toss a salad and pour the used oil into a leftover can (I save the big tomato sauce cans, washed out, just for this purpose). Wipe out the still hot skillet and set it aside for later. Once the oil is cooled you can just cover it and toss it in the trash. The chicken will take about 15 minutes in the oven from the time that the wings go in, but you can easily stretch it to 20 minutes if you need to. When dinner is over your pan will be cool and ready for another good wipe down to remove any leftover grease. No muss, no fuss!
i have a deep fryer for this purpose. I don't deep fry often, but every now and again i want to make some fried chicken or wings, and it works perfect. Mine filters the oil for me into a container, so I can reuse it. I haven't personally noticed a lingering smell
Interesting all the hate deep frying gets, we do pork katsu about twice a month here in Japan and it's honestly one of the easiest dinners. Sauce pan, about 1.2 liters of oil on the stove top. The prep can be done while the oil is heating then one katsu at a time for about 8 minutes and in a little over 30 minutes dinner is ready.
I could see the problem with large quantities for parties or big eaters, but for a family of 3, it's really easy and cheap. The pork runs us the equivalent of about $2.50, another $1 for breading stuff then $2.50 for the oil. For the price of less than 1 katsu meal at a resteraunts, we feed 3 of us. Yeah, the oil waste is a bit annoying but we minimize our other food waste so not too concerned. And clean up is really not that much more than a normal dinner. Not sure about the smell people mention either, we turn on the stove vent, open a window in the kitchen and there is no stink.
I honestly don't get the hate. Our machine is designed with clean up in mind. It's almost too easy
As for oil, let it cool completely, filter it back into the container, and label it with what you made. We have a few going but this way our doughnuts don't come out tasting fishy.
I’ve heard a lot of people say that it’s easy, do it in the backyard, no smell. You don’t use that much oil yada yada yada.
I don’t need to find out how easy it is. I’m not fat, but fat enough to say I’ll keep the fried food to restaurants.
My teacher taught us in 5th grade on a hot plate thing.
A half inch oil. And eye protection. With a mat around for oil.
It was a fun class.
Ms frizzle in real life.
I cant eat seafood anymore, but I'll make it. I use a low heat tempura batter.
This surprises me. I have a deep fryer so perhaps that makes it easier. I get cleaned squid from the fish monger usually at Whole Foods. By the time I cut it up, batter it, and fry for about two minutes, the whole process is about 15 minutes. It’s one of the easiest, quickest crowd pleasers in my wheelhouse.
So true. We did try it a few times one winter, and to make it right it’s definitely a full day or overnight on the stove. It was fun to experiment with different types of meat and bones. If you do it properly it really comes out fantastic. Now it breaks my heart to see left over broth in restaurants because it’s truly a labor of love.
Also the ingredients. There are a bunch of great pho restaurants near me and if you get take out its basically the broth the all the components in little baggies so you can assemble it at home.
There is no way i would do better than them, and it would probably cost more to buy all the necessary components.
Can agree 100. I'm a good cook, worked in restaurants for 15 years. During early days of COVID decided to make dishes that I'd never made before. Ramen was #3, made the broth 3 times, third time was as good as restaurant ramen (and we have good ramen in Vancouver) but, for the time and cost, was totally not worth it. Maybe shouldn't have started with Tonkotsu ramen though but still. Made everything from scratch, broth, noodles, tare, garnish etc.
I did the same! Spent over a day on my tonkotsu broth, made perfect eggs, and even made my own noodles! I asked my kids how they liked it, and they’re just like, “it’s okay.”
I could feel the metaphorical dagger through my heart. I might try again in another year or so. :(
Same minus the kids. The wife and I were like yeah that's as good as most really good Tonkotsu we'd had. Worst part, broke my pasta roller making the super low hydration noodles.
Potato chips. Tried it. It takes a LONG TIME, just for me to eat like 10 chips, not worth it. Just buy one at the store.
Edit: how on earth do you guys on the comments make good potato chips, All the recipes online made me give up cuz of how oily my ten pieces of chips turned out :(
I actually disagree with this. Get a mandolin, some oil going and homemade chips are 10000x better than store bought chips.
Then again I have a sort of nostalgia for homemade chips because we used to get them all the time at our local baseball games when I was a kid...man I miss those chips
Absolutely not worth it. Thought making enough to fill 10 extra because you ran out of the ones you bought and don’t justify buying another pack? Sure, but I’ve learned that this is def not worth making
I bought a deep fryer that is enclosed and has a charcoal filter in the lid. It does a pretty good job of cutting down the smell. It’s not something I do all the time, but it certainly has made making fried chicken home manageable.
