What kind of basic recipe can you not cook?

[OnlineMadNess]

Omelettes :( They either burn or they're raw in the middle.

Oo, I might be able to help a bit with crepes/English pancakes.

I don't measure any ingredients anymore, I just do this:

Crack eggs into a bowl, whisk in sieved flour bit by bit until the mixture is thick enough that it starts to hurt your arm to mix. Make sure the mixture is more or less lump free.

Add in milk until you think the mixture's thin enough and then add in a bit more - you don't want it too much thicker than the milk itself. It feels too thin but it's not.

Use a big, flat non-stick frying pan and heat a little bit of butter in it until it's melted but not burnt (a medium-low heat).

Use a ladle and put one ladle of batter in the pan at a time. Swish it around the bottom as soon as you put it in.

Use a thin, (cheap!) hard plastic spatula to nudge underneath the edge once you've heated it for a bit. It's ready to be flipped once it's ready to get underneath and turn it quickly with the spatula.

You'll only need to add a bit more butter for every other pancake, I find.

Slow cooker - worse in what way? You need less liquid than the oven, if it's watery you can leave the lid off got a bit to reduce

CupoTeap

worse as in less full of flabour, and the watery texture is nothing to do with volume of liquid.

example - beef casserole. In the oven, browned, thick casserole gravy, imbued with the flavours of the meat, onions etc
In slow cooker, even if there is little liquid, it just doesn't pick up the flavours and richness of the ingredients the way it does in an oven.

Th eonly way to make it come even close is to fry all the ingrdients first before putting them in the slow cooker.
If you do that it becomes a massive long hassle version, needs ot be done the night before due to timing, (and then what? Cool down in fridge over night and reheat inslow cooker?)
Or - bung it all cold and raw into my huge casserole pot and stick in the oven on a low heat for 4 hours.

I have eaten loads of things made by other people in slow cookers, and to be honest almost every time I would say it is watery in flavour (again, not due to volume, due to consistency) and less good than the equivalent in the oven. I only know kne person who makes decent slow cooker stuff, and when I do it in mine it isn;t as good, so I use her recipes and do them on the hob/oven

Thanks for the meatloaf recipes by the way. I will have a go...

[quote Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]Scones: mine were very hit or miss until I found this recipe (recommended on another thread here during lockdown). This works brilliantly. Best scones I've ever made, and immodestly I could say best I've ever tasted too.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/classic-scones-jam-clotted-cream[/quote]
I’ll try this recipe. However have tried LOTS. They always lose structure and are too dry at the same time. I can always taste the bitterness of baking powder, whatever ratio the recipe says.

I used to be able to make scones with my Nan when I was about 7, successfully.

I can poach an egg, make perfect rice, Yorkshire pud, roast potatoes or chicken, puff pastry, eclairs, bread, cakes, cookies, jam, perfectly cooked steak.... goodness knows why they defeat me.

Mine is a roast. I just cant do timings.
So my foolproof way is to cook the meat first.Then cook everything else.

And the slowcooker,is usually to much liquid.

I only really use mine for chilli and stews.
I find curries just dont get the flavour.

Great thread! Many thanks for those adding recipes and tips for those of us who have these mental blocks :)

@steppemum

Slow cooker - worse in what way? You need less liquid than the oven, if it's watery you can leave the lid off got a bit to reduce

CupoTeap

worse as in less full of flabour, and the watery texture is nothing to do with volume of liquid.

example - beef casserole. In the oven, browned, thick casserole gravy, imbued with the flavours of the meat, onions etc
In slow cooker, even if there is little liquid, it just doesn't pick up the flavours and richness of the ingredients the way it does in an oven.

Th eonly way to make it come even close is to fry all the ingrdients first before putting them in the slow cooker.
If you do that it becomes a massive long hassle version, needs ot be done the night before due to timing, (and then what? Cool down in fridge over night and reheat inslow cooker?)
Or - bung it all cold and raw into my huge casserole pot and stick in the oven on a low heat for 4 hours.

I have eaten loads of things made by other people in slow cookers, and to be honest almost every time I would say it is watery in flavour (again, not due to volume, due to consistency) and less good than the equivalent in the oven. I only know kne person who makes decent slow cooker stuff, and when I do it in mine it isn;t as good, so I use her recipes and do them on the hob/oven

Ok I agree, my slow cooker is one you can put the pot on the hob to brown/fry stuff first, then put in the base to slow cook.

Rice - like the proper way I can throw it in a huge pan of water and drain but not the non drain method. Also dippy eggs as with pp

For shortcrust pastry, lard is the key. It has bigger fat crystals apparently, so pastry is flakier. Lard also has less saturated fat than butter!

