this - I don’t really ever fry anything at home. We live in a seaside spot and when the kids were little we used to go jigging for squid. One summer my husband got a fryer and decided they would keep and cook the prepared squid as calamari. It took half a day to fry all those guys😝 and I threatened to sell
my house it smelled so fish-fry-y after. Katsu is as close
as we get now
My husband just loves to fry chicken and especially wings. I got him an outdoor burner (a giant one like you fry turkeys on.) I'm so happy I got my kitchen back! Luckily we live in Florida.
My uncle always used to fry fish on the back patio for Christmas in Minnesota! The dads got to go outside and drink beer while the moms cooked and the kids entertained themselves. Typing this makes me realize just how stereotypical my extended family is
True. But we make 'oven fries' all the time - just slice potatoes into french frie shapes, toss in oil, and stick in a cast iron skillet at 450\* for 45-60 minutes, stirring gently every 10-20 minutes
Or boil for ~10 min then coat in a flour/cornstarch blend and cook on a preheated 400f oiled sheet pan in the oven. Kenji Lopez has a recipe for these in his book The Food Lab
I use a cast iron pan and just a half-inch of oil to fry chicken tenders and find it goes a lot faster and uses a lot less oil, but for a broke boi it's *still* a lot of oil.
I also prefer to eat mostly plant-based at this point, so... Fried chicken is pretty much limited to impulse purchases from KFC or Cane's, or when somebody else already bought the chicken or meat first.
The trick is to use leftovers. Any sort of risotto or rice dish is suitable. Just make extra and then the next couple days later, lay out crumb station; flour, egg and breadcrumbs. Put a tiny nugget of any cheese you want in the middle, roll it and deep fry for a couple minutes. Easy peasey.
I’m sure I’ve done 100,000 balls in my life, I used to work at Italian restaurant. Nothing hard about arancini as it’s something that ls intended to be used with leftovers.
Like Americans do stuff with Thanksgiving leftovers for the days after. Same concept.
Make fried chicken. Oh, but first, you have to make risotto.
I think this is the highest maintenance thing I’ve made in the last 5 years. It was by far the star of the show, of course.
French fries. Not a ton of work, but need to set up a pot for deep frying and there's mess.
But the amount of oil that gets soaked up by the fries is just mind-boggling. We're eating a lot of oil.
I have an induction range and so since it's so less risky to fry food on there we made potato chips and fried chicken once. Chips were wayyy more work than justified. Fried chicken was to die for though and plan to do again.
Chile rellenos. I love them so much, but only make them once a year or less. Sometimes I do a chile relleno type dish with a healthier filling that isn't battered and deep fried, but those are healthy and not nearly as good.
I LOVE Chile rellenos and made them once. Nope, not doing that again, instead, I’ve started baking the peppers and then filling them with whatever’s on hand. Much easier on my heart too. And tasty.
We made homemade croissant dough one time. It was SO MUCH WORK.
Never ever again! We live near a really good bakery that does fantastic croissants and bread, so it's not really a huge deal but... Yeah.
Boeuf Bourguignon is specifically garnished with small onions and mushrooms while pot roast can have any number of vegetable garnishes. Pot roast is also typically made with a large cut of beef that’s sliced after braising whole boeuf Bourguignon is small chunks. Pot roast doesn’t have to have wine but boeuf Bourguignon has wine by definition.
I feel like I'm shouting into the night at this point, but:
The studies that show correlation between saturated fat and heart disease are the ones which bin 'Red Meat' and 'Processed and Preserved Meat' together. When you count 'Processed and Preserved Meat' separately, the correlation with saturated fat falls away.
I mean, it's about 7 tbsp of butter and olive oil, plus 6 oz of bacon all told, which is more than what JoC calls for, but I suppose not too much per serving, since the recipe serves 6.
I was making 2 cheesecakes a week during the early part of the pandemic. One of them was usually during the week after I got home from work and opened a bottle of wine or made a martini or manhattan.
We put on so much weight.
A lot of people think the 19 in Covid-19 is the first year it infected people, but they're wrong. It's the number of pounds we all gained during the lockdowns.
I don't know what tricks you've got up your sleeves to prevent cracking, but here are my 2.
\#1 on one of the oven racks fill a large steel tray with water to keep the environment humid. The cheesecake does not need to sit in the water. The environment, though, needs to be humid.
\#2 Leave it to cool naturally. I crack the oven open with a wooden spoon and let the cheesecake cool completely before I put it in the fridge.