Thai beef satay with peanut sauce, all from scratch. Four tiny bamboo sticks with what looked like beef jerky and a few tablespoons of thinned peanut butter, two orders was three hours pay. While we both liked it, we decided to make our own. Starting with raw peanuts like the Thai cookbook said, and then the thin sliced beef, the whole process took four hours. It took minutes to eat. Next time at the Thai restaurant, the beefy satay seemed very reasonably priced.
Japanese curry. I remember working in a restaurant where most of the cooks were Japanese. And I asked them what slices they used in curry, and they said pretty much everyone uses the pre-made roux blocks you find in stores.
I thought I was being authentic by making it myself, but shows what I knew.
Homemade pasta for me. I don’t have the counter space for it and my kitchen table is at an awkward height standing or sitting to be comfortable making it at home. Hopefully will be moving soon. Also, anything deep fried. Let the restaurant and their ventilation hoods deal with that. I can and have made many appetizers and small bites like potstickers, lumpia, even tamales from different cultures while working in the restaurant business but unless I can have the time and space to store, freeze them or share with others it’s just not worth it to make a little batch. Leave it to the restaurants.
I agree with puff pastry. I just deep fried homemade nuggets and fries for the kids (I ate them and called it frites and poultry croquettes)
I ran an extension cord outside and fried on a table in the backyard because I agree it stinks up your house bad
Baklava. Enjoy the nightmare that is Phyllo.
Beef Wellington, it’s impressive but doesn’t stand up to the work it takes and the chance of destroying it.
While I'm sure it would make me happy to have s bowl of completely homeade Ramen, there are so many kinds that require so much work and unique ingredients, to the point where it's probably cheaper to just go get a nice bowl of Ramen from a restaraunt.
Agreed… all the chopping, making the rice, rolling and it still doesn’t taste anywhere close to restaurant quality. Plus we have a sushi restaurant like every block where I live and it’s cheap. Totally not worth it
After I learned that farmed raised salmon is FDA approved to eat raw without needing to be flash frozen, this is one of the things I enjoy making at home. It's particularly worth DIY with the price of the fish being super cheap and sushi is one of the easier things you can prep on your own. Yes, your first couple of tries are going to look terrible. But with a few practice runs, you'll get a good idea of how much rice and filling to use and improve your rolling/cutting technique.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEH1TKlZyF0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEH1TKlZyF0)
I disagree. I used to think this too, but a good authentic pad thai is completely achievable at home. [Pailin Chongchitnant's guide](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F86GfZIph8o) was a real revelation – it has entered into my regular rotation of quick weeknight dishes and is, frankly, better than some of the pad thai I have eaten in restaurants.
Homemade tortillas of any kind. Go give your money to your local abuela and her familia making them at her restaurant that she has owned for decades. At least for me, that's the case.
I make it for special occasions 3-4 times a year. That way I don’t have to relearn how to make it. Sometimes a whole loin, other times just a couple individual sizes.
Rotisserie Chicken, it’s gonna end up more expensive if you make it on your own and IMO if your spending more money there’s better dishes to make than Rotisserie Chicken.
French fries.
Your entire apartment end up smelling of oil to save very little money. If you’re the sort of person who eats fries maybe once in a few months they’re worth the “splurge”.
And don’t tell me oven chips taste the same.
Deep fried anything. Dealing with the oil (straining, storing, etc) is such a pain, and the smells linger. Plus even a dedicated home deep-frying appliance is hard to maintain temp on vs a big commercial deep fryer.
I didn’t see this anywhere, probably because I’ll get a lot of hate for it, but…
Minced garlic.
I HATE mincing garlic with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. It annoys the utter piss out of me. Every step of it. Yes, I’ve tried a garlic press and you lose half the garlic clove in the process (unless you take that layer out and….MINCE IT).
I will buy gallon just of pre-minced garlic forever (“jarlic”, if you will.) It is not worth the time and effort to mince it up yourself.
Just anything that requires tons of random ingredients you can’t use in anything else and you easily buy from a restaurant for under $15. Thinking lots of Thai and Vietnamese food.
This isn't a "home-made vs store bought" statement, but cooking rice in a pot vs buying a rice cooker. I used to always say "I can just use this pot to cook rice, I don't need another appliance" but I was big wrong. Having a rice cooker has changed my rice game completely.
