Kitchen catastrophes
 

'Fess up. What did you burn, mess up, use a horrific substitute ingredient or what intricately prepared dish did your dog eat when you went to answer the door? Tell it all -- the dish, the circumstances, what happened. We want the story!

This idea was prompted by my own not very exciting recent story of the Key West jumbo pink shrimp and sea scallops over pasta in this sundried tomato sauce that I spent almost an hour cleaning and peeling. I even made my own version of another sauce and it was absolutely delectable, but I had plenty of leftovers to feed us for another couple of meals and planned on freezing enough for one dinner and putting the rest in containers for lunch the next day. So I put it in the oven so the kitties wouldn't snack on it and -- you guessed it ---completely forgot about until I opened the oven before turning it on to preheat two days later! :eek:

Your turn.

Learning to make General Tso's chicken. I fried up the chicken chunks, set aside to cool.

I started making the sauce, whisked the cornstarch into the sauce.

Tossed in the chicken.

Realized I didn't make enough sauce, poured in the rest of the cornstarch water mix.

Solidified and turned into 1 big giant lump.

My biggest disaster - making a chicken stir fry one night - thought I'd add some bbq sauce for some sweetness, added too much, decided to add vinegar to offset the sweetness.

Turned out completely inedible!

My wife and I still use it is as the yardstick of awfulness in the kitchen.

edit - we had scrambled eggs for dinner that night - nobody could fuck up scrambled eggs :)

I couldn't count the amount of times I have fucked up in a kitchen. When I was in my first real kitchen, I fucked shit up. I was the king of fucking shit up. My internal clock is not that good when it comes to minutes. I left things in ovens, pans on to long, sauces on high. You name it, I did it and it was bad. I had to learn the hard way and get better as I went.

Some of the fuck ups I did in a kitchen:

* Thought I turned down the burner on my grits that I had cooking in the front but turned down the sauce sitting on the back burner. My grits became a southern volcano of goodness that bubbled up and exploded all over the place. Jumping back in to turn it down I got hit with a pipping hot blob on my arm. Wiping it off does not work, there is a reason it's called redneck napalm. It sticks to you and burnnnnnnns. I thought that burn would never go away.

* Was making some caramelized jack daniel's onions for a burger we had on our menu. Right when I hit the pan with my jack daniel's (and I use alot of liquor in my food) my sous-chef leaned in to look at a sauce. Flames went up and hit him in the face. It wasn't a bad burn at all... but it did catch most of his eyebrow. After almost getting my ass kicked by a very large man, I was banished to dish pit for the next 3 days. I became his kitchen bitch for the next few weeks. It took it over 3 weeks to start to grow back.

* I once set my whole stove top on fire. I had 4 eyes of an gas stove top as my main cooking area. Under the eyes is a pan that slides under the eyes to catch the crap that comes off of pans. Well, I didn't know it needed to be cleaned out. I threw some cognac into a pan and ended up splashing it onto the range. Next thing I knew, my entire range was flaming up. All of the leftovers and grease that had accumulated under the eyes had caught fire. I didn't know what to do so I threw water on it. That was not a good idea. Thankfully the sous-chef grabbed a fire extinguisher and put it out. I had to cook everything I had up on the flat top and they had to call the stove guy in the next day. I had to clean the whole line by myself the next day to make up for it.

* Kitchen knifes are sharp. Brand new kitchen knifes are *really* sharp. I was slicing peppers with my brand new chef's knife and wasn't holding my fingers correctly. My knife went right through the tips of my index finger and thumb. Two little pieces of nail and fingertip where laying on my cutting board. I had no health insurance. I knew I would fail a drug test. I could not lose my job. What does every good southern boy grab when something breaks? Duck Tape. Gauze with paper towel went over my fingers and duck tape followed. I was silver fingers for 2 weeks while it healed over. Funny thing is, half way through the healing process I did the same thing to my ring finger. I had 3 silver fingers for a good long while.

I totally fucked up the fish I was broiling tonight. I've never cooked fish before....who knew it was going to stick like that?

/sad

I lived in an apartment a couple years ago with a kitchen that just didn't get along with me. Everything I cooked in that kitchen from mac 'n' cheese (the sauce completely broke on me) to stuffed pork chops (the stuffing turned into a runny oatmeal like substance) was a disaster.

i grilled swordfish with lime juice once. it was the most horrific, acidic nightmare ever. and it smelled up the entire neighborhood, my office and my apartment.

