what is the most difficult dish you make regularly?
 

I'm not talking about that time you tried to sous-vide a chicken breast. I'm talking about the dishes that you have made more than once or twice and they're a royal PITA and quite easy to screw up.

What's that dish for you?

Personally I find sole meunière to be quite tricky. Very easy to overcook. But we both love it!

Shrimp risotto. It's a real pain to de-vein and peel the shrimp and then boil the shells to make shrimp stock, not to mention the constant stirring of the risotto.

We had a party a couple of weeks ago and my favorite patissier, who used to make us mini pastries, left town. We had to make our own desserts. There is this raspberry cookie that is time consuming. You have to make a shortbread crust and then bake it, let it cool, spread it with raspberry jam and then cover it with a concoction of beaten eggs, brown sugar, pecans and coconut, then return it to the oven and bake it until it is firm. Once cool, then you have to cut it with a thin bladed knife or it will crack to pieces. It's time consuming and delicate, but oh so good. Our guests from Paris loved them! :)

Risotto, that's a good one. I've basically given up. It's too hard. I screw it up each time. :)

Kung Pao Chicken. I have a recipe that requires more ingredients than typical and a lot of stirring to get the sauce just right.

There are so many variables with risotto.

- the type of hob (gas, induction etc)
- the size of the pan you are making the risotto in
- the temperature of the stock
- the type of risotto rice

When I moved house and bought a new set of analon pans, it took a few weeks to adjust my recipe to the new place.

Others:

- ravioli from scratch can be tricky. It needs a light touch and a patience so its every other Sunday for me

- beef wellington

- blanquette de veau

While not overly technical, for sheer time and labor,

Pork Tamales.

I haven't tried it, but the latest issue of Cook's Illustrated has a "virtually stir-free risotto" recipe that looked intriguing. Usually, I've found their recipes pretty spot on for what they advertise.

Of course some might consider this heresy...

I'm a big believer in Cook's Illustrated. I'll check it out. ^

(By the way, it pisses me off that print subscribers, like myself, have to pay extra for the website access :mad:).

My favorite cooking magazine.

To answer your OP, I'd say a chicken dish (whose name eludes me ATM) wherein there is pounding, rolling, dicing, refrigerating, baking, and goat cheese.

Penne Rustica.

(Recipe from Macaroni Grill).

- Takes a couple of hours.
- Way too may pots, pans and dishes needed...

But man oh man, is that dish good! :cool:

great thread!
 

I frequently have a hard time cooking halibut to the proper doneness. It seems there is a razor-thin margin between nicely cooked and tough and overcooked.

Homemade pasta and I are not friends- I think I always overwork it, and it has the texture of a rubber band.

Lentils are also a thorn in my side. Too often I wind up with a lot of unabsorbed liquid and a pot full of mush.

I usually do ok with risotto, but it is such a pain in the butt that I've all but abandoned it in favor of paella, which is almost impossible to screw up and really easy to make.

There are so many pasta recipes out there. I found however, that the ones that work best are written by people from the same country as you are in. It's not xenophobia, but a matter of climate. Aside from different types of flour having different properties, the temperature and humidity can make a huge difference to any dough.

Risotto - try using a big frying pan and a lower temperature

Halibut, try less heat. Lentils, try less water and more heat - also, remember
that they cook in well under an hour.

Maybe not the most difficult, but the most time consuming and something I don't make regularly (so I guess could be considered not on topic) but beef stew is on the list for me. I takes two days to braise some short ribs of beef with a rest overnight, some trimming time, and the stew actually goes pretty quick. It's just a little tough timing your day so you're home when the ribs are done.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/r...ipe/index.html

this recipe? it doesnt seem that bad, but maybe im missing something. i was thinking about making it minus an ingredient or two.

Thanks, I'll try these.


Adapting for microclimate certainly makes sense- I'm going to seek out recipes from local chefs. As for risotto, mine turns out well- it's just the stirring time that has made me abandon it. But thanks for the suggestion!

