To ask about the worst ingredient substitution you've had the misfortune to taste?

[BackInBits]

I've come across a few.

My brother made a roast lamb and had no red currant jelly. Strawberry jam it was.

I've an aunt who put sour cream in the trifle. Not quite as bad as Rachel and the beef, but it did not work well.

I've an ex who was making chickpea patties that called for cumin, turmeric and coriander. In case you were wondering, oregano does not make up for a lack of cumin.

Hot chocolate with water instead of milk.

@TakeMe2Insanity

Oh gosh this is by worst memory!

Back in a Welsh university for St David’s day a Welsh friend invited us round for genuine Welsh Cawl. What we hadn’t taken into account was that she was veggie, had used a veggie stock cube, had run out of vegetables and used a bag of frozen mixed veg (tiny pieces peas, sweetcorn and carrots ) and nothing else! It was dire, the bowls were huge and she kept topping us up!

Fortunately the lovely cleaning lady of our halls insisted we hadn’t had the real thing so wrote us list, we went shopping, she over saw us cook and we learned how to cook the real thing - thank God!

Cawl is welsh for soup or broth. It isn't a special sort of soup.

Ex also made chilli con carne with lamb mince once. There's not much I physically can't eat, but that one is on the list.

I once made a chocolate cake. No butter so I used oil. Unfortunately it was "curry oil" which apparently has curry spices in it.

Even DH couldn't eat it.

I tried a new recipe for chicken in Marsala sauce. I knew Marsala was a fortified wine. I didn't have any. The recipe specified that it had to be dry Marsala, so I thought I would use the dry fortified wine I did have, namely Tio Pepe sherry, which I always have at Christmas. It turns out they're very different. It was inedible. I hate wasting food, but there was no alternative this time.

Slimming world is utterly awful for substitutions and alternatives but the worst by far was the prawn Marie Rose sauce made from passata and yoghurt. Bloody grim.

The funniest substitution I've ever seen (obviously not deliberate!) was many years ago when my friend and I were queueing in a fish and chip shop. There was a restaurant in the shop,and a man sitting at one of the tables picked up the sugar container that was on the table and shook it generously all over his fish and chips. The woman with him said 'Did you intend to put sugar on your food?'. His face was a picture.

A sweet pastry case for a quiche lorraine and mince pie pastry for a chicken pie, all at the same dinner party and the hosts didn't notice.

We were served affogato but it was beef gravy/stock instead of espresso in a restaurant

I'm usually a pretty accomplished cook and I can only think I'd had one too many "cook's special G&Ts" when I decided to make chicken tikka with strawberry yoghurt as we were out of plain. It was... unpleasant.

@ALongHardWinter

The funniest substitution I've ever seen (obviously not deliberate!) was many years ago when my friend and I were queueing in a fish and chip shop. There was a restaurant in the shop,and a man sitting at one of the tables picked up the sugar container that was on the table and shook it generously all over his fish and chips. The woman with him said 'Did you intend to put sugar on your food?'. His face was a picture.

I did similar in my teens, in a burger bar near King's Cross. Sprinkled sugar all over my burger, chips and salad. I was so disappointed and my heartless family thought it was funny.

My brother thought he'd try his hand at shortbread. The recipe said use semolina or rice flour which we had neither of. So he used raw brown rice instead and nearly cracked every one's teeth

My beloved, elderly and child-free great uncle, when I was about 5. Conspired to make me a milkshake, the crusha one, that was syrup in a bottle (rather than powder) with water instead of milk.

At my age, I had no idea what had gone wrong for it to be so not right, as it was usually handed to me ready made, neither of us knew it had to be made with, you know, milk. I couldn't drink it and felt awful as he'd tried so hard for me.

@Smorgasborb

Lockdown WFH lunch was a Pasta n Sauce. No milk in the house so used Coffee Mate. It's was actually fine but the thought is pretty vile.

I've done this. Surprised at how normal it actually tasted

Waitrose vegan lobster roll.

Vegan fish? 🤢 @Dalalalada

@whosafraidofnaomiwolf, spag bol is the wild, wild west of British cooking.

My own pet peeve is American recipes for tea brack which call for allspice instead of Mixed Spice. There were several on Pintereat a while back, clearly reblogged from the one very, very wrong source. I pity the fools who tried them.

The worst meal I have ever eaten was at a new gastro pub, where someone had clearly been watching too much MasterChef. Vanilla infused mashed potato and sausages. The unspoken agreement in the sausages was Chinese five spice. An utterly vile combination that lingered and repeated for the rest of the day.

I made flapjacks with what I thought was cinnamon.. it was cumin. Actually tasted okay, just not what people expected when I offered them flapjacks with their tea.

Agreement = ingredient!

I made a toad in the hole whilst at uni using a recipe for sponge instead of batter. So basically a sausage cake. It was pretty grim.

I had an ex who, when we ran out of tomatoes, made homemade ravioli and topped with a mango pasta sauce. Just vile.

My older brother, one Christmas.

No gravy granules. No gravy browning.

He made brown (was actually nearly white) gravy out of cornflour, boiling water and brown sauce before tipping it over everyone's Christmas dinner as he put it out so, on top of being absolutely disgusting, it was also cold.

A seriously vomit inducing experience.

@midlifecrash

Fish in loose tea instead of what *@Burnshersmurfs*? This is so puzzling!

He thought it was "a blend of exotic herbs". I should be more forgiving as he's not from a tea-loving culture. But I'm not because of the hours of hangry toddler-wrangling leading up to it.

Spag Bol with huge chunks of fresh ginger in it instead of garlic