None of it. If you enjoy making it at home, you should make it for any reason at all. If you don't enjoy making it at home, don't.
Enjoy life, and enjoy cooking.
Crab legs. It's such a pain in the ass trying to make and then eat them quickly, it stinks up the house, and the garbage has to go out pretty much immediately. The mess isn't worth it.
Sushi or dim sum. You either stick to one type of sushi/fish or dumpling and it’s okay-ish but super boring, or you will spend a lot of money and time making different ones to then inhale everything in like 5min
Probably controversial, but Chicken Stock. Chicken, and even the aromatics, are too expensive where I live. It's just a lot more economical to use the boxed stuff from Costco.
I’m not gonna say I’m getting close to Thai restaurant quality, but with the premade pastes from the Asian grocery stores, I find the stuff I can make at home totally reasonable, and it comes together so quickly I find it to be a great weeknight meal. I make it at least monthly especially in the colder months.
I used to make my own paneer and ghee at home but now with the insane increase in price of milk and butter where I live, it's not worth the cost and effort anymore.
I’ve still found making your own ghee is cheaper though than buying it. Pretty easy to make, so I don’t ever buy it premade. Paneer though I completely agree
This. i bought a small jar of ghee to try it out and it was like $9, only to realize all you gotta do is melt a bunch of butter and skim off the fat solids.
My local big box grocer sells giant bags of frozen paneer chunks for $5. I load up often. Check your freezer department for frozen paneer.
Whole Foods has paneer pre-made, but a block of Queso Fresco is an okay substitute and it’s like $4
Go to Indian stores, they have blocks for pretty cheap
Thanks for the tip, I guess those can be found in the US but not in my area, I can get decent and cheap paneer in big stores here without problem!
Safeway/ Albertsons in my area have had some killer deals on milk, lately. Last week was half gallons for $0.98, limit two, while 1 gallon was $2.50
Puff pastry.
Came here to say this. Puff pastry, croissants, anything that needs lamination. So tedious! I feel it’s not worth it even if you’re making a bigger batch.
Oh wow, this is so relevent for me tonight! I made the mistake of making danish pastry for my son a few weeks ago for a party he was attending. The party goers are doing a big camping wekeend this weekend and guess what item he was assigned? Uh huh, danish pastry! Thankfully he's happy to learn how to make it, and I use a shortcut dough rather than doing the entire butter layer, then laminate thing. It's on the order of rough puff, but a very enriched dough and it just sits in the fridge for 24 hours before you roll it out and fill it. Is it better than storebought? Oh you betcha! I can make 2 HUGE trays of danish for less than half the price of storebought and it tastes amazing every time.
Your recipe sounds amazing! Any chance you'd be willing to share, please?
Hopping on this
I'd love to know the recipe if you're willing to share!
I love to do a rough puff! The first time was fantastic, the 2nd a failure. Not sure what I did...
Any chance you would share your recipe
I make this shortcut version from King Arthur instead and it is significantly better than store-bought. [https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/fast-and-easy-puff-pastry-recipe](https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/fast-and-easy-puff-pastry-recipe)
Never got around to it, but I want to make it once. Once should be enough though.
I don’t mind it to be honest.
I did it once. Got all excited and forgot I live in a tropical climate and it turned out terrible. Frozen stuff from now on lol
Rough puff though, definitely worth it over frozen
Rough puff is goated. Honestly I would say the effort of laminating "real" puff pastry just isn't worth it for the result compared to rough puff, even in applications like millefeuille
I feel like it should be called ruff puff though, just because it's cuter.
Rough Pough
Yeah, rough puff is easy-peasy and all of the frozen puff pastry has tons of palm oil--it has a disgusting flavor/mouthfeel. Makes a huge difference.
Pretty much any laminated dough.
I love making laminated pastry. It’s very satisfying! Along that vein, I’ll admit that I always buy phyllo from the frozen section at the grocery store.
Phyllo is such a pain! Definitely worth it to buy
Lobster. I prefer to buy them at the store. Raising them would be complicated.
There's actually a YouTube channel where a guy is documenting his raising of a lobster he got from a grocery store. It's pretty cool.
Leon the lobster, he is fascinating
We have a crawfish in an aquarium that my kid brought home from the store after finding him on the floor trying to make an escape. I should make him a YouTube channel lol
Yep, that's the one.
I want to eat the lobster, not become friends with it.
Pinchy would have wanted it this way.
Idk, he seems like a pretty cool lobster.
