To tell DH I don’t like his signature dish?

[Notsympatheticenough]

He makes beef burgers. It’s his thing, bbq with beef burgers. He’s a good cook, cooks other stuff really well. But he’s convinced his dry, stodgy, unseasoned beef burgers are the best thing he does. I’ve avoided eating them pretty much for the last 10 years of our relationship, there’s usually other stuff, people round, it’s a bbq…you know? . Tonight he said ‘as a treat, I’ll just do the burgers’.

my heart sank. And the little hungry bit of me died a bit.

@Danni675 maple syrup in spaghetti bol? Ewww surely not?!!🤮

I’ve always found this ‘I have a signature dish’ thing a bit pretentious wankery.

Try choking dramatically on the burger. Bonus points if you actually have to be blue-lighted.

Have you worked out why they are so bad?

Just say a fatty/gristly bit has put you off. What a shame 🥲 Then ask if he’ll do chicken or whatever isn’t grim. Or find a burger recipe you might like and ask him to try it for a change.

My DH scrunches up the salad leaves with his hands so it's all wet and floppy 🙈 like a sopping wet salad.

The last salad creation had the addition of the oil from a tuna can for flavour.
I didn't have the heart to say it was bad and I just sneakily threw it away haha

If you have sucessfully avoided it for years, is it possible they have improved since you last ate them?

My carbonara is a bit scrambled eggy though, so maybe ignore me. I just can't stomach the thought of raw egg so I'm not risking it!

Dry and stodgy with no seasoning, apparently.

(No seasoning???)

First off, it’s pretentious to have a signature dish unless he’s a professional chef.

Secondly, tell him straight that the burgers need to be seasoned and any other suggestions you have to make them palatable.

Could you get him some great seasoning bits for Christmas for his "amazing" burgers?

If not, become vegan?

Oh dear. My MiL who is so lovely, contrary to MN usual MiLs. But her signature dish is scrambled egg with cheese, if I'm feeling down, she'll offer to make me some egg and cheese. I hate sloppy eggs, I know it's the correct way, but I hate it, throw in cheese and its sloppy vomit, smelling eggs. She's been my MiL for 25+ yrs, I can't tell her now, the only saving grace is that we don't live locally.

As for DH, he can't cook. Reading this thread, maybe there's a silver lining to that.

@BT11 I have been known to wash salads where possible just to remove whatever dressing DH has just invented.

I once had a curry in a restaurant that had banana in it. I hate bananas with a passion, so I may be biased, but I don't think curries is the place for them.

I would just smother it in cheese.

Can you hobble his ankles on the way to the kitchen?

Yes! The Annie Wilkes solution. And then call him a dirty bird.

I'd thread carefully. I pointed out a few things dh can add/ remove from his 'signature' dish and now I'm the only one who cooks in our house! Lol.

He's been to cookery classes but he's just not v good at it in reality.

However burgers are hard to get wrong. Do you know what he needs to do differently?

My dh always announces his ‘signature dish’ like it’s a brand new idea he’s just had:

’I know - let’s get some spaghetti, make tomato sauce and then put some prawns and spinach on top…’

It’s like he’s forgotten all the times he’s suggested it before, over the 22 years we’ve been together.

Add the bacon/pancetta part to the pasta. Swish it around and then add the egg mixture. The bacon fat will cook the egg without scrambling it.

Hahahaha I have been a tad blunter with DH and asked him not to Chernobyl my meat... He likes to roast/fry or cook meat to death and accuses me to be more of the 'Cut off the horns and wipe the arse' school of cooking. I don't like it too raw, just still juicy and not dust dry...

@Danni675 this must be a thing, DH cooked Bolognese with loads of maple syrup in it when we were first together. I straight up told him it was awful and that the whole of Italy would be appalled at him putting a sweet syrup in a savoury ragu.

OP just tell him you don't like them. I don't understand a relationship where you can't be honest. Soften it with they're too heavy for me, I prefer your risotto etc if needs be

What's the ice cube trick?

'Cut off the horns and wipe the arse' school of cooking

Or, the nuclear option - start talking about how wonderful someone else's burgers are! Perhaps he'll get competitive and improve; or maybe he'll sulk and never make them again.

Urgh. This is my DH. Everything he cooks (very limited range) is unseasoned and simultaneously burnt and cold.

And for those who say just tell him. I tell him every single time he cooks that he needs to season the food and focus on getting it all ready at the same time, rather than leaving half of it to go cold while he finishes the other half. He doesn't care. I am just supposed to be grateful for the revolting food that he deigns to cook once a month or so.

@zizza www.buzzfeed.com/jesseszewczyk/ice-cubes-in-burger-patties

Mine is convinced he makes a brilliant chilli. To be fair, it has improved over time (because he’s learned from me that you can put spices that aren’t just lots of chilli in it, for example). But it’s really not great. And not a patch on the various chillis I make.

Almost everything else he cooks, he’s learned it from me. Mostly that means an under seasoned, inferior version of mine.

But he’s convinced his chilli is incredible. Mostly, it’s just got a lot of chilli in it though. And his rice is shit (since he doesn’t put salt in the cooking water).