Note to self - if ever in a kitchen with LordEden, stand well clear ;)

:lol: Was that a laugh or cry situation?

---------- Post added at 04:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:47 AM ----------

:lol: Good ones! You definitely don't have an exclusive on this one!

I was making stove top scratch brownies that called for an egg to be added. I was new to cooking/baking so I didn't take the batter off the stove before putting in the egg. It was supposed to incorporate into the batter. It actually ended up breaking up and cooking into the egg bits you find in fried rice. It was bad. Had to scrap it and start again.

I tried a new recipe for sweet and spiced stuffed peppers. It was ground beef, almonds, cumin and what I thought was a little bit of cinnamon. I put in the right amount but the entire dish tasted awful. My husband told me it was fine and ate it even though I told him not to but I couldn't even take a second bit it was that bad. We have a running joke when I try a new recipe. I tell him that if he doesn't like it, he can go get some tacos for dinner. Well, up until the night of this recipe we had never had to get tacos. We had to get tacos after this meal!

First time I ever tried to make a batch of fried okra, from okra right out of the garden I cut up the okra before I washed it....when I went to give it its flour coating the water still on the okra mixed with the okra "slime" and the flour and I had a huge lumpy pile of glue lol

I've had more kitchen mishaps than I can count or remember over the years. The two most recent:

I was making chicken parm for dinner and was running a bit later than normal. Pot of sauce had been simmering away for hours and I was prepping the chicken. I finished the three stage breading and had the three huge chicken breasts resting on a paper towel. Started a pot of water boiling and went into the livingroom to grab my drink. I was gone maybe a minute and a half and walked back into the kitchen to find nothing but the paper towel and a few Panko crumbs on the floor and the dog running out of the kitchen in the opposite direction!:eek::grumpy: I still can't believe he ate three large, raw chicken breasts in that amount of time. Ended up having to defrost more chicken and do it all over, we didn't end up eating dinner until 9:30 that night.

This next one involved the dog too. I tend to be pretty lax about cleaning out the fridge so sometimes it will get packed. I had put a container of (again) spaghetti sauce, covered with plastic wrap somewhat precariously on a shelf apparently. I opened the refridgerator door, the container fell out and hit the floor FLAT on it's bottom, sending a guyser of red sauce up to the ceiling and spraying everything else. I was PISSED, until I turned around and realized our snow white American Eskimo had been standing right behind me and had been splated in the face, even in his ear. I have never gone from "FUCK!" to laughing my ass off so fast in my life. He did a good job cleaning up the floor for me.:) I have a couple of pics, if I ever figure out how to add photos, I'll add 'em to this post.

I'm such a klutz, I can't count how many burn scars I have on both arms from hot burners, pans and oven racks. One was rather embarressing, I have no idea how it was round instead of a line like normal but it looked like a large cigar burn. Like Judd Nelson's in the "No, FUCK YOU DAD!!" scene from The Breakfast Club, in the same spot even. I felt like everyone must think I was being abused by my hubby or something. Damn thing took MONTHS to fade.

A long time ago, when my BBQ prowess was far less than it is now, I was doing a beer-can chicken recipe. The “spice rub” it called for was largely composed of table salt, and the directions called for “liberal amounts” of the rub. So I liberally applied the rub and cooked the chicken. There was so much salt that the meat was inedible, it was like eating fire or something. Or to quote Ralph Wiggum, “It tastes like… burning.”

Mrs. Coaster and I are both bad about cleaning out things like the crumb catcher in a toaster oven, and that has been problematic on occasion. I had just reheated a pice of prime rib in the toaster oven, and it dripped fat/grease down to the bottom, but I didn’t think it needed to be cleaned just yet. Mrs. Coaster then went and made some toast a little later, and sure enough, it caught fire. The timing of the next part is classic. I hear form the kitchen in a somewhat surprised, and somewhat dejected tone “Hey, my toast is on fire!” I then begin to say “Well, whatever you do don’t… (at this point she opens the door) … open the door!” Of course, opening the door caused the fire to erupt up and out of the toaster oven. I saved the day with a fire extinguisher. Damn, those things make a big mess! That shit took forever to clean up.

We replaced the destroyed toaster oven with the EXACT SAME MODEL and sure enough, it happened again. THIS time she shut it down and let the flame die out before opening, I was so proud. Needless to say, we bought a much better toaster oven after that time.

We tried our hand at baba ghannouj.

Yeeeeahh...you're supposed to roast the eggplant first.

That reminds me of the first time I made lasagna.

I didn't know you had to cook the pasta first. :/