For me, crepes ain’t worth the stress to make fresh. Just buy a little pack from store and focus on filling is my go to.
Croissants, or any other layered flaky pastry. Like, there should be a robot for this by now.
Chinese food. The common fast food type here in the US. Yeah, I can spend a bunch of time, work, and money to make orange chicken, boneless spare ribs, crab rangoon, teriyaki, coconut shrimp, and pork fried rice. Or, I can go 5 minutes up the street, and pay my favorite restaurant $20 for a big plate with all of that, with absolutely no work on my part, and it all tastes way better.
Fried chicken.
It’s soo good but not worth the hassle of dealing with all the oil.
Although, I’ve since found that air-fried, if done right, can be just as good.
Any air fryer method you would recommend?
- Fry at 360⁰F for 12 mins
- Flip them and fry again at 360⁰F for 12 mins
- Flip again and fry for 6 mins at 400⁰F
They should come out super crispy but still very juicy on the inside.The one drawback is that it takes a total of 30 mins and you can only make as much as fits in your frier. You really want to have only one layer of wings and not have them laying on top of each other. My frier is fairly small so it’s not something I can make for a whole bunch of people.
Oh man same.
Dealing with having to deep fry for a single meal is such a pain.
I got a deep fryer that goes on the countertop and has a temperature deal. The lid fits over the basket so I don’t have to get anywhere near the oil when it’s hot. When I’m done frying, there’s a temperature-sensitive mechanism to drain the oil into a box below to store it until next time (it can be reused a few times). The part that holds the oil when frying gets wiped out and tossed in the dishwasher. The only thing I really have to deal with washing is the heating element. It turns deep frying from absolutely not worth trying to deal with the mess/temperature/hot oil/cleanup to something I’m willing to do more than once a year. Don’t let your fry dreams be dreams!
Crepes? Jesus, they’re one of the easiest things you can cook. Anyway, to answer your question: croissants! I’ve made them from scratch before and it definitely wasn’t worth it. Took half a day and weren’t a patch on the real thing
Even I can make crepes lol. Have one of those small pans. Make the batter, open the butter, get cracking.
Let the batter sit for 30 mins in the fridge
I have a mental block against making things one by one that have like 20 calories in them.
Brain says small things bad unless can make a million at a time.
And yeah screw making those things from scratch.
A crepe is like 100 calories and you can pour like 5 in less than 10 minutes. But anyway, to reach their own. personally I hate chopping stuff even if it takes 1 minute.
Honestly? Ramen. There are way too many ingredients that all needs to be cooked differently, and even the broth itself is a nightmare amount of effort for what you get at the end.
Pumpkin pie filling. The real stuff takes forever and it’s stringy. It also doesn’t taste quite the same. Libby does it so well it’s not worth making your own.
My wife says pie dough. Pillsbury’s is almost as good and a lot less effort. I prefer pie dough with a ton more butter but she doesn’t.
Cheese
This 100%…
It is so expensive/time consuming/finicky for a product that best case scenario is comparable to store bought.
i have depression and adhd so it varies between every food and no food based on the rng going on in the ol’ endocrine
Sometimes brain say making gnocchi is no big deal.
Other times, grill cheese too much.
I just remind myself that I once thought it was a good idea to make an entire thanksgiving dinner for 3 people using a college dorm kitchen, and then the idea of frying a cheese sandwich doesn’t seem that daunting.
Tip though for grilled cheese is butter the pan not the bread.
French Fries. For those who don’t know, when starting with a potato, you have to fry them twice. Once at a low temp to cook through, then again at a high temp to crisp up and brown. The frozen fries at the grocery have already had the first fry.
The double frying is just too much effort when the frozen stuff is just as good, even in an air fryer. So long as they’re hot, the drive thru can compete with anything you make at home.
I used to feel the same way about egg rolls, but the product you get from scratch is superior to frozen or even take out.
Anything with a lot of Indian spices. I just buy the paste in jars.
I used to do this but after falling down a YouTube rabbit hole I can make a balti from scratch very quickly. Onions, garlic, ginger, chilies, tomatoes + coriander powder, turmeric, chili powder, garam masala, dried fenugreek leaves.
