Culinary disasters

[longers]

My biggest culinary disaster was cooking gammon on a grill pan that hadn't been washed since we cooked swordfish 3 days previously (in summer). Luckily it was only for myself and nobody else got the violent food poisoning . 3 days off work .

My worst recipe ever attempted was spaghetti with chocolate sauce - totally inedible.

My friends worst disaster? Cooking snails at 2 in the morning. A good idea at the time but our constitutions did not agree.

My ex-mil (a great cook -I miss her ) used to be forgetfull about labelling pies she'd made for the freezer and apparently there was a couple of occasions when mince pie was served with custard and apricot pie with peas and carrots .

 

[gbb]

As a kid, i used to love (i assume pigs) hearts cooked by mum.....mmmmmm

Not had them for decades So, i'll try myself.

Seem to remember they used to be wrapped in foil and baked...easy

Chriiiiiiist...they were virtually inedible. You coulda soled shoes with them

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Actually, now I think about it I seem to remember once making stilton on toast. I had to get the stilton out of the freezer. Then I microwaved it, used the solid bits on my toast and put all the liquid stilton back in the fridge "for later". Biiiiig mistake, thank christ it was only me eating it.

 

[bonj2]

I was once describing a cake I made to my mum, and I said I tried to make it soft and squidgy but it hadn't worked brilliantly.
She said "well what did you put in it?"
"Well - suet, of course."


Recently made a shepherd's pie and didn't have a potato masher so used the blender and had to put more milk in it and the mash was FAR too liquidous, more like a runny paste, almost able to pour it.

 

[Elmer Fudd]

Actually, now I think about it I seem to remember once making stilton on toast. I had to get the stilton out of the freezer. Then I microwaved it, used the solid bits on my toast and put all the liquid stilton back in the fridge "for later". Biiiiig mistake, thank christ it was only me eating it.

Stilton ? In a freezer ????

 

[Pete]

Recently made a shepherd's pie and didn't have a potato masher so used the blender and had to put more milk in it and the mash was FAR too liquidous, more like a runny paste, almost able to pour it.

That reminds me of something. My wife makes a pretty delectable fish pie - mashed potato on top, flaked salmon or white fish plus prawns in a creamy sauce underneath, baked in the oven. Mmmmmmmm!!!

So, some years ago, when my wife was in hospital, decided to try it for myself and the lad. Only - it ended up with the mashed potato at the bottom, and the fish at the top...

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Stilton ? In a freezer ????

It was before I knew any better.

 

[Fnaar]

That reminds me of something. My wife makes a pretty delectable fish pie - mashed potato on top, flaked salmon or white fish plus prawns in a creamy sauce underneath, baked in the oven. Mmmmmmmm!!!

So, some years ago, when my wife was in hospital, decided to try it for myself and the lad. Only - it ended up with the mashed potato at the bottom, and the fish at the top...

Heh heh...I'm actually not a bad cook at all, but the occasional lack of attention to detail has resulted in disaster...I did Shepherd's Pie much as you describe, with spuds sinking to bottom! It now revels in the name of "Comedy Pie" and I have been asked to replicate it!

 

[Arch]

Funny, some friends and I recently dicussed writing a "What NOT to cook" book. Not stuff that's gone wrong, but stuff that should never have been tried in the first place. My suspervisor contributed Pilchard Pilaf, and spaghetti in chocolate sauce was also mentioned, as was anything that shouldn't be, dyed blue - too wierd for anyone to get past the colour and even consider the taste...

I once made a dessert I saw done on Blue Peter, but I only wrote down the ingredients, not the method, thinking I'd remember it. It was a sort of fruit fool with a biscuit crumb topping. I got mixed up and put the biscuit crumb underneath, thinking it was like cheescake - but it didn't have the butter holding it together and waterproofing it and so went soggy. It tasted nice, but looked like gloop. My sister, about 8 at the time, asked for seconds of "The crumb sludge".