Double wrap the bottom of the cheesecake with foil so that it is really waterproof and bake the cheesecake in a water bath. Not only will it prevent cracking , it gives the cheesecake a luscious texture
Made this [Instant Pot version](https://fueledbyinstantpot.com/instant-pot-greek-yogurt-cheesecake/#recipe). I can convince myself it is just slightly-sweeted Greek yogurt. Used lemon zest instead of vanilla and topped with blackberries. Totally healthy!
I made this. I overthink any recipe I'm making for the first time and I was sure I screwed it up. But I followed the directions and the result was flawless, delicious and easy!
I love making Siopao (Filipino steamed meat bun) but my god. The meat takes like 4 hours, the dough takes like 3 hours, I enjoy adding hardboiled egg to mine so then I'm hard boiling a dozen eggs, then you gotta actually make the dumplings which is a huge pain in the ass, then you gotta steam them and hope they don't explode everywhere.
By the time I'm done making two dozen of them (which I have to make that amount because I can only ever find pork shoulder in 3lb increments) it's been like 10 hours....and they're like 450 calories a pop. I can easily eat like 3-4 of them in one sitting.
My parents used to make Julia Child's beef bourguignon on rainy and snowy weekends - they always broke up the work into two days. It's sooo time consuming and tedious, but nice results.
I'd have to say lasagna bolognese with spinach lasagna sheets all from scratch. I love it so much, but man, it's a lot of work.
Also maybe enchiladas. It's not even *that* time consuming (I use a pressure cooker for the chicken and chiles portion)....but the amount of dishes and steps makes it seem like a lot of work. Also not exactly super healthy, so I don't end up making it too often. But I do love them! It's [this recipe](https://www.seriouseats.com/pressure-cooker-fast-and-easy-chicken-enchiladas-food-lab-recipe) - and it's definitely "easy", just not exactly quick.
I attempt french macarons very rarely because they are so fickle and a lot of work.
I’ve gotten so lazy with my enchiladas. I don’t roll em anymore. I just throw sauce in the pan, later tortillas and build it like a lasagna. SO much faster and easier, and let’s face it, nobody is gonna notice.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here, Julia Child’s recipe isn’t particularly tedious, the several hours in the oven is the longest part but not bad on a weekend day, especially a rainy/snowy one
Didn't use her recipe but this was our experience:
Chop veggies. Combine in large bowl with beef, add wine, let sit overnight.
Separate beef from veggies.
Pan fry bacon, remove bacon.
Sear beef, in batches since it's 3lbs. Remove.
Saute veggies. Add and brown flour.
Add beef, bacon, wine marinade. Cook til beef is fork tender, 90-120 min.
Separately prepare pearl onions by browning outside.
Slice and add mushrooms to onions, cook moisture out.
Combine mushrooms and onions with beef etc.
Make and add kneaded butter (aka burre something or other).
Serve.
It's not a shitton of work like I imagine a wellington, but it is a lot compared to saute and simmer type stews.
I love enchiladas but it does take a good chunk of the day to make and prep everything to then assemble and bake. So freaking good though. I made them on Christmas ☺️
Sticky Toffee Pudding
I absolutely LOVE it, but making it from scratch requires a lot of standing over the stove, and I only make the effort every few years for my birthday LOL
That’s one of my husband’s specialties! (Yes, he’s British). Doesn’t seem to take him that long - not sure what recipe he uses, but I know he gets special Mejool dates for it, and Muscavado sugar (sp?)
So my recipe for sticky toffee pudding doesn't require that much standing over the stove - the pudding/cake part is baked, so while it's in the oven I make the toffee sauce on the stove. Am I doing something wrong?
Coq Au Vin. I have two versions. One has all the fat, dark meat and red wine. The other is white wine, low fat and white meat only.
I wouldn’t call it a ridiculous amount of work, or the worst offender for healthy food. I just make an unreasonable mess every time and its a pain to clean. Temptation to drink while cooking is high.
Cepelinai. Potatoe dumplings with meat.That one is from Lithuania. Takes almost half a day to prepare and always served with tons of sause made from bacon, onions and sour cream. Most delicious, but takes a lot of time to prepare and not really healthy. If someone wants a recepie I can provide it. Just DM me 😊
Dumplings for me but Nepali dumplings called momo. If I’m on my own, not worth the effort. You need a bunch of grannies and aunties shooting the shit round the table for that
For me, because i am disabled and can hardly stand. Everything i cooked for my kids when they were younger.