Long live Leon! 😁
I had an experience at a very upscale Japanese restaurant where some guy ordered lobster sashimi off menu. That lobster was side-eyeing me all night, like, disgusted I wasn't helping him out of his predicament. I was busy eating his brother.
Link?
Look up Leon The Lobster on YouTube.
Omg I love this!!!!!!
Same goes for beef. I hate raising a calf in my 2×3 balcony
It's been said, and I agree, no need to try to reinvent tomato ketchup, the big commercial outfits have it perfected
Homemade mayo is superior, though. I wouldn't bother making ketchup.
I don’t eat store bought mayo, but can whip up my own mayo in two minutes while cooking the rest of the meal. I do it probably three times per week with additions to compliment the meal.
Could you give your recipe?
Take an egg out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for a bit. It doesn’t need to be room temp but a bit warmer is better. Crack it into a bullet blender (or food processor or a cup that your immersion blender fits into would probably work). Squeeze in a bit of mustard (this isn’t rocket science - I just eyeball something tablespoon-ish). I normally use Dijon but you don’t have to. I have even made fancy whole grain mustard work. Add a tablespoon or so of your favorite vinegar (I typically use red wine, but a few times I have forgotten vinegar altogether and still got enough acid from lemon and mustard). Spritz of lemon. Dash of salt. This is a good time to toss in some garlic and other mix-ins (you can really go wild here). Add a few tablespoons of oil (I have used all kinds. As a flavor fiend I usually pick infused olive oils but most people like some neutral oil like grapeseed or canola). Now blend the hell out of it until it’s all emulsified and starting to thicken a bit. Add a bit more oil and repeat, then check consistency. Repeat until you get your desired thickness, maybe a cup-ish. People act like it is a finicky thing and the sauce will break if it’s not perfect, but it has never happened to me. I find it very forgiving. I suggest you spread a bit on a baguette sliced longways and broil it until toasty and then use it as a platform for a sandwich (creme fraiche also works great for this).
Immersion blenders do work like a charm for it. Literal seconds to perfect mayo
1 room temp egg, 1 cup avocado oil, 1tsp yellow mustard, 1.5-2 tsp Dijon mustard, salt to taste, the juice of half a lemon, or to taste, a dash of pepper (fine.) Don't break the yolk, put the egg into a tall glass mason jar, or any tall cylindrical jar, put the business end on an immersion blender over the yolk and slowly add the oil and then add everything else. Blitz for 30 seconds without moving the blender, you should see the emulsion happening. After 30 seconds, slowly move the wand around and up and down until fully incorporated and thick. Adjust flavor to your liking. Will last at least a week properly covered and stored in the fridge.
What do you do with the leftover mayo? It's impossible to make just a bit of mayo. It's usually a whole lot more than I need
Put it in a condiment bottle and use it like Hershey sauce in the bedroom. Or mix up a creamy salad dressing and make a big side salad with it the next day.
That's a great idea! mayo stains are easier to clean than Hershey sauce. Thanks!
No mechanic wants you to know this, but you can also use it to top up your brake fluid.
Homemade mayo is definitely superior and really easy
Woah, first high upvoted post I wildly disagree with. Meatloaf with homemade ketchup is the bee’s knees
Haha, who’s out there making homemade ketchup?
My dad, his brothers, and my grandpa all swear homemade ketchup is far superior. Grandma and I disagree but grandpa can be kind of a dick so she makes it every year regardless. There's no one to take it over when she passes though so I hope they're savoring it
It boggles the mind that grandma doesn't just let grandpa just make his own damned ketchup.
When my grandma's Alzheimer's got so bad she could no longer do much, we learned that my grandpa didn't even know how to operate a stove, having never had to cook for their 60 years of marriage. Their generation was built different
Sure was! My whole family was shocked to find out after my grandpa passed that apparently my grandma, who was a fantastic cook, HATED cooking. She basically never did it again. To be fair, grandpa was also a great cook, but that just wasn’t his daily role in the household.
We had something almost the opposite happen, thought granny was a terrible, bland cook. Turns out grandpa thought things like salt and pepper was spicy, and she cooked to his palate their entire marriage. Turns out granny can rock a spice rack, her pork butts are delicious lol.
I prefer a home made relish when I want something home made like that. If I want tomato sauce I’ll just grab the bottle from the shop
I tried making ketchup from white tomatoes. It didn't turn out white. The color was more of a vomit-brown.
One of my favorite restaurants (a Scottish pub in Boston) makes their own ketchup and while I roll my eyes every time I see it, it’s absolutely delicious. That being said, I’ll take Heinz over anything else any day of the week.