 

[Arch]

Heh heh...I'm actually not a bad cook at all, but the occasional lack of attention to detail has resulted in disaster...I did Shepherd's Pie much as you describe, with spuds sinking to bottom! It now revels in the name of "Comedy Pie" and I have been asked to replicate it!

We actually had a recipe for that dish! Not so much the mash at the bottom, but served in a ring and the mince mix served in the middle. We called it Smash Nest. Quicker than shepherds pie as you don't bother with the whole pudding it in the oven and baking the top bit. Mmmmmm. Smash Nest...

 

[radger]

I can think of few disasters that were inedible. There was a curry I made whilst a student - i tried the curry paste out of the jar and it seemed stupidly mild, so I added about half the jar. Even the vindaloo-scoffing lads in my flat couldn't eat it.
I tried making falafel a few years ago, and didn't have the oil hot enough, so all the mixture disintegrated and stuck to the pan.
Recently I was trying to make a split pea soup with some peas from the cupboard which may have been about 5 years old. Even after overnight soaking and 2 hours on the stove they weren't at all soft, so i threw them in the blender in the hope that would help. The result was some gritty sludge in the bottom of a saucepan with a layer of stock on the top. We ended up having cheese on toast that evening.

Oh, and I am not allowed to take pizzas out of the oven because I always drop them upside-down onto my foot.

 

[Paulus]

I am a pretty good cook these days, but when i got married I was a wizard with a pound of mince, or pork sausages. One particular day I was going to do a cauliflower cheese. But, instead of looking up how to make a cheese sauce I just slowly melted a pound of mature cheddar in a pan. Mrs P fell about laughing as I showed her the mess that was the by now a solid lump of melted goo. These days a roux sauce is easy.

 

[Arch]

I'm usually pretty good at just winging it, or replicating old standards time after time. In fact my best friend and I once wrote a cookbook for a mate (who may be seeing this... Hello!) when he went to live abroad. Tom wrote most of it, in a slightly flamboyant style, very much "just toss in a bit of this and a bit of that and plenty of red wine", which was his very successful style of cooking, and I added stern little footnotes about measuring properly and doing the washing up straightaway. Although I did also contibute a ridiculously lyrical passage on how to make a bechamel sauce...

My Godmother has a rather eclectic style of cooking. Sardines on pizza anyone? And you're never sure what's gone into her crumble mix - oats, cornflakes, nuts, old toast crumbs, you name it... Somehow, it's nearly all great, although she's not one for fancy styling on the plate, so you gets your portions in dollops. But I wouldn't reccomend her Aduki bean soup. The living embodiment of that old joke:

What's this?

It's bean soup.

I don't care what it's been, I want to know what it is now...

 

[Kirstie]

I just remembered another - if you 've got the Green and Blacks chocolate recipe book then there's one in there that you should avoid. There's a chocolate stuffed chilli recipe. You deseed and blanch whole chillis, and then soak them in vodka (sounds good so far). Then you melt some chocolate, and add vodka to the chocolate so it goes a little thicker. You stuff the chillis with the chocolate/vodka mixture, dip them in more chocolate, chill them, and then sprinkle with icing sugar to taste. Sounds nice, eh?

Nothing, but nothing could have prepared us for the horror of eating one of these delicacies. It all depends on what kind of chilli you buy. The skins on the ones we bought were as tough as old boots and the flesh tasted really bitter. No amount of sugar could redeem them. We were nearly crying at the bitterness, which was coupled with the bitterness of the chocolate and the burn of the vodka. They were inedible. Truly unpleasant.

 

[Tetedelacourse]

There's not that many horror stories here considering we're at page 3. My own contribution:

1. Obviously the rat-piss asparagus risotto of Tuesday night.

2. At uni, me and a pal tried to make mince out of tinned burgers and tinned carrots. Wretch.

3. again at uni, no money so cooked what we had left in the cupboard, all in one pot: pudding rice, tuna and brussels sprouts. We didn't know the difference between pudding rice and normal rice. Vomit was produced at the smell. It never got anywhere near our lips.

4. not a meal in itself but I once burnt sweetcorn (off the cob). Put it on to boil and forgot about it. Pot killed.