Improvisation: Saving a dish when things go wrong. Share your stories!

[Sparkly]

Ellen's spanikopita thread, in which she used pumpkin pie spice when she didn't have nutmeg, reminded me of a classic "improv" of my Mom's. I'll bet you each have stories to tell, too!

She was making some sort of "chop suey" (1960s for "stir fry") and was at the point of adding cornstarch -- but she accidentally got powdered sugar. When she realized what she'd done, she added vinegar and turned it into "sweet-sour!"

She also made a cake where the butter "fell," making a layer of rich cake on the bottom and lighter cake on the top. We thought it was great and kept asking her to do it again!

(For a classic movie scene of recipe mishaps, btw, see Katherine Hepburn in "Woman of the Year" trying to make waffles for Spencer Tracy. Hilarious!)

Husb has his own story about potato souffle which I'll let him tell. And please share your own -- whether you were able to make a "save" or not!

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Potato "pancakes"

As some of you may know, I graduated from the Culinary Institute of America (Yes, I'm a CIA man!) back before it moved from its original location in New Haven, CT, to Hyde Park, NY.


http://www.ciachef.edu/

Back then (I have no idea how it functions now) we were divided into teams and spent the entire day in a kitchen or in related classes. Those groups in kitchen would make food, and those groups in classes would eat it. Work was graded based, at least in small part, on the reaction of those eating the food.

My assignment on the day of this particular mishap was a potato souffle. I can't recall the recipe, but it involved spuds and leeks and seasonings .... kinda vichyssoise meets mousse. Anyway, the damn thing fell thanks a dropped stock pot near the oven in which it was working. And I mean fell. Not a slight shallow spot in an otherwise nice dome .... I mean flat ... as a pancake.

And therein lay the answer!

It tasted just fine. I plated it on a platter and billed it as a potato pancake. It got rave reviews.

[merci_me]

2. Mine is a *not*

and it was also some sort of chop suey my grandmother made. My husband loved it, but the kids hated it. I hadn't made it for years. Years during which I really organized my kitchen. I now keep a lot of stuff from boxes in glass jars.

That being said.....when I went to add the cornstarch, I mistakenly added baking powder!! Imagine the ugly grey/brown bubbling mess that came pouring over the skillet, on to the range, down the front of the oven door, to the floor, landing around my bare feet as I stood there mesmerized wondering WTF just happened?

Mary

[Longhorn]

5. I have a similar *not* .

I made an oriental chicken dish that called for cornstarch only I accidentally used baking soda! My first clue should have been the "volcano erupting" effect but I was too inexperienced to realize that wasn't normal. We had to actually start to eat it before we realized something was wrong. Yum! :D

[Sparkly]

6. Wow, three different "cornstarch" mistakes!!

Moral of the story: Label Cornstarch Carefully!! :D

[merci_me]

7. HAHAHAHA I even grabbed the wrong container in cyberspace

Instead of cornstarch, I added baking SODA not baking powder. I wouldn't have grabbed baking powder by mistake, since that is kept in the can it comes in.

Mary

[Love Bug]

3. Once when I made fudge it just wouldn't "set"

I beat and beat and beat the hell out of it for I-don't-know-how-long and it just wouldn't set. So what I did was add some peanut butter, make little balls out of the fudge-peanut butter mixture and roll them in chopped peanuts.

I probably didn't cook it long enough in the first place, but at lease the peanut balls were good.

[SoCalDem]

4. A Sicilian friend of mine gave me her grandmothers recipe or lasagne

and as I was putting in the spices, I realized that I had bought POWDERED red pepper instead of CRUSHED red pepper.. can you say H O T !!!??

I had ALL my other ingredients at stake here..fresh plum tomatoes, fresh italian sausage..real ricotta...and I had been cooking the sauce for HOURS...

I broke down and bought canned tomatoes and ended up "sutting" the sauce until it was not so hot.. I ended up with GALLONS of sauce:)