FAIL! (photos & stories of recipe mishaps and oopses)

[_John_]

This one was with baking, but it was a pretty serious facepalm. So I was making blondie's because I like them and haven't made them in years, and part of the recipe is brown butter which for those who don't know is made from clarified butter. So to clarify butter you heat it up, it bubbles, you skim the foam off the top, let the solids settle to the bottom, then pour out the goodness in between.
After 10 minutes there was almost no foam, but I was ready to get moving so I poured it into a bowl to let the layers separate, which they did not do. I put it back in the pan with more heat and still no bubbles, another 10 sitting on the counter and no separation. In the process of explaining this to my wife (which is typically when I find my screwup) I realized that we were out of butter and I had been trying to clarify a stick of margarine.

For future reference if you ever need to clarify margarine, it ain't gonna happen.

[JeffJ]

That's hilarious.

[David Parrish]

It really is.

[Huskee]

Lol

[_John_]

I tried to clarify a stick of margarine today, and that's....ok



And doggone it people like me.


Hopefully you guys are old, and cool, enough to remember the reference...

[Huskee]

I have a corned beef flat in the fridge from many weeks ago, expiration date 5/31/15, for pastrami. I was going to desalinate overnight last night (Tues) rub this morning, smoke Friday, steam Saturday.

I pull it out and this is what it looks like. Tight balloon. Ever so faint pungent aroma leaking through the plastic.

FAIL!





On the bright side I have my first ever tri-tip coming tomorrow. It is an American Kobe tri-tip from SRF. I plan to dry brine it as soon as it's thawed and reverse sear it with oak Saturday evening. I think that will more than make up for my pastrami plan fail.

[DWCowles]

Huskee that tri-tip will be some good eats

[Spinaker]

chop err up to feed it to the hounds!!!!

[abscam]

My Chuckie was a fail - too dry!

[Lost in China]

My gf wanted to do Sichuan BBQ, and she had a special charcoal burner sent from her hometown at great expense, as well as some special meat characteristic of that area. The burner is in two great iron pieces and the meat is in a large chunk the size of a pork butt. I go out to the balcony to get the fire started in my chimney, although I don't know if it'll work with so few pieces. You can also get an idea of the general crappy charcoal briquets I have to work with in China. Kingsford Competition this ain't.



I get the surprise of my life when she tells me to bring the burner indoors after it's lit. Is she insane? Barbecue? Inside? That's a contradiction in terms. That's tempting fate. That's inviting the white-hot lightning bolt of retribution straight from the hand of Zeus himself. I look up the word for suicide by charcoal on my phone and show it to her. (This is actually a thing in Asia, people will seal off a room and light a burner to kill themselves with carbon monoxide...it's gone to the point where there's a specific word for it.) She's unfazed and insists that she can't barbecue outside on the balcony, she's got to do it inside. So...well I open all the windows and doors and take the lower unit to the kitchen table.



This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy. The charcoal is still giving off smoke and I just know it's going to stain the walls and my apartment will smell like smoke forever. With all the windows open there's definite air movement going on, but still. This is just wrong in a thousand ways and every sense in my body rebels against it. I tell her this and she tells me not to worry, this is how they do it back home all the time. Sigh.

She puts the top pan on and starts spooning her mixture in. This includes the special meat she got. This part is interesting, I had never seen Sichuan style BBQ before. I'm not alone, either, none of my Chinese friends had heard of it so I'm not a crazy man.



I get the idea now. The lower unit heats the center of the pan, and that's where you cook your food. After it's done, you move it to the sides of the pan, where cooking stops, and the diners fetch bits of food out with chopsticks. Of course, this being a Sichuan style, there are tons of chili peppers in there to spice things up. It looks to be highly social and entertaining when you've got a table full of people surrounding it. Typical Chinese!

I think it's not so much what Americans would think of as "barbecue", it's more of a kind of constantly changing stir-fry. Still, I've gotten what's going on, am eating, and starting to enjoy myself. "Hey, we'll have to have some friends over for this soon," I think to myself. Here's a closeup of what's going on in the pan for all you food porn addicts. The reddish meat is her special Sichuan beef. It tastes as good as it looks.



This is where it happens. Hubris. If you're familiar with the classics you'll know what I'm talking about. Heroes of Greek myth always tend to excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis. I am doing barbecue indoors, enjoying it, and intending to repeat it. This is sacrilege, this is profanity, this is deeply disrespectful. I am under a delusion that I am equal to the gods of barbecue and I can do whatever I want. I have offended them, and the punishment will be swift.

