The Cooking Disaster Thread

Toast4532 wrote: »

Another time she cooked a chicken at 260 degrees in the new oven and burnt the ****e out of it, my mother had some job cleaning the oven afterwards. Think it took three attempts before it was fully cleaned.

My ex once decided to cook some honeyed chicken. I left him off until he mentioned that our oven didn't go high enough. Turns out he'd used an American recipe and didn't realise that they used Farenheit and had tried to set the oven to 330F. The chicken was completely black and welded to the dish; we had to throw the whole thing out.

My housemate dug the bits of chicken out of the honey/tar like substance, soaked it in water for two days to soften it, then ate it :eek:

Back in the day I used to flat share. One saturday I wanted to make a chilli, but when I got to the shops in the evening, there was no minced beef. There was a packet of minced venison so I thought what's the harm? I got home and made up the chilli. As I was cooking my flatmate arrived home with his girlfriend. We were all due to go out but he wanted to make a meal before going to the pub. Since the kitchen was a bit pokey, I offered to share the chilli, telling him it was made with venison. He accepted.

I finished the sauce, made a pot of rice and served it up to the other two in the living room. As we were tucking in, I said "tastes a lot like beef, doesn't it". My flatmates girlfriend, Karen, stops in mid forkful... "What'd mean, it tastes like beef. If its not beef, what is it? "Venison", I said. Whats venison? Deer. I didn't ask how expensive it was, what meat is it, says she. Deer meat. Blank look. Deer, you know, like bambi! I said helpfully. To say she was a little distressed would be an understatement. My flatmate had forgot to mention to his beloved that it was a venison chilli. I think she politely pushed it around the plate for a bit longer before declaring herself full....

Bless her, I think she went vegetarian not long after that.

I once tried to make a pie crust with self raising flour.

I recently tried to bake bread in a slow cooker. It took two hours for the bottom to cook while the top remained a doughy mess. It sank to about an inch thick and was terribly dense. The dough had turned out really well too, I felt like a monster for wasting it.

If stuff ends up too spicy I would freeze it in small batches, and it can be used in future as a hot sauce itself. i.e. if you added twice too much you could make an identical dish again, minus the chilli, add in the strong stuff and then it is all evened out.

I hate throwing stuff out

5unflower wrote: »

It should have been some lovely coconut biscuits

I would have eaten those no bother! big pint of cold milk with them.

Many moons ago as a young whippersnapper I decided to make some Christmas Cookies from a recipe in a book I'd gotten from the library. I think they were in the shape of Christmas trees.

I was chuffed with myself when making them. I was allowed measure and mix all the ingredients myself and just got my mum to put them in the oven for me. Unfortunately what came out of the oven was totally inedible and I almost got sick when tasting them.

What I thought were Christmas "Cookies" were in fact Christmas "Decorations" and the reason why they tasted so awful was because the recipe called for something like two cups of salt instead of sugar.
Presumably the salt was there to act as a preservative.

A mate once told me, his girlfriend burned the rice. I commiserated, until he told me she didn't add water. Another spoilt bitch who let momma do all her cooking. How these people don't starve to death in Uni is anyone's guess ^ ^

Clams in Vermouth & garlic spaghetti
Looked the business one full chilli as well?
I did not realise it was a Scotch Bonnet.

Major ring sting.

Trying to impress my new GF being all fancy pantsy, tried to make pavlova...

A brown swamp is all that came out of the oven 3 times, couldn't figure it out, she wasn't supposed to know but saw them in the bin, at least I got an A for effort... :rolleyes:

She also saw the box, when I gave in and bought one at the farmers market! Didn't hide it well enough!

Billy86 wrote: »

Rare/medium-rare steak with pepper sauce on top of mashed potato with a small bit of red chaddar and carrot (ran through the cheese grater and quickly boiled to make it soft). Stuffed mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and a small rocket/carrot/feta/asparagus salad on the side. Yummy!

While it's probably a disaster in the presentation, are you sure you have the right thread?

BaZmO* wrote: »

While it's probably a disaster in the presentation, are you sure you have the right thread?

But the Tomatoes and the stuffed mushrooms are all symmetrical!

seosamh1980 wrote: »

Why did you try to do it in the slow cooker can I ask? Most breads just need a really hot oven to make them rise and most cook pretty quickly, wouldn't have thought a slow cooker would add anything to it.

Firstly it was simple curiosity, I'd heard you could do it and then just brown the crust under the grill and I wanted to give it a try.

Secondly, my oven is banjaxed. I put a loaf in the oven at the same time as I had one in the slow cooker. It was at top heat and after 2 hours was still terribly pale. I couldn't wait any longer so I took it out, it was still doughy in the middle.

Vojera wrote: »

I once put rashers too close to the grill and set them on fire. Then I panicked and sprayed the bejesus out of them with the fire extinguisher. If I had just closed the door of the oven they'd have been saved.

The only kitchen fire I ever produced was caused by closing the door while grilling.

Only found this thread today. It is fantastic haven't laughed so much in ages. Unfortunately can relate a lot to mixing up teaspoon and tablespoon measurements.

iverjohnston wrote: »

Those of you who do not get The Farmers Journal every week, (shame on you!) may not realise that they regularly feature recipes . NevanMaguire often contributes. He published a Christmas cake recipe about 5 years ago, and one evening I decided to give it a whirl. All went well until it instructed to "cream" the butter. I had no idea what to do, so as a last resort , I rang his restaurant to ask. I got a relative, and she was highly amused, but went down to the kitchen to ask the chef . On telling me what to do, she asked when was I baking the cake . When I told her I was in the middle of the process, she started laughing and told me that my wife would be very impressed. I didn't know what was so funny to her, but soon found out after putting the mix into tin oven and checking the baking time.
Had to set the alarm clock for 4am !

Brilliant

It was a long time before I knew how to use cardamom pods. I hated following recipes that used them as I always dreaded the moment I would bite into a pocket of toothpaste-like sustance

seosamh1980 wrote: »

Creaming butter and sugar together is a very common instruction in cakes.

And a common mistake too.
A former housemate from college thought creaming butter and sugar means to add cream to the butter-sugar mixture.

Making rice crispie buns once when i was about 12, i was wondering why the chocolate wasn't melting very quickly. (the hot water was melting it a little bit)
I had the wrong ring on the cooker on and our plastic kettle was sitting on the hot ring slowly melting....

More recently making the caramel bit for millionaires shortbread...it was taking a long time to cook but seemed ok. Poured the caramel onto the base, cooled it, did the chocolate top. The caramel turned into rock solid toffee, tasty but impossible to slice!