Anonymous wrote:Mine is chicken. I am so paranoid about undercooking it that I tend to dry it out. Every time I make chicken, I have to make a sauce to combat the dryness. I swear, I must have had a terribly case of food poisoning when I was little that I've mentally blocked out.

+1. Except for me, it is ALL meat, not just chicken. And my DH has the same food poisoning paranoia, so if I don't overcook something he'll refuse to eat it. Then he refuses to eat the burned stuff anyway.

Anonymous wrote:You guys, rice!? 1 cup rice + 2 cups water = 3 cups cooked rice. Nonstick pot, pat of butter, turn it to simmer when it boils, cover and let it go for 20 minutes.

Baking is mine. I can't bake for shit. No matter how good I coat a pan, my cakes stick. I get crumbs in my icing. My fruit pies look like crime scenes. Forget ANYTHING that involves a meringue or a candy thermometer or a "soft ball" stage.

Please don't use a non-stick pot. For anything.

Lemon bars - the lemon curd never set right and it was an awful and time consuming mess. I'm never trying to make them again.

Stir fry. Sounds ridiculous, but I never make it because I have too much in the pan or too little oil or too hot or not hot enough. Ridiculous.

That said I do have a no fail pie crust recipe from my mom when she was in 4H in the 50's. I'll share if folks are interested.

Anonymous wrote:What food is considered doable, even simple, to others, that you can not seem to get right? Mine is white rice - I always burn it. Yours?

Get a rice cooker.

Another vote for gravy. It rarely turns out right. I just buy it at Whole Foods or Trader Joes for Thanksgiving.

I have a rice cooker for my rice but I don't have a smart enough rice cooker to get brown rice right.

I have an issue when I make fried potatoes. I put the lid on to steam them so they get tender inside but then I kick the heat up a bit to brown and crisp the outsides and about 70% of the time, they end up burned to some degree.

Scrambled eggs require a hot pan. I slide back the cooked part and roll the pan around to let the liquid egg fill the empty part of the pan. Turn the pan off about a minute before you think they're done then toss around to cook the rest.

I've only done bread a couple of times and it's been eh.

I'm petrified of steak. Overcooking a luscious piece of meat makes me sad so I never try.

I am a great cook, I swear I can make anything... except rice. Staple food the rest of the world can make and I simply can't get it right and have no idea why.

Timing meat. It always seems to take longer to cook than I plannned, and then the rest of the meal is waiting.

Anonymous wrote:To 11:28-- I'm half Persian and it took me several years to perfect making a pot of rice with the delicious ta dig (golden crunchy awesome rice). If you want, I can type my method of preparing rice so you can give it a whirl without getting sneered at by your MIL!

Thanks. Of course I'm willing to try again, but after all the instruction and all the failures I've had, it may be hopeless. It's not so much the tadig that trips me up, it's the perfectly fluffy not too moist rice itself. I actually make quite a good egg/yogurt/saffron tadig.

Oh well. I comfort myself knowing that my khorest karafs is better than my MIL's!

pie crusts. I make delicious hideous pie crusts

Anonymous wrote:

biscuits can go fuck themselves.

I am stealing this line. I've been on DCUM for an embarrassingly long time and this is one of best I've seen. Esp. as I'm going to use this line in contexts that have nothing to do with biscuits.

Love it!

Brisket. DH and I have tried many times, many ways, and it's never good.

The frozen pillsbury biscuits are way better than the canned ones, BTW.

Banana cream pie! Turns out to be a watery, goopy mess every time. My apple pies are delish, but banana cream pie mocks me!