Epic Kitchen Fail

In my opinion, part of being a cook is being able to admit when you've messed something up. Sometimes, it's something you can fix- not cooking something long enough or adding a little too much of an ingredient...and other times, there are just kitchen disasters. There's only one phrase that can describe your worst kitchen nightmares: epic failure. There's one or two epic fail moments in my kitchen that I've been willing to admit to- I'm gonna share them so you can learn from my mistakes!

1. Oven fried shrimp will surely be as good as fried shrimp. Heh, not. Like I said in my post about panko bread crumbs, I wanted to try breading shrimp and baking them to make oven fried shrimp. It was one of my worst ideas. I used the same breading process I used with the chicken- egg, flour, egg, bread crumbs. The shrimp were too small though- it was difficult to bread them! Once I was done, I had layers of eggy flour and bread crumbs all over my hands. And, unfortunately, shrimp cook way faster than bone-in chicken breasts...and by the time the shrimp were done, the bread crumbs were not toasted. The final result- kinda weird tasting shrimp with a soggy coating. Not a good choice. What can you learn from this little story? Well, don't try breading seafood or meat that cooks quickly in the oven. Instead, stick to bone-in chicken breasts or pork chops.
2. Honey Lemon Chicken is best left to Asian restaurants. I tried making honey lemon chicken because it sounded delicious to me :) Another mistake. I really had no idea how to go about making honey lemon chicken. I decided to lightly bread (egg white and flour) some pieces of chicken, cook them in some oil on the stove, then add in a mix of honey and lemon juice. The result? The chicken was cooked fine, but it tasted like nothing. The honey really overpowered the lemon juice, and without any kind of pepper or vegetables or anything, it tasted like floured chicken. It wasn't my biggest disaster, but it was epic fail-worthy because I convinced myself I was going to make wonderful sweet, yet sour chicken like you would find at a Chinese restaurant. The lesson here is the importance of seasoning and other flavorings. If I were to make this again, I'd fry some red pepper flakes in the oil first to give it a little spice, then I would add more lemon juice, a little lemon zest, a little soy sauce, and a dash of corn starch to the sauce. This would make it a little thicker, and make it less likely to just be absorbed by the chicken. Also, I'd add in onions and green peppers for more flavor. Another lesson to learn- dishes don't always turn out perfectly your first time out. If you're making up your own recipe, chances are good it won't be perfect your first time out. Make sure you don't set your expectations too high, or you may be somewhat disappointed.
3. Wow, all I taste is salt and rosemary. This is another story about learning how to correctly season a dish. I made up my own chicken recipe, with rosemary (my favorite herb) and chicken stock (to make it taste, like Rachael Ray would say, "like it's been cooking all day"). What it turned out to be was a mess. The chicken tasted ridiculously salty (it turns out that's probably why Rachael Ray never uses chicken stock as a sauce), and the tons of rosemary I added gave a ridiculously overpowering rosemary flavor. This made for a rather unpleasant combo. Besides learning to season right, this is also a story about learning about ingredients. If you like an herb, make sure you learn how to use it correctly- some are strong- like rosemary, oregano, and some mints. Others, like dill, thyme, and basil, are a little weaker. There are plenty of Italian recipes that involve large amounts of basil, but very few require large amounts of rosemary. Chicken stock, when you buy it from the store, is incredibly salty and though it adds a lot of flavor, it is not great as the only ingredient in a sauce. Instead, stick to using stock in combination with other ingredient.

Alright, that's about all the fail I wanna admit to right now :) There are surely more stories, but I'll save those for another time. Just remember- there's a lesson to be learned from even your worst kitchen mistakes!