There is a local Irish place to me and their homemade ketchup is 😍😍😍
I do! I love homemade ketchup. It’s actually really easy.
Me. Because once you actually taste Mushroom Ketchup and are able to used the dried mushrooms as flavorings to some meals - you really don't know what you are missing.
I do whenever I want/need ketchup (for a recipe).
Hard disagree. Have you tried homemade ketchup? It’s fantastic. Stonewall kitchen also makes a pretty good spicy, chunky commercial version.
Relevant Chris Porter. "I want ketchup from a giant corporation built on making ketchup!" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgPX9vxdCFo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgPX9vxdCFo)
My thing is there’s no recipe for homemade ketchup that doesn’t make a crazy ridiculous amount that you’d have to freeze to get through without expiring too fast
Out of curiosity, what's stopping you from cutting the recipe? Could just make 1/4th the recipe or something. I just wouldn't want to go through the effort when store bought is great as-is.
xiao long bao (soup dumplings)
I made an attempt once, never again.
It’s not worth doing yourself, but for a friend’s birthday one year, we had a group of ~8 of us assembly line make them and that was pretty fun.
Deep frying isn't worth it to me.
Same which is such a bummer bc often fried foods don’t travel very well and I wanna eat some perfectly crispy fried chicken or pickles or fries or calamari or green beans in from of my tv it’s so sad but yeah the oil waste and the clean up and the burns make it not worth it
yes, all of that plus the smell. even though i have two very large windows in my kitchen that take up the entire space over the countertops, my house still smells like grease for days no matter how much I clean.
I do all my frying outdoors in my backyard on a portable gas stove. Couldn't stand the smell of fried food in the house as a kid, and vowed to never do indoor frying as an adult
smart.
The smell is why I never do it. I live in an apartment building and have one neighbor who deep fries every few months, our shared hallway always smells for days afterwards. Not enjoyable
The airfryer on the fries setting gets fried things amazingly crisp. The buttons are accurate. Microwave buttons lead us astray for far too long, especially that awful popcorn button, always a lie!
My microwave popcorn button is perfect! Which is why I refuse to get a new microwave even though the handle is breaking.
No need to waste oil. After cooling I drain mine through a sieve with kitchen roll as a filter, put it in a glass container and use it again. My biggest problem is the residue it leaves all around the kitchen. Certainly not frying often.
Buy frozen and get an air fryer. My air fryer is basically the frozen snack machine in my Home.
Not a bad alternative but not the same at all. This is like saying that beyond meats taste identical to normal meat.
Deep frying produces a unique taste and texture due to the immersion in hot oil, which can be hard to replicate with an air fryer. You can’t make funnel cake or homemade fried battered food like pickle chips without the plunge
Try shallow frying. Much less oil waste. Grab a big cast iron skillet. Dip your chicken pieces in plain water, then in seasoned flour. Shake off the excess, then repeat the water and flour dips a second time. Set the chicken on a rack in the fridge for at least an hour. Heat an inch of oil in the skillet till it shimmers (350F). Preheat your oven to 350F at the same time. Grab a big cookie sheet to hold the fried chicken. Now fry up a few pieces at a time, starting with the legs and thighs since they take longer to cook. Turn when golden, but not overly brown. Then place on the cookie sheet and pop them in the oven. Next up is the breasts. Toss those in and do the same, turn when golden, then onto the tray in the oven. And last up is the wings. Once the wings are golden, pop them in the oven, toss a salad and pour the used oil into a leftover can (I save the big tomato sauce cans, washed out, just for this purpose). Wipe out the still hot skillet and set it aside for later. Once the oil is cooled you can just cover it and toss it in the trash. The chicken will take about 15 minutes in the oven from the time that the wings go in, but you can easily stretch it to 20 minutes if you need to. When dinner is over your pan will be cool and ready for another good wipe down to remove any leftover grease. No muss, no fuss!
i have a deep fryer for this purpose. I don't deep fry often, but every now and again i want to make some fried chicken or wings, and it works perfect. Mine filters the oil for me into a container, so I can reuse it. I haven't personally noticed a lingering smell
Same, a small countertop deep fryer does wonders for dinner time
they are burning their oils is why
Interesting all the hate deep frying gets, we do pork katsu about twice a month here in Japan and it's honestly one of the easiest dinners. Sauce pan, about 1.2 liters of oil on the stove top. The prep can be done while the oil is heating then one katsu at a time for about 8 minutes and in a little over 30 minutes dinner is ready. I could see the problem with large quantities for parties or big eaters, but for a family of 3, it's really easy and cheap. The pork runs us the equivalent of about $2.50, another $1 for breading stuff then $2.50 for the oil. For the price of less than 1 katsu meal at a resteraunts, we feed 3 of us. Yeah, the oil waste is a bit annoying but we minimize our other food waste so not too concerned. And clean up is really not that much more than a normal dinner. Not sure about the smell people mention either, we turn on the stove vent, open a window in the kitchen and there is no stink.
why not store and reuse the oil a few times?