Do you know what nemesis means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. In this case:



This is why you don't barbecue indoors. Nothing good will come of it. I knew it, I was aware of it, I knew I shouldn't have done it, and I did it anyway. Luckily it fell away from me and I wasn't injured by the many, many thick razor-sharp glass shards now lying on the floor. In addition to a ruined meal, I now have a large, dangerous mess to pick up and somehow get rid of. And I have to buy a new kitchen table for my landlord. The heat of the charcoal weakened the cheap glass and the heavy iron grill right in the middle did the rest.



Don't let this lesson go to waste. After witnessing a tragic character suffering because of his hubristic actions, the readers or audience may fear that they may face the same fate if they indulge in the same actions and possess the same hubristic attitude. Keep barbecue outdoors where it belongs!

[FireMan]

Man, that was unbelievable.

[fzxdoc]

What a great post, Lost in China, I felt I was there. The minute I scrolled over the photo of that charcoal burner set on a glass table, I thought to myself, "This is not such a good idea." By the time I got to the end of your post, I hated being right about that thought!

What a mess. And what an expensive BBQ dinner. OTOH, you should sell your post as an article to a BBQ magazine. It's that good.

Kathryn

[The Burn]

Agreed - great writing

[Lost in China]

Huh! I never thought of that. Any magazine suggestions?

[Lowjiber]

Great post and pictures. I didn't see that one coming, but it ended terribly.

[_John_]

Lost in China I was reading and thought maybe you posted it in the wrong section, food looked great, but since this is a fail page I got really nervous about the table! Then it happened. How the heck did you clean up the coals/get them to not burn everything up? I love Chinese food and this made me hungry, I would love to learn to cook it but I learn better in person. The closest thing I have here is a Mexican kid who works at Panda Express.

I hope you still try it, but on something a little more sturdy.

[OneCharmingPig]

Last Saturday I decided to make myself a steak. I purchased a nice, big ribeye, dry-brined it, and had my gas grill cooking it indirectly at about 200 until it got to the temp I'd be able to reverse sear it with direct heat. It started raining pretty hard, hard enough where I decided I'd be better off doing the searing inside on the stove.

So searing on the grill, I usually apply some vegetable oil on the meat with a brush before putting it on the grates. I had a few minutes to go and decided to be proactive, and figured by starting the stove I'd save some time. I also figured that just pouring some oil in the pan while it heated up would be a good idea, as I wouldn't have to wash my used brush and could just place the meat on the oiled pan. I made 2 mistakes before later realizing what I had done. 1) I was a little careless with how much oil I put in, and 2) Keeping in mind (1), I also put the stove on full blast. About 2 minutes later, without thinking, I plopped the steak on the scorching, oily pan, and oil flew EVERYWHERE, including all over my left arm. The unexpectedness and quickness with which it all happened, combined with the fact it was literally burning oil, it is probably the most painful thing I've ever experienced. To make matters worse, my smoke detector started going off. So I was dealing with that, cursing in pain, and still trying to make sure I didn't ruin the steak.

Here's a picture of my arm from the day after, and here's a picture of the meal. The good news is, the steak turned out great, so all in all it was still a good day. I wish I took a picture of the steak after cutting it to show the uniform (so close to perfectly so, my best effort yet) medium-rare color, but I was slightly busy.

Be careful out there.

[boftx]

As Ron White put it, the smoke detector is NOT a cooking timer.

[TraumaLlama]

"To make matters worse, my smoke detector started going off. So I was dealing with that, cursing in pain, and still trying to make sure I didn't ruin the steak."
AND YOU DIDN'T! Super points to you, I'm dying picturing the chaos like some Goofy-comic from the old days haha

[_John_]

That looks painful. Always said a smoke alarm is just a cheering section. GO GO GO GO!!!

[Steve Vojtek]

Still, I've gotten what's going on, am eating, and starting to enjoy myself. "Hey, we'll have to have some friends over for this soon," I think to myself. Here's a closeup of what's going on in the pan for all you food porn addicts. The reddish meat is her special Sichuan beef. It tastes as good as it looks.

At least it wasn't a total loss - you got to taste some...Great post I really enjoyed it...

[Yno]

Some years ago I had friends over for a nice rib roast cooked on the rotisserie. Part way through cooking, my mother's cat (not the brightest of the species) took a bed jump and hurt her leg. My brother and I had to take her to the emergency vet clinic, and while there, I got a call from my girlfriend - "The roast is on fire, what should we do?" Now I have a fire extinguisher by the grill, but I was not quite as well prepared in those days. I told her to turn off the burners and turn on the hose. Yup, that put out the fire. It was a strange looking chunk of meat, but it was pretty good once you cut off the toasty parts.