I learned pastry-making from my Granny, who was born around 1900 and whose pastry was to die for.

Lard (or half lard half butter/block margarine). Half fat to flour (she always used SR flour and so do I). Keep cold, minimal working.

[quote DumpTrump]@Wigeon Try this recipe for toad in the hole. It always works for me when other recipes haven't. www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/sams-toad-hole[/quote]
@DumpTrump - thank you! DH had planned toad in the hole for dinner today so I tried that recipe and it worked pretty well! Didn’t stick as much as usual, Yorkshire bit rose pretty well! Think doing it in a baking tin (as per that recipe) rather than a ceramic dish was a good idea.

@Wigeon

Pride comes before a fall. All of my Yorkshire puddings were inedible yesterday - too dark on the outside, flattish and raw inside!! Why???

Dippy eggs
Poached eggs
Fried eggs

James Martin's recipe for Yorkshire puddings is the best I've tried.

Sometimesonly

Pride comes before a fall. All of my Yorkshire puddings were inedible yesterday - too dark on the outside, flattish and raw inside!! Why???

I think it must be self-consciousness or something.
I was taught to make a cheese souffle at school (yes - long time ago when it was called "home economics" and you learned to actually cook) and used to knock them up casually and they were great.

The minute a friend said "That's clever - souffles are really difficult" I ended up producing a dense, cheese-flavoured bath sponge!

Don't worry though - ime, your Yorkshire pudding mojo will return

The ONLY thing that I've found to be a real factor with getting poached eggs right is using fresh eggs.

I've tried all the tips and tricks in the world - vinegar this and sieve that etc etc - but if the egg's a week old it'll still not work.

Anyway for me it's not a recipe as such but I have no knife skills whatsoever - which means that while I can hack veg etc into rough chunks I'm too cack-handed to be able to do anything required to be finely chopped or sliced. DP will sometimes have to set me up with a sliced onion before I get on with a meal...

I couldn’t do poached eggs without paraphernalia until DS learnt at school. He uses a ladle, a drop of vinegar and gets it spit on every time. I still can’t do them, but I ask him to do them instead.

Pastry. The last time I tried it turned grey! Just stick to packets now, much easier for everyone!

Can't boil an egg.

I can cook lots of meals but I never eat eggs myself as I detest them!

So I would be perfectly capable of boiling an egg (obviously) but if I didn't look it up I'd have no idea how long to give it!

@SpudsandGravy

I forgot roast chicken! I always dry it out, despite buttering it in advance, basting etc :-(

I roast my chicken upside down, means the juices run down to the breast - and always leave it to stand for 10 minutes covered in foil.

@Teddy1970

I'm not a bad cook, but I cannot make nice sandwiches for the life of me! MIL makes some really lovely ones, mine are just rubbish.

I always struggled with sandwich inspiration. Then I got 101 Sandwiches by Helen Graves. I aim to have 2 Saturdays a month where I try out a new one.

Some of them can seem a bit of a faff for just a sandwich, but it’s fun trying them out (not much else to do at the moment!)

Another one who finds steak hard to cook. I don’t buy it that often, so don’t get to practice much.

It’s improved slightly now that I have an oven with a griddle plate that can sit across two of the hob rings, but definitely not at the stage where I’d offer to cook steak for anyone else.

I’m ok with staples such as a roast or cooking up a batch of chilli/bolognese mix. My problem comes with lack of trying. I live on my own, so it can often seem like too much of an effort to try a new recipe when it’s just me - plus some meal types aren’t suitable for freezing extra portions afterwards.

Quiche. I went through a phase a few years ago of trying to make them, and I just cannot do it. The pastry always shrinks and cracks when I blind bake, and even when I thought it looked OK, there'd be a tiny crack and the filling would all seep out. I tried all kinds of tricks to make my pastry work and it just never did so I've given up and just buy quiche now.

IToldYouIWasFreaky, I have an ancient Fanny Cradock cook book with a recipe for quiche.
She does not cook it blind, just puts the pastry in the tin and then smears a layer of butter over it, which I suppose sort of waterproofs it, pours in the quiche mixture and bakes it.
It works perfectly, underside of pastry just nicely browned and no rising up.
I never bother with blind baking now.

@HelgaGPataki I used to have that problem. Now I soak a tea towel in cold water, fold it lengthways until it's roughly the same size as the tin. Wrap the wet tea towel in tin foil and wrap it around the tin.
Your sponge is cooking too fast on the outside causing the dome.
Also put less batter in the tin, fill it just about halfway