Foods that shouldn't be messed around with

[Ginfordinner]

I love cooking, I love eating, and am an adventurous cook. I mix and match and am happy to replace an ingredient I dislike, but there are some things I think just don't need to be elaborated on and are just lovely as they are.

Coffee - I don't like my coffee to taste of anything other than coffee. I don't like all the syrups and flavourings that people put in it

Gin - just no to flavoured gin. Flavoured gin is for people who don't like gin

Fruit crumble - the crumble mix just needs flour, sugar and butter and nothing else

Shortbread - again just flour, butter and sugar. The king of biscuits IMO

Chocolate should only be eaten as chocolate. Not to flavour other things, so no chocolate ice cream, cake, hot chocolate, chocolate cereal, all just wrong.
Also agree with pp who said lasagne. I rarely eat red meat but if it’s lasagne then it has to be beef. Chicken lasagne? It’s a tragedy!

I hate the "special" coffees

Toast and also toasted crumpets.
Just lovely butter, nothing else such as jam, marmalade, peanut butter and even worse chocolate spread!
Lots of butter of course, enough to dribble down the chin

See normally I would agree with crumpets being butter only, however a friend suggested cream cheese a couple or weeks ago and now I'm converted.

@7Days

That's how I do my pies. Cant make it any other way ! Never come out right

Try this one

It's brilliant, and a favourite with DH and me.

Crumpets are a means of conveying butter to the mouth.

They have no other purpose in life.

I cant really brimg myself to do anything but cook good shellfish plainly because lobster, scallops and langoustines are so damn delicious as they are.

Currents/raisins have no place in a scone.

We will have to agree to disagree @LApprentiSorcier

I'm noting much of the food is liquid, very appropriate username .

I don't like most shellfish served hot (apart from mussels).

Cauliflower has a wonderful delicate flavour. Why ruin it by pouring cheese sauce over it.
I love cauliflower in a salad, it’s best eaten raw.

Some of these are very very wrong...

Flavoured coffee syrups are great, chocolate
in things like ice cream and cake are the best, scones should only come with currants and raisins in them - all other scones are inferior.

Don’t like gin though, even the flavoured stuff - you can still taste the gin.

But I’m with you on shortbread... adding anything else is just biscuits and not as good

Chicken should never be seen with pasta. EVER

Caramel. Plain old unsalted caramel. Extinct these days it seems

Another vote for hot cross buns. Every year I get sucked into buying salted caramel or chocolate chip and always regret it. Maybe I'll learn this year.

I agree with the crumble ingredients, though I do tend to add Demerara sugar too. I'm not sure what oats would do??

I have to add, for the last few years I have been making my crumble the Raymond Blanc way. I lay the crumble mix on a shallow baking tray, and put in the oven for around 10 mins, just running a fork through it to cook it lightly. I then add it to my fruit and back in the oven to cook fully. My crumble is always wonderfully crunchy, no sogginess. This takes a couple of goes to get it right, but it's worth the faff

Agree there’s no place for fruit in a scone. Which should be round not wedge shaped and never iced!

No place for fruit in a chocolate brownie either. Nor icing.

But I’ll concede oats do make a nice addition to a crumble. Ditto ground almonds...

You are wrong about crumble. I always add oats (as PPs also said) and usually ground almonds too if I am doing peaches or apples

I can’t stand flavoured coffees and hot chocolates as well.
Absolutely agree about shortbreads- they don’t need anything else and they are the best.

However I do put oats in crumble, just to make it healthier and use it an excuse.

Baileys should only be original !

@SilenceOfThePrams

Iced scone???? Do people actually put icing on scones? It’s madness.

I like to chop and change.

Coffee - plain, with milk, with cream and liqueur, flavoured, sometimes with sugar.

Gin - yes please. Plain, Sloe, Damsen, Rhubarb etc.

I like a good whiskey on the rocks but also like Whiskey sours.

Crumble generally with oats or ground almonds, sometimes spices.

Shortbread with butter only but generally add choc chips.

Chicken and bacon pasta salad is great though.

Carbonara should not have mushrooms. Cream I can sort of live with, but not mushrooms or chicken or anything else.

Lasagne - the Delia pork sage and ricotta one is quite nice but otherwise no messing.

And my family hotpot recipe is essentially beef stew with short crust pastry on the side instead of bread. But not a fancy deconstructed pie, it's been passed down since the late 1900s!!

@Mominatrix

Crisps - a bit of salt is all that is necessary. Some of the flavour combinations being sold are quite peculiar (roast chicken flavour???).

Where I grew up chicken was a bog standard crisp flavour. Our options were plain salted, salt and vinegar, & chicken. This was in the 70s.

Flavoured houmous. Sweet chilli? Lemon and coriander? No. It always tastes fake. Leave it alone.

Roast chicken has always been a bog standard crisp flavour, along with cheese and onion and salt and vinegar.