Fortunately I'm married to a professional chef who before starting her own business cooked at some of the top restaurants in the mid-Atlantic. So I outsource the difficult ones to her, and I just cook Asian, mostly Thai, which are very difficult to screw up :D

Not complicated, but a lot of work - brisket. I do several briskets a year, and in prior years it has always involved a mostly sleepless night tending the fire. This year we got a pellet grill with a hopper that will hold about 28 hours worth of fuel, and I've got all sorts of sensors to alert me when temps reach certain stages - all remotely relayed to my living room. Next weekend it gets tested. :p

I do several things that involve a lot of work -

About twice a year I make a 9 x 14 pan of sour cream chicken enchiladas - lots of prep work here.

I make a carrot cake that takes half a day and seems to involve every bowl and measuring cup I own.

I make a spaghetti salad that is often requested by friends to bring to gatherings - it's made in stages over two days.

I'm not sure I could answer without establishing some parameters....

1. Extensive "prep" - time and effort assembling and preparing ingredients.

2. Attention - Let's face it, risotto and paella (done in a classic open pan over and open fire) require close monitoring, stirring, etc.

3. Time - Brisket and large parts of the pig require many hours in the pit, but the best pitmasters seem to rarely look, simply sit back and open another cold one.

In my case, homemade pasta and serious bread-making are often bypassed because of the combination of time and effort required. On a more regular basis, "Chicken and Dumplings" (not that effete, limp-wristed Pennsylvania version, little better than "Chicken Noodle Soup", but a semi-Southren raw day comfort food sort with eggs yolks, chicken fat and baking powder in the dumplings), homemade Gnocchi or a "Dove Pie", lots of birds to prep, mushrooms, red wine and a generous "Chou" crust are about as 'intensive" as I'll undertake.

I'm simply not into cakes, icing and fillings.....

While not long on ingredients, it is long on trickiness and the need for patience… Hollandaise sauce. I absolutely love Eggs Benedict and once/month, I usually get the urge and make myself a late night plateful. To me, the constant whipping over a hot water bath is cathartic.

I love Hollandaise sauce as well. Ever since I got a copy of Jeff Smith's original “The Frugal Gourmet” I've never bothered to make it the old way. It is so easy; here it is:

Place 4 egg yolks, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp dry mustard, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and a bit of Tabasco in a blender. Blend for 3 seconds, then while the blender is going (this does not quite make sense - but I've always just left the blender on); add 1/4 lb of hot melted butter. The temperature of the butter is the secret: Make it hot without burning it and the Hollandaise sauce will thicken immediately. Not quite the same as the slow way, but pretty damn good - and fast!

I've got a soft spot for cheesecake, and the FG nails that. You'll have to dig that one up.

My favorite meat dish that I make often is Venison steak Diane - not all that complicated, but the version I like takes a bit of time to reduce the sauce. Not to mention the time spent procuring the Venison.

Egg + butter sauces are indeed wonderful. I love bearnaise sauce, with the added tang of the vinegar, pepper and shallots :)

Also, agree with the previous poster that it's very therapeutic to make it whisking over hot water, just something lovely about that. I probably make a batch of the stuff every couple weeks. Heart disease may run in my family, but what a wonderful way to go...

Also, I make salt pork baked beans from scratch from time to time. Not hard, but definitely requires patience (at least two days of slow cooking).

well then... I guess this needs to be my answer.

I make wild mushroom risotto fairly regularly. I've never found it overly hard... just time consuming :)

no... this recipe

http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Rom...Rustica-114360

Same here! I add seared sea scallops with a pesto topping....delicious.

For me, chicken cacciatore is very time consuming and labor intensive.Just pan frying the chicken in batches, setting them aside, preparing the stock and other ingredients, adding the chicken...cooking...then cooking the rice takes up quite some time.

i wont be making that now, maybe ill just go to the restaurant and order it. but if someone wants to make it for me, now thats another story.

thanks missydarlin

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care to share the recipe...?