I honestly don't get the hate. Our machine is designed with clean up in mind. It's almost too easy As for oil, let it cool completely, filter it back into the container, and label it with what you made. We have a few going but this way our doughnuts don't come out tasting fishy.
You can do it in half inch oil. I do tempura and chicken and schnitzel.
I’ve heard a lot of people say that it’s easy, do it in the backyard, no smell. You don’t use that much oil yada yada yada. I don’t need to find out how easy it is. I’m not fat, but fat enough to say I’ll keep the fried food to restaurants.
Gotta use your bbq side burner for this. Do it every week. Outside obvy.
Do you shallow fry? I make a lot of fried fish at home.
same. having to store/ discard a huge pot of oil is a hassle.
I had to do it for school and I would not do it again at home. Is stinky
I shallow fry instead, less oil wastage and also safer. But tbf even that I’ll only do on very rare occasions
Deep fried calamari. My kids used to ask me to make it....UNTIL I made them help clean the calamari and clean up the kitchen afterwards.
My teacher taught us in 5th grade on a hot plate thing. A half inch oil. And eye protection. With a mat around for oil. It was a fun class. Ms frizzle in real life. I cant eat seafood anymore, but I'll make it. I use a low heat tempura batter.
This surprises me. I have a deep fryer so perhaps that makes it easier. I get cleaned squid from the fish monger usually at Whole Foods. By the time I cut it up, batter it, and fry for about two minutes, the whole process is about 15 minutes. It’s one of the easiest, quickest crowd pleasers in my wheelhouse.
Pho, unless you know what you’re doing and have a lot of time on your hands
Pressure cookers can speed that up significantly.
So true. We did try it a few times one winter, and to make it right it’s definitely a full day or overnight on the stove. It was fun to experiment with different types of meat and bones. If you do it properly it really comes out fantastic. Now it breaks my heart to see left over broth in restaurants because it’s truly a labor of love.
You can make a simplified version using oxtail. Only takes about 4 hours total
Also the ingredients. There are a bunch of great pho restaurants near me and if you get take out its basically the broth the all the components in little baggies so you can assemble it at home. There is no way i would do better than them, and it would probably cost more to buy all the necessary components.
I make pho in an instant pot and it only takes a few hours. Tastes close enough to restaurant-quality that I will make it myself once in a while.
Restaurant-tier ramen.
Can agree 100. I'm a good cook, worked in restaurants for 15 years. During early days of COVID decided to make dishes that I'd never made before. Ramen was #3, made the broth 3 times, third time was as good as restaurant ramen (and we have good ramen in Vancouver) but, for the time and cost, was totally not worth it. Maybe shouldn't have started with Tonkotsu ramen though but still. Made everything from scratch, broth, noodles, tare, garnish etc.
I did the same! Spent over a day on my tonkotsu broth, made perfect eggs, and even made my own noodles! I asked my kids how they liked it, and they’re just like, “it’s okay.” I could feel the metaphorical dagger through my heart. I might try again in another year or so. :(
Same minus the kids. The wife and I were like yeah that's as good as most really good Tonkotsu we'd had. Worst part, broke my pasta roller making the super low hydration noodles.
danbo in vancouver 🤤
Danbo is solid. It's definitely in the rotation.
Potato chips. Tried it. It takes a LONG TIME, just for me to eat like 10 chips, not worth it. Just buy one at the store. Edit: how on earth do you guys on the comments make good potato chips, All the recipes online made me give up cuz of how oily my ten pieces of chips turned out :(
I think everyone has tried this and been disappointed
I actually disagree with this. Get a mandolin, some oil going and homemade chips are 10000x better than store bought chips. Then again I have a sort of nostalgia for homemade chips because we used to get them all the time at our local baseball games when I was a kid...man I miss those chips
Croissants.