[Frankenstein]

Back in February, my fiance was on a fish kick and I decided to make blackened catfish one weekend. We were out of paprika but there was snow and ice everywhere so for whatever reason I decided it was a good idea to just replace with Cayenne..because of course they are both red so what could go wrong?

If you aren't aware, the point of blackening is to sear the spices at high heat to the brink of smoking to drawing out their oils and penetrate the meat. If you misjudge time and temp you wind up scorching it and putting those oils in the air....that's right I made weaponized catfish. Both of our eyes were painfully burning, uncontrollable coughing, basically had to stop drop and roll to get away from the deadly smoke cloud. One we got the pan off the burner and the windows and doors open (in a snowstorm!) it started to get bearable. Then out came both dogs and the cat wimpering and coughing which made me feel horrible. The fish was the hottest thing I have ever tasted and I had to throw it out, but my fiance gets bonus points for eating all of hers with a smile on her face.

And on a related fail, I always wore glasses and finally got contacts 2 years ago. A month after the catfish incident I learned one more thing you should not do after slicing jalepenos.

[Huskee]

Lol, that's awesome.

[Yno]

Years ago, my first wife made deviled eggs, but grabbed the cayenne pepper instead of the paprika. Man, were they toasty!

[Meathead]

My fails, like the chicken here, all come from wandering off to multi-task. Here are some fubars from readers http://amazingribs.com/BBQ_articles/...ue_fubars.html

[Steve Vojtek]

I tried A.B.T's first time tonight. Usually i get things right but i slipped tonight and created this:


By far not the good looking stuff Ernest created in the 'show us what you're cooking' post. LOL. My home-made bacon was too short and as much as i tried to skewer it all together the bacon shrunk on the grill and just did it's own thing... Naughty bacon ... It all looked good when i put it on the grill.. Note to myself - i need to make longer bacon for wrapping in the future - but not a total loss though ... I thought they tasted awesome and will be making 'em again for sure ..... with lessons learned..

[Steve Vojtek]

More of a ' presentation ' fail than anything Huskee . Also i learned not to rub my eyes after handling the jalapeno's even after washing my hands.. LOL Disposable gloves!! - i do have them...

[Frankenstein]

About once a year I discover a new and exciting thing you should NOT do after handling jalepenos. Rubbing your eyes is one of the less painful... Now I use the grocery bag as a glove, mostly because I am a cheapskate.

[Steve Vojtek]

Frankenstein i don't even wanna guess what the more painful ones are LOL...

[_John_]

Well it's been a while, not to happy to be posting back here again, but maybe it will help me learn my lesson.

So for my mom and niece's birthday I was asked to do a brisket, I look for any excuse to do one so I was happy to oblige. Trimmed up, tried a new wet rub from the New Weber Grilling which was different, and hung and twiddled my thumbs, as is standard operating procedure with the PBC. Oh, I did get to use oak which was nice for a change. I am surrounded by forest and oak everywhere, but I have only been able to find seasoned oak in one place.

I go to work on some sides, check the PBC which has been steady 275 for 4 hours. My plan was to be 160 at 4 hours, I was 159. I wrapped and put it back in, but it was a little tight, I had to kind of wedge the end in there (if I were watching myself doing this as a movie, I would notice that this was foreshadowing). I went ahead and put in the probe and closed it up. Slowly climbed 8 degrees over the next hour, then when I check an hour after that it is 203, but my other probes say I have been 275 the whole time, so I was pretty surprised. As I walk out I hear a fairly loud noise like a pot boiling over on the stove. I get around to the PBC and it looked like it was puking, brown bubbly liquid was oozing out into a burnt puddle about 18" in diameter. I pull the brisket off and notice that where I had wedged the end in that it tore a little hole in the foil and all that wonderful juice was just pouring out.
I wrapped it in a towel to let it rest, and in the process of moving it, any juice that was still in there ran out. Also in the excitement I didn't think to probe for temp anywhere else, and part of doing that is checking for tenderness which I didn't do either.
After 2 hours of rest, and finishing my sides, which turned out excellent, I drove the 10 minutes to my sisters house and get a cutting table and a knife. A butter knife would have been sharper, so the only way I could get slices was to make them a half inch thick. Flavor was good, but it was terribly dry, and even though it rested plenty, it just wasn't cooked long enough (still not sure how it got to 203 so fast), that combined with the thick slices made it tough to chew.

So while not a total failure, it was close enough, tasted like something I would get at a restaurant. 4 hours later the PBC is still running in the 200's, I am not looking forward to whatever i'm going to be faced with tomorrow.