Throw in some chicken and finish with coriander (cilantro for the Americans)
Dried pasta is superior to fresh pasta. It is impossible to make it at home.
Fresh pasta and dried pasta are two different ingredients that serve different purposes. It’s impossible to get a fresh pasta al dente and unlikely that most home chefs have an extruder to get round shapes. The tougher texture allows it to stand up against hearty sauces.
Fresh pasta, however, has it’s own merits such a delicate texture that pairs well with delicate sauces. That delicate, silky texture isn’t achievable with dried pasta which would become mushy when trying.
I agree that they’re two different ingredients, but most Italian pasta dishes require dried pasta. The biggest exception is probably gnocchi, they’re always fresh.
It’s hard for me to say what is most dishes. I’ve never been to Italy and haven’t studied pasta making deeply, so it’s hard to say. From my limited understanding you pair cream sauces with fresh egg pastas. And in my opinion, stuffed pastas are also enjoyable when fresh.
Well, I’ve been to Italy many times and I have Italian friends, one of them actually worked in a restaurant in Italy. Most Italian dishes use dried pasta and they use it for a reason. You can learn more about dried pasta here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLURsDaOr8hWXz_CFEfPH2wFhIbJn9iHJY&si=5jl6Z2vwxFX4sVXF
Okay. First, apologies. I see my intent wasn’t clear in my initial posting. I posted that under your response because I saw many responses that confused fresh pasta as being a direct replacement to dried pasta. Instead of replying to each instance of confusion, I figured I’d put a response under your initial reply. I should have been more clear when responding.
It’s surprising to hear that there’s not too many dishes that use fresh pasta. I always assumed there would be a fair amount of both dried and fresh. Thanks for the info.
I appreciate the link to the playlist. I really like Alex’s videos.
No worries, we’re just having a civil discussion here (:
As for dried pasta popularity, according to many internet sources, it became popular somewhere around 14th and 15th century, I guess Italians had plenty of time to adjust their cuisine. Dried pasta also has a benefit of long storage, which was important in their warm climate before the invention of an affordable domestic refrigerator in 20th century.
I remember coming across an early (either 12th or 13th century) pasta recipe. It was a simple fresh noodle in a delicately spiced broth, and, importantly, delicious.
What facinstes me is the status of fresh pasta in the American gastronomical context. It has achieved an ascendent status as demonstrated in this video. I’m sure many of the shapes are dried and I see this video as primarily entertainment and not necessarily an achievable thing for most home cooks. But it shapes an ideal for the viewing population.
I suspect that pasta will become one thing in America and another in Italy if it hasn’t already. I think looking at pizza in America, NYC in particular, vs pizza in Italy could provide an anthropological template.
Much ranting, I know. But hopefully interesting!
Do you have the right equipment to make fresh pasta? If you’re doing it manually then it may as well be impossible.
Fresh pasta cannot be al dente, it’s useless for most traditional Italian pasta dishes. And it is near impossible to make dry pasta at home.
This is wild. I even thought lasagna was worth the minimal effort before, but I just got KitchenAid attachments for Christmas and it’s insanely easy. You mix the dough in the bowl, and then flatten a couple times, run through the slicer, put in the water and it boils way faster than dried. It’s also so so much better than dried.
I’m with you on like, ravioli though. Also we occasionally made wide rice noodles from scratch for Thai cooking and while they’re not technically hard, they’re very labor intensive and time consuming. The problem is the difference between them and dried is night and say - dried wide rice noodles arent even really worth eating. Finally found a shop that sells them fresh though so we are golden.
Fresh pasta cannot be al dente, it’s useless for most traditional Italian pasta dishes. And it is near impossible to make dry pasta at home.
You must be trolling, it’s 45s to make the dough in a food processor and the sauce actually clings to the noodles.
Fresh pasta doesn’t have proper al dente chew, it gives a cheap instant noodle mouth feel. The sauce clings the same. To any pasta.
You are making it wrong then.
What do you mean wrong? It’s just a fact.
Sushi. I just toss all the ingredients in a bowl and be done with it, instead of bothering to roll.