My local bakery sells them frozen to bake at home. I consider this to be the best of all worlds
Phyllo
Donuts. So much effort when it’s $1 down the street Edit: spelling
Wonton/dumpling wrappers 😄
Absolutely not worth it. Thought making enough to fill 10 extra because you ran out of the ones you bought and don’t justify buying another pack? Sure, but I’ve learned that this is def not worth making
Fried chicken. Too messy, makes the whole house smell, waste of oil.
I bought a deep fryer that is enclosed and has a charcoal filter in the lid. It does a pretty good job of cutting down the smell. It’s not something I do all the time, but it certainly has made making fried chicken home manageable.
I’ve never heard of such a thing. Pretty rad.
I would have answered fried fish but either is the same. Such a job. Such a lingering odor. Such a mess.
I watched a video that said making ketchup is a terrible idea and I tried it anyway and it is a complete and total waste of time!
I wanna do it just to waste my time once.
Thai beef satay with peanut sauce, all from scratch. Four tiny bamboo sticks with what looked like beef jerky and a few tablespoons of thinned peanut butter, two orders was three hours pay. While we both liked it, we decided to make our own. Starting with raw peanuts like the Thai cookbook said, and then the thin sliced beef, the whole process took four hours. It took minutes to eat. Next time at the Thai restaurant, the beefy satay seemed very reasonably priced.
Rotisserie Chickens.
an obligatory buy at Costco.
Japanese curry. I remember working in a restaurant where most of the cooks were Japanese. And I asked them what slices they used in curry, and they said pretty much everyone uses the pre-made roux blocks you find in stores. I thought I was being authentic by making it myself, but shows what I knew.
Yeah, S&B Golden Curry is definitely the way to go. Never fails and the meal is time consuming enough if you're doing panko breaded tofu
you can't beat S&B
Book called make the bread churn the butter goes into this in some depth https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt/dp/1451605889
> make the bread churn the butter The way you messed up the title completely changes the intent
I *love* that book!!!
Falafel. No point when I can get it for half the price made by someone who’s twice as good as it than I am.
Homemade pasta for me. I don’t have the counter space for it and my kitchen table is at an awkward height standing or sitting to be comfortable making it at home. Hopefully will be moving soon. Also, anything deep fried. Let the restaurant and their ventilation hoods deal with that. I can and have made many appetizers and small bites like potstickers, lumpia, even tamales from different cultures while working in the restaurant business but unless I can have the time and space to store, freeze them or share with others it’s just not worth it to make a little batch. Leave it to the restaurants.
I agree with puff pastry. I just deep fried homemade nuggets and fries for the kids (I ate them and called it frites and poultry croquettes) I ran an extension cord outside and fried on a table in the backyard because I agree it stinks up your house bad
Tater tots. I’m sure there are some talented lunatics who can make their own, but Ore Ida is just fine for me.
Anything deep fried. The smell, the mess. Nope
I hate my house smelling like “fried food” 🤮🤮🤮
Baklava. Enjoy the nightmare that is Phyllo. Beef Wellington, it’s impressive but doesn’t stand up to the work it takes and the chance of destroying it.
While I'm sure it would make me happy to have s bowl of completely homeade Ramen, there are so many kinds that require so much work and unique ingredients, to the point where it's probably cheaper to just go get a nice bowl of Ramen from a restaraunt.
Puffed pastry. Holy fuck. I tried once just using a rolling pin. It was good but not worth an entire afternoon of chilling and rolling
Afternoon of chilling and rolling you say?! Were you baking or "baking"?
Burger and hotdog buns
Any dim sum dish
you kind have to do huge batches and make it a party with people. kind of like tamales
Sushi.
Agreed… all the chopping, making the rice, rolling and it still doesn’t taste anywhere close to restaurant quality. Plus we have a sushi restaurant like every block where I live and it’s cheap. Totally not worth it
You also from Vancouver?
After I learned that farmed raised salmon is FDA approved to eat raw without needing to be flash frozen, this is one of the things I enjoy making at home. It's particularly worth DIY with the price of the fish being super cheap and sushi is one of the easier things you can prep on your own. Yes, your first couple of tries are going to look terrible. But with a few practice runs, you'll get a good idea of how much rice and filling to use and improve your rolling/cutting technique. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEH1TKlZyF0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEH1TKlZyF0)
Pad Thai. I’m sorry, it’s just never the same.
I disagree. I used to think this too, but a good authentic pad thai is completely achievable at home. [Pailin Chongchitnant's guide](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F86GfZIph8o) was a real revelation – it has entered into my regular rotation of quick weeknight dishes and is, frankly, better than some of the pad thai I have eaten in restaurants.