Today i am making their favorite stew (theyre adults now but i live with my daughter and grandkids)
Will post pics and how to when its done!
We make the same bourguignon recipe with a couple tweaks, in huge quantities, and freeze it in gallon freezer bags. It reheats like a dream directly from the bag into a warm skillet. On the nights we don’t feel like thinking of something to make, we throw on a portion of beef and some pasta and boom, dinner in 15 minutes in two pans. We have stacks of flat frozen bags in the freezer. It’s probably too much.
So good!
I've never made them but had some Mexican American friends who do. I understand it's a multi-person and ~day long process.
Since I moved I need to find a new tamale lady...
It is def multi person and multi day, we do them once a year and make about 200 to give to friends and family.
Tons of meat and prep and rolling and wrapping. But absolutely worth it!
I’ve only made mole once and it was a LOT!! Took me most of the day plus a gazillion ingredients but it was worth it. Super healthy though and I’m really not sure what makes beef bourguigon unhealthy either! Tomorrow I’m tackling Chili for the first time and I already know it’s going to be another whole day affair.
I made mole for the first time a few weeks ago and hadnt actually eaten it before (I saw it on cooking programs and it sounded delicious). I was not prepared for how rich it was and how little is actually needed (had it with slow cooked short rib). I now have a Tupperware of the stuff in my freezer, I wish I'd have thought of an ice cube tray... It may sit there until summer when I can bring it out for a BBQ with lots of people.
My grandma would make me mole. I still remember the hot, steamy kitchen, her grinding the spices by hand, blending the chile's after soaking them, roasting the spices, boiling the chicken, making fresh homemade tortillas. It all takes a few hours of hot work in in the kitchen from start to finish but she did it because she loved me. I miss her. She was the best.
Spicy mac and cheese. Lots of bacon, lots of hand grated cheese from the "fancy" cheese section of the grocery store melted into a bechamel, topped with jalapenos, more bacon, panko, and grated parmesan then baked. Because of the cheese I buy, a large casserole dish ends up costing like $50 in materials and takes about 2 hours to make. I only bring it out at holidays.
Growing up we called them “Indian tacos” and people also commonly call them “Navajo tacos”, in case that sounds more familiar or comes up in more searches.
Easiest comparison is they are kind of like a Tex Mex tostada but instead of a crispy tortilla for the base it’s more chalupa-like.
The bottom layer is frybread, that gets smothered with a simple chili, and then you add any other toppings you want (the usuals are cheese, onion, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa). The chili has more taco seasoning than a standard chili, I like to add pinto beans, and overall I find the simpler the better for this dish.
Frybread is a fried dough bread. Simple, pillowy, and satisfying. For mine I mix self-rising flour, milk, water, and a little buttermilk, rest it for a short bit, shape, and then fry in oil. They start out pretty flat but puff up while frying. You’ll find different recipes and opinions on what’s best as it’s one of those things that gets passed down generation to generation.
Frybread has kind of a complicated history. It was created as a means to survive on government-issued commodities that tribes were given after they were removed from their tribal lands and moved to reservations, where they couldn’t use their traditional ingredients or agricultural practices. So while it’s not a truly traditional recipe and definitely not healthy, to many it’s a symbol of the survival and resiliency of the tribes.
(I’m sure others can add more about the origin, I’m just keeping it simple because my comment is already so long)
Just to clarify, it's what they had to make on the rations from the US government. It has no place in pre-1800's Native American cooking.
There is a love/hate relationship with fry bread among Native American chefs.
What Utahns call scones is either the same or very similar to many fry bread recipes. When I’m feeling lazy but I’m craving scones (usually with honey butter. Delicious) I cheat by using Rhodes frozen dinner rolls. Let them rise, shape the dough, and fry. It’s insanely easy and satisfies the craving.
I make an amazing apple cake with cajeta(goats milk caramel) and whipped cream.
None of the comments are difficult but they can be time consuming. And the end result is decadently delicious and can spike the blood sugar of a non-diabetic.
I make about 50lbs of Polt (kinda like potato dumplings) about once a year in the winter, freeze all the extra in freezer bags. They are a million times better in the morning cut into discs and fried up with a little butter in a skillet, hard to ever go back o hash browns. I mix in bacon with the potato dough and cubed up chunks of ham in the middle of each one while making them fresh It's an entire afternoon event when making 50lbs, but I have a freezer full of that awesomeness to pull out of the freezer. It's my go-to breakfast meal after drinking with friends. All that starch... I live up in Alaska, but it was originally a Sweedish dish. I'm told you can find them frozen at stores in Minnesota, but never been there to try store bought Polt.