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Cordero Patagonico al Asador

Grilled Patagonia Lamb, using only hardwoods as fuel. This can take up to 4 hours to grill and that does not include a 2-3 hour fire startup time.

A traditional roast beef lunch. None of the dishes are especially complicated, but landing the beef, roast potatoes, vegetables, gravy and yorkshire pudding at roughly the right time, right temperature and appropriate degree of 'done-ness' is always a challenge. Especially when cooking with one small oven and 5 hungry people demanding their food.

I agree. With a roast, timing is everything.

Mrs BiH has stopped eating beef, so the weekly roast is now chicken which is far more binary in the 'done-ness' stakes.

I find the answer is standing the roast for the full time it takes to cook the Yorkshire pudding. It really doesn't lose that much in temperature. The potatoes can be done with the roast and then refreshed in the oven during the last 15 minutes of baking the pudding (after the pudding has popped).

I agree, however, that the biggest challenge is timing the roast right in the first place, so that you end up with a nice medium-rare.

Agreed. I am always annoyed when I see people on TV suggesting that you stand meat with a foil covering. It's fine if you want beef really well done and don't care that your foil tent will keep it cooking. It will of course, ruin a medium-rare and make those lovely crisp bits go rather limp and soggy.

Polenta in a copper pot over a wood fire. Grinding the corn is a breeze compared to the heat and singed hair. Potato gnocchi.

chick pea pie stuffed with rabbit, mushrooms, garlic and onions.

Starting with the fresh whole rabbit, cleaning it;
fresh chick peas, cleaning them
same for all the spices and flavorings, plus the mushrooms.

Cooking the rabbit on a charcoal grill
Cooking the chick peas in a pressure cooker
Combining and cooking all the vegetables, briefly stewing to combination
After coolong the chickpeas, amshing them and then making the pie
Filling the pie with the recently cooled stewed misture.
Baking the result to 45 minutes.

I left out numerous steps.

We prepare this about twice a month, and draw rave reviews from people who would never touch the thing if they knew in advance it had rabbit.

the recipe was devised by my spouse and I over about ten years of trying and is a melange of French provincial, Moroccan and Brazilian ingredients and approaches.

It requires about five hours beginning to end in work time, about 24 hours elapsed time.

Yes. I don't tent. I would rather have the Roast be a little cooler than overdone and soggy.

I don't make it regularly but I had an unusually tough time making meatloaf.

For me, the hardest part about meatloaf is defrosting it in my microwave. ;)

Most difficult dish...hmm...that would probably be my Tangerine Glazed Ham. It's delish and worth it, but it's a pain in the a$$ to make.

Ditto on the risotto.

But it's actually the constant stirring that ....s it up. I used to go the traditional way on a skillet, but now I just use a heavy pot or saucepan (initial procedure of sweating onions and rice is the same), add half the liquid, use very low heat on the burner (lowest or second lowest setting-the water should be barely simmering), shut the lid, set the timer for 10 minutes and go away, have a taste, then add the rest of the liquid, stir, and then set the timer again for 10 minutes. Takes about another 2 minutes to finish afterwards (add cheese, stir, pour onto plate, add more cheese, serve). This is for a 3/4 cup portion so adjust times as needed.

Of course you can avoid this PITA by par-boiling.

You only need to check on it once every 5 minutes and give the pan a really good shake and give everything a really good stir (to make sure nothing sticks and burns).

You mean chicken roulade?

Apologies grbflyer, I just saw this post.

No, the penne rustica recipe I've made is the true Macaroni Grill recipe. It's a recipe that feeds a lot of people but calls for 8 cups of heavy cream! I just can't do that to myself and family/friends so I use half & half or light cream. Not as rich as the MacGrill dish but nearly as good. Of course, pancetta makes everything taste good.

I made it as a side dish for Xmas one year, and my guests still talk about it. :) The biggest problem with this dish is you can't make it ahead of time; for best results, it needs to be served right out of the oven.

recipe is here: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Rom...Rustica-114360