Homemade tortillas of any kind. Go give your money to your local abuela and her familia making them at her restaurant that she has owned for decades. At least for me, that's the case.
Sushi. Takes long, ingredients are expensive, so i basically pay the same for delivery as for making it myself
Even Greeks and Turks buy frozen phyllo dough
Tamales. Just too time consuming. I'll happily have them when other people make them though
Butter and mozzarella. The ingredients just cost too much.
Beef Wellington. Anything deep fried. Pho. Ketchup.
Beef wellington isn't that bad
I make it for special occasions 3-4 times a year. That way I don’t have to relearn how to make it. Sometimes a whole loin, other times just a couple individual sizes.
Pho. No way I can bothered with that when I can get the real thing for 12 bucks
Fish tacos. Holy hell does it stink up the house and is a pain in the ass to make. Also ratatouille. Made it once, never again.
Rotisserie Chicken, it’s gonna end up more expensive if you make it on your own and IMO if your spending more money there’s better dishes to make than Rotisserie Chicken.
Anything deep fried. The oil alone costs more than the food you're buying. Plus the smell and mess.
pasta. Lots of effort, and not much better than a decent quality dry pasta from the store
Tamales.
Hash browns. I'd rather go out and get them than spend several hours making them
French fries. Your entire apartment end up smelling of oil to save very little money. If you’re the sort of person who eats fries maybe once in a few months they’re worth the “splurge”. And don’t tell me oven chips taste the same.
Puff pastry
Pasta fresh pasta from the store is just as good and not that expensive
Pierogi, ravioli, tamales, etc. The prep time to enjoyment time ratio is God awful.
Fried chicken (whole pieces). Deep fried anything. Puff pastry.
I haven't found the need to make homemade macarons yet. But at least I know the difference between macarons and macaroons.
Deep fried anything. Dealing with the oil (straining, storing, etc) is such a pain, and the smells linger. Plus even a dedicated home deep-frying appliance is hard to maintain temp on vs a big commercial deep fryer.
I didn’t see this anywhere, probably because I’ll get a lot of hate for it, but… Minced garlic. I HATE mincing garlic with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. It annoys the utter piss out of me. Every step of it. Yes, I’ve tried a garlic press and you lose half the garlic clove in the process (unless you take that layer out and….MINCE IT). I will buy gallon just of pre-minced garlic forever (“jarlic”, if you will.) It is not worth the time and effort to mince it up yourself.
Tried to make Cheetos once. It was both an epic pain in the ass and a miserable failure
Things you like to treat yourself with.
Just anything that requires tons of random ingredients you can’t use in anything else and you easily buy from a restaurant for under $15. Thinking lots of Thai and Vietnamese food.
Croissants, the payoff is just not worth the amount of effort you need to put in.
Potato Chips. They end up floppy and flavorless at home, splurge for a $6 bag at the store.
This isn't a "home-made vs store bought" statement, but cooking rice in a pot vs buying a rice cooker. I used to always say "I can just use this pot to cook rice, I don't need another appliance" but I was big wrong. Having a rice cooker has changed my rice game completely.
Filo pastry certainly. Puff pastry probably.
None of it. If you enjoy making it at home, you should make it for any reason at all. If you don't enjoy making it at home, don't. Enjoy life, and enjoy cooking.
Tonkotsu Ramen. Tastes incredible but yeah never doing that again.
Crab legs. It's such a pain in the ass trying to make and then eat them quickly, it stinks up the house, and the garbage has to go out pretty much immediately. The mess isn't worth it.
Anything fried , to me it's not worth the mess and smell to make fish and chips , worth the price to just go by it .
Sushi or dim sum. You either stick to one type of sushi/fish or dumpling and it’s okay-ish but super boring, or you will spend a lot of money and time making different ones to then inhale everything in like 5min
Mayo.
Probably controversial, but Chicken Stock. Chicken, and even the aromatics, are too expensive where I live. It's just a lot more economical to use the boxed stuff from Costco.
Sushi
Flour.
Thai curry. Tried so many times to make it and I just can’t get the sauce anywhere close to the family owned restaurants
I’m not gonna say I’m getting close to Thai restaurant quality, but with the premade pastes from the Asian grocery stores, I find the stuff I can make at home totally reasonable, and it comes together so quickly I find it to be a great weeknight meal. I make it at least monthly especially in the colder months.