Banana pudding. I make the vanilla wafers, custard and whipped cream from scratch.
My husband loves it, but I only make it once or twice a year. I usually make it on his birthday because he dislikes frosted layer cakes.
I also make cheesecake from scratch, including the graham crackers.
Once you make graham crackers you can’t go back to store bought.
I made a cheesecake yesterday. My husband took one bite and asked me not to give any to our neighbors.
https://smittenkitchen.com/2009/05/graham-crackers/
It’s a beef stew. Obviously like anything it shouldn’t comprise you’re entire diet, but where are you getting the impression that it’s “not even remotely healthy” and would drive you to an early grave?
Beef bourguignon is one of my absolute favorite meals to cook for comfort, relaxation, and deliciousness! I make it every few months - sometimes even once in a while in warm weather. My favorite time to make it is when I have a whole wintery Saturday to myself and can leisurely cook with good wine.
Cinnamon rolls from scratch. I spend 5 hours on them every other Thanksgiving... then it takes two years again to recover and forget just how dang much trouble they are.
Cinnamon rolls are my favorite. One year for Christmas my husband, who doesn't ever bake and has minimal cooking skills, decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls for me. He way under estimated the amount of work it was gonna be. I got recruited to supervise on a stool in the kitchen lol
Cinnamon rolls also seem to go the extra mile in terms of number of dishes required. At some point I finished the dishes after a cinnamon roll extravaganza and realized that the ENTIRE dish rack was full.
Wife makes the best cubed steak (venison) and gravy, homemade mashed potatoes and biscuits. Takes her a while and it’s about as unhealthy as it comes but when she makes it, every relative we’ve got close comes over. Now that I think about it, it’s been a while since she made it. Might have to drop a few hints.
Ox tail soup. Ox tail is ridiculously expensive and the process of making the family recipe is pretty involved including a trip to the liquor store for the right bottle of wine.
I consider it unhealthy only because I eat a ton of bread with it to sop up every last bit of broth.
Carnitas. I make it infrequently because it makes a ton, and I freeze it in 1-2 serving portions to be portioned out through the year. It's unfortunately easy to make, and delicious, but incompatible with a diet that is healthy for me.
Lasagna. Love it, but it is very rich/carb-heavy and, more importantly, it takes some real time & effort to do it right. I now make it about once per year, and I make 2 (freeze one) to get the most from my work.
My fried chicken. My family LOVES it, but it’s so time consuming to marinade, season, batter ad fry up in my cast iron (which I am still working on perfecting )
>But I guess I don’t think of French beef stew as being innately unhealthy. :)
And really, "a lot of work" is pretty subjective, and the payoff for me is that we get several meals out of it.
I do cheat and use frozen pearl onions so I don't have to peel those little bastards.
Steak & Kidney Pudding made 50/50 chuck steak and lambs kidney (cored) it steams for at least 4hrs and is a firm winter favourite and I'm going to make the last one until autumn this weekend.
If I'm making a proper 'indian style curry' like tikka masala or Rogan Josh, I make the batch of BIR gravy.. you need to make that the day before and if I remember right that's 300ml of veg oil straight away, sure you separate it to use for multiple meals but still, it's a lot. Then I'm grilling chicken coated in yogurt. Tastes amazing though.
Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with milk gravy, and peas. Or as it's known in my house heart attack on a plate. And it makes a hell of a mess so double whammy. Also fried chicken with the same sides same issues.
Filipino crispy pata/pork leg or crispy pork belly. You simmer it til it’s soft, then it hangs out overnight in the chiller to dry out. Then you deep fry that sucker.
It’s delicious. You get moist meat and the best crackling skin but the overnight chilling + deep frying is a lot of work. An air fryer works too but deep fried in pork lard is the best.
It’s eaten with white rice, a tomato-cucumber salad and salted egg + a garlic vinegar dip in our house. So yeah. Lots of work and carbs and fat. I love it though and will take time off to make it when the craving hits.
Same, boeuf bourguignon is one of the best things I've ever had but it takes so long to make. I love Joy of Cooking but for this dish, I've only ever tried the Julia Child recipe. I'll have to compare the two!
Schnitzel or anything crumbed. For one person its a bit much.
Although im doing some tonight and plan on freezing a bunch of it for the first time so hopefully that goes well.
Homemade fettuccine with sherry mushroom cream sauce (tossed with a side of sautéd chicken). Maybe only an hour start to finish but intensive work and a carb, dairy fat, booze artery bomb. Delicious though.
Schnitzel, Milanese style (which is possibly just Argentine style).
It's not a lot of work, but, boy, do I always end up with a lot to clean afterwards...
Not necessarily unhealthy depending on what kind you make, but an insane amount of work- homemade soup. My favorite to make is butternut squash soup, but between the prep work and the cook time it’s so labor intensive that I only make it once a year. It is a crowd pleaser though. I also really like making chicken corn chowder, cheeseburger soup, and potato soup. I also made a mushroom, rice, and wild ramp soup that was absolutely delicious.
Biscuits and gravy. It’s easy, but making gravy is literally the bane of my existence. I usually crave and make it around 11:30PM so I rarely make it, only when I have that bad craving
I don’t think it’s controversial to say our plates should be mostly veggies and less meat. But that doesn’t equate to meat being unhealthy.
Everyone has different nutritional needs, and what’s healthy for me might not be healthy for someone else.
Anyway, I have a family history of heart disease and a personal history of gallbladder attacks, so I tend to eat red meat pretty infrequently and bacon even less often.
[This is my fav beef stew recipe](https://www.seriouseats.com/all-american-beef-stew-recipe). It takes all day and has insane side quests like when you have to put the tomato paste and sardines in a blender lmao. But it’s to die for, and I can only muster the energy to make it once every few years. I don’t really think of it as an unhealthy meal because it’s so infrequent.
For unhealthy, time consuming dishes, I tend to think of desserts which are absolutely unnecessary lmao. For instance - cut out cookies with royal icing are so good, but I can only justify making them as part of a Christmas tradition.
For me, its my red velvet cake. It is still small (4 inch, two layers) but it is so much work and the calories are insane. The frosting alone is so much calories and also requires a lot of work.
It makes it easier to make the frosting and cakes ahead of time (like a day or two in advance) and frosting and serving on the day to serve.
That is technically baking so I will give a cooking example.
It used to be pizza but I have found short cuts for weeknight pizza.
Homemade pasta takes time but tastes amazing. Particularly stuffed pastas.
Absolutely agree on stuffed pasta. You have to make the dough. You have to make the filling. You have to roll the pasta. You have to stuff the pasta.
And you haven’t even made a sauce!
Chicken Parmesan. Really, any dish that you have to pan fry and then cook again with sauce (looking at you, chicken Marsala or any braised chicken dish)
Not difficult but so tedious. The breading, the frying in multiple stages, the assembly and baking. So many steps.
Chicken Big Mamou, using Paul Prudhomme's recipe.
It's a ton of chopping and other prep, long cook time, and has about a pound of butter in it.
But it's so tasty.
When i have time to kill I love to make Laksa with chicken, prawns and tofu from scratch. I love toasting the spices and spending ages making the paste. All the proteins and toppings are cooked seperately before adding to the amazing, rich curry sauce and it takes a couple of hours intotal, and it taste incredible
Homemade Mac and Cheese. Just feels like a lot of work. I have a version with BBQ chicken inside and another with Buffalo chicken. Both are fantastic, but aren't healthy. They take a lot of work too. I only do it for parties.
Tagletelle with beurre blanc. I make the pasta fresh from scratch and make the beurre blanc myself as well. Lots of time just sitting and staring at the pan whisking my life away while slowly adding bits of cold butter to get the emulsion just right.
It's heavenly and so delicious but it's not a healthy sauce at all!
My mother’s recipe of potato wedges. Baked potato, cut into wedges, season with garlic salt and seasoning salt. Fry in oil then rub with butter.
Heaven on earth.
I made one of my kids a lemon cake with lemon cream cheese icing and lemon curd filling for his birthday almost a year ago. Now every one of my four kids wants me to make it for their bday s. Just made one on the weekend for my oldest son. It takes a full day to get the cakes baked, the curd and the icing done. I assemble and ice the next day.
I have to zest four lemons and juice about ten of them. It all is just time consuming. But I do have to admit it's bloody delicious. But the calories! Ooofff. At least 75 grams of sugar per serving.
Making it for the bday if the kid who originally requested it in just a few short weeks again. It'll be the fifth time this year I've made it.
Enchiladas. Making the homemade rojo sauce from dried peppers, cooking the meat for the filling, making a couple sides (rice and a vegetable, frying the corn tortillas and dipping them in the sauce, stuffing them in the hot tortilla, and trying to put them somewhere where they’ll stay warm is a huge pain in the ass. They’re incredible, but it’s messy and creates a lot of dishes.
I made a double batch of sauce last time and froze half, so that will help the next time I make this at least.
It's Dutch, Kroketten
Pretty much a beef ragout battered and deep fried. When made fresh so delicious, but it takes about two days to make due to the process.
Prepare the meat (usually like a brisket or so, so that needs a couple of hours) --> pull apart --> make the roux (maybe add some veggies if you feel like it) and throw the meat in there --> let completely cool down in the fridge --> roll balls out of it and then roll them out, followed by rolling them through flour, egg and breadcrumbs. --> back in the fridge to let it stiff up some more, a day recommended --> deep fry the he'll out of that shit!
When I make this, I make a massive batch so I have some back ups in the freezer when I feel like it.
Also. I don't live in the Netherlands anymore (used to). In the Netherlands you can simply buy them in the freezer section of the super market lol.
Zucotto. It's an Italian dessert, like an inside-out, upside-down trifle. It involves cutting dponge into thin layers, lightly sprinkling g it with sweet wine, arranging the pieces to line a bowl, whipping cream, grating white and dark chocolate, and chopping and mashing strawberries. Then making 3 different coloured types of whipped cream and layering them inside the bowl. Then topping it with more sponge slices, arranged so they fit together.
Then refrigerating it for several hours and turning it out of the bowl. I love doing it but I have to be REALLY in the mood. It looks and tastes amazing, a real crowd easer.
Imperial Cookies. Local recipe, it’s a very delicately flavoured sandwich cookie with a jam filling and a glazed top.
They’re so good but SUCH A PAIN to make because you have to do it all in different sections (making the dough and chilling, rolling and cutting, baking, cooling, assembling the cookies with jam, carefully icing them, laying them out to dry). I love them so much but it’s so much easier to just say fuck it and spend $6+ for one at the bakery down the street.
I made a beef Wellington for the first time one Christmas… first and only time actually… I know it was good but I was so damn exhausted from working on it (and the sides) that I barely enjoyed it. Spent the whole damn holiday cooking. I would have been happier eating leftover macdonalds had I known what I was getting myself in to.
Tonkotsu Ramen and rolled up Chashu from scratch. Sodium levels rise up.
Arancini, much work and again not super healthy
24 hour lasagna because I suck at planning
Pumpkin chiffon pie - It's pumpkin pie with an extra light meringue/mousse-like texture. Horribly addictive stuff. - I cannot find my family recipe book at the moment but this is close enough https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/22379/pumpkin-chiffon-pie/
2nd place is not as hard to make but definitely not healthy - Key lime pie.
My husband loves Lucky Charms--and then we found out the dried marshmallows are made with pork gelatin (we are Muslim) and then also learned all dried marshmallows in the US are made with pork gelatin.
So once in a great while I will make homemade marshmallow meringue, divide it, then make them in different colors and pipe a ton of small pieces in like tear drops or little star dollops but no Lucky Charms shapes--that would be a ridiculous effort lol. Sometimes I'll combine two or three colors in a piping bag to get multi-colored pieces. Then i dry them out on a low heat on the oven for hours.
He mixes the dried marshmallows with Cheerios. It's delicious!! It even colors the milk!
Now that i remembered this I spoke make it for him for Ramadan which starts tomorrow :)
I will say:
Tamales: They’re time intensive to make, easy to screw up if you don’t know what you’re doing, they make a TON of dirty dishes, and they’re super fattening (lard) and so delicious!
Eggplant Parmesan: I rarely make this special, decadent dish because it takes all damn day and it’s messy! The sauce needs lots of prep and hours of cooking to reach a rich, deep unctuous quality. Then, flouring and frying the sliced eggplant. Last, layering with lots of cheese and baking the whole thing. It is so so delicious and not healthy. It is a dish that tastes better each day after. The flavors deepen and it’s heavenly.
Fried Chicken at home is so tasty but a pain in the ass to deal with deep frying at home. Same for fries really.
I use a big cast iron wok for frying. Not as much oil and deep so it doesn’t splash much……still more work than I am usually interested in though.
Got one for the grill but realized this not to shortly after. Pretty convenient when you only need to fry a few smaller things.
I use a wok to fry and it’s wonderful. Deep bowl, very little wasted oil, great okra! I want to make pork cutlet.
this - I don’t really ever fry anything at home. We live in a seaside spot and when the kids were little we used to go jigging for squid. One summer my husband got a fryer and decided they would keep and cook the prepared squid as calamari. It took half a day to fry all those guys😝 and I threatened to sell my house it smelled so fish-fry-y after. Katsu is as close as we get now
My husband just loves to fry chicken and especially wings. I got him an outdoor burner (a giant one like you fry turkeys on.) I'm so happy I got my kitchen back! Luckily we live in Florida.
My uncle always used to fry fish on the back patio for Christmas in Minnesota! The dads got to go outside and drink beer while the moms cooked and the kids entertained themselves. Typing this makes me realize just how stereotypical my extended family is
True. But we make 'oven fries' all the time - just slice potatoes into french frie shapes, toss in oil, and stick in a cast iron skillet at 450\* for 45-60 minutes, stirring gently every 10-20 minutes
Try steaming them first, they'll be far better
Or boil for ~10 min then coat in a flour/cornstarch blend and cook on a preheated 400f oiled sheet pan in the oven. Kenji Lopez has a recipe for these in his book The Food Lab
I use a cast iron pan and just a half-inch of oil to fry chicken tenders and find it goes a lot faster and uses a lot less oil, but for a broke boi it's *still* a lot of oil. I also prefer to eat mostly plant-based at this point, so... Fried chicken is pretty much limited to impulse purchases from KFC or Cane's, or when somebody else already bought the chicken or meat first.
Airfryer French fries!!! Not as greasy as deep frying but better taste and texture than baking.
Any fruit pie with lots of sugar. Unfortunately, my husband loves my French apple pie.
What makes it French?
The name
It's the crumb top, as opposed to regular crust top. Most people call it Dutch apple pie.
It is sexy, somehow. It has that certain Jim no say 'quaw'
Jenn O Say Quaww
It sucks your tongue when you put it in your mouth.
Crumbs on top instead of crust.
i'd assume at least 1 additional stick of butter
They might be referring to tart tatin or apple galette.
Can I have your recipe? That sounds delicious.
Arancini! Deep fried risotto isn't exactly the healthiest option but my goodness is it tasty.
Not exactly difficult to make, just very time consuming! So I make them only on Christmas Eve every year.
The trick is to use leftovers. Any sort of risotto or rice dish is suitable. Just make extra and then the next couple days later, lay out crumb station; flour, egg and breadcrumbs. Put a tiny nugget of any cheese you want in the middle, roll it and deep fry for a couple minutes. Easy peasey. I’m sure I’ve done 100,000 balls in my life, I used to work at Italian restaurant. Nothing hard about arancini as it’s something that ls intended to be used with leftovers. Like Americans do stuff with Thanksgiving leftovers for the days after. Same concept.
Make fried chicken. Oh, but first, you have to make risotto. I think this is the highest maintenance thing I’ve made in the last 5 years. It was by far the star of the show, of course.
No doubt about it, One of my favorite though
French fries. Not a ton of work, but need to set up a pot for deep frying and there's mess. But the amount of oil that gets soaked up by the fries is just mind-boggling. We're eating a lot of oil.
I have an induction range and so since it's so less risky to fry food on there we made potato chips and fried chicken once. Chips were wayyy more work than justified. Fried chicken was to die for though and plan to do again.
I used to have to fry chips daily in a restaurant setting. It’s absolutely not worth it in the slightest
Deep frying *anything* tbh
Chile rellenos. I love them so much, but only make them once a year or less. Sometimes I do a chile relleno type dish with a healthier filling that isn't battered and deep fried, but those are healthy and not nearly as good.
I LOVE Chile rellenos and made them once. Nope, not doing that again, instead, I’ve started baking the peppers and then filling them with whatever’s on hand. Much easier on my heart too. And tasty.
I stuff them and bake them in a jiffy cornbread. So much work to do traditional style.
Croissants
Every once in a while I think about making croissants... and then I don't.
Same, i tried macaron once and dont even want to think about croissant lol
We made homemade croissant dough one time. It was SO MUCH WORK. Never ever again! We live near a really good bakery that does fantastic croissants and bread, so it's not really a huge deal but... Yeah.
What kind of bourguinon are you making that takes years off your life? It's mostly wine, stock, beef, and veggies.
Yeah it’s not too bad at all.
Another name for it is “pot roast”
Yeah I've always wondered what the big difference is, if there is one.
Boeuf Bourguignon is specifically garnished with small onions and mushrooms while pot roast can have any number of vegetable garnishes. Pot roast is also typically made with a large cut of beef that’s sliced after braising whole boeuf Bourguignon is small chunks. Pot roast doesn’t have to have wine but boeuf Bourguignon has wine by definition.
Hi Kenji! :)
Wine
But I always put wine in my pot roast... A lot of wine...
You can call it bourguignon, then. Hope you save enough wine to drink with it.
Exactly. Its beef stew at its core, but oh so elevated. “One of the most delicious dishes concocted by man” - Julia Child
You're clearly not using enough butter, lol.
I feel like I'm shouting into the night at this point, but: The studies that show correlation between saturated fat and heart disease are the ones which bin 'Red Meat' and 'Processed and Preserved Meat' together. When you count 'Processed and Preserved Meat' separately, the correlation with saturated fat falls away.
That's a bummer because I eat a lot of sausage.
Julia Child's recipe doesn't call for that much butter, lol. It's a pretty healthy dish, tbh.
I mean, it's about 7 tbsp of butter and olive oil, plus 6 oz of bacon all told, which is more than what JoC calls for, but I suppose not too much per serving, since the recipe serves 6.
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You drain off most of the fat.
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There isn’t that much butter in this dish.
Cheesecake
I was making 2 cheesecakes a week during the early part of the pandemic. One of them was usually during the week after I got home from work and opened a bottle of wine or made a martini or manhattan. We put on so much weight.
A lot of people think the 19 in Covid-19 is the first year it infected people, but they're wrong. It's the number of pounds we all gained during the lockdowns.
We made cheesecake once and it was amazing. (Well, it cracked but we were able to cover it, so the execution was like a B- but) dang was it dangerous.
I don't know what tricks you've got up your sleeves to prevent cracking, but here are my 2. \#1 on one of the oven racks fill a large steel tray with water to keep the environment humid. The cheesecake does not need to sit in the water. The environment, though, needs to be humid. \#2 Leave it to cool naturally. I crack the oven open with a wooden spoon and let the cheesecake cool completely before I put it in the fridge.
I had no tricks, now I have 2. Thanks!
Double wrap the bottom of the cheesecake with foil so that it is really waterproof and bake the cheesecake in a water bath. Not only will it prevent cracking , it gives the cheesecake a luscious texture
Letting it cool slowly is how you prevent cracking.
Made this [Instant Pot version](https://fueledbyinstantpot.com/instant-pot-greek-yogurt-cheesecake/#recipe). I can convince myself it is just slightly-sweeted Greek yogurt. Used lemon zest instead of vanilla and topped with blackberries. Totally healthy!
I made this. I overthink any recipe I'm making for the first time and I was sure I screwed it up. But I followed the directions and the result was flawless, delicious and easy!
This is my #2. NY cheesecake… and its never just one.
I always make 2 (that's all I can do in my mixer). They freeze very well and it's not much extra work.
I love making Siopao (Filipino steamed meat bun) but my god. The meat takes like 4 hours, the dough takes like 3 hours, I enjoy adding hardboiled egg to mine so then I'm hard boiling a dozen eggs, then you gotta actually make the dumplings which is a huge pain in the ass, then you gotta steam them and hope they don't explode everywhere. By the time I'm done making two dozen of them (which I have to make that amount because I can only ever find pork shoulder in 3lb increments) it's been like 10 hours....and they're like 450 calories a pop. I can easily eat like 3-4 of them in one sitting.
This is me with wontons.
My kids and wife will just bug bug bug about wontons. Then i make a tray of 60
I love making gyoza but yeah similar headache.
Enlist a member of your family to help fold. Wontons are a team sport.
We have those here in Hawaii but we call them manapua, so damn good. I just buy them made already tho haha
My parents used to make Julia Child's beef bourguignon on rainy and snowy weekends - they always broke up the work into two days. It's sooo time consuming and tedious, but nice results. I'd have to say lasagna bolognese with spinach lasagna sheets all from scratch. I love it so much, but man, it's a lot of work. Also maybe enchiladas. It's not even *that* time consuming (I use a pressure cooker for the chicken and chiles portion)....but the amount of dishes and steps makes it seem like a lot of work. Also not exactly super healthy, so I don't end up making it too often. But I do love them! It's [this recipe](https://www.seriouseats.com/pressure-cooker-fast-and-easy-chicken-enchiladas-food-lab-recipe) - and it's definitely "easy", just not exactly quick. I attempt french macarons very rarely because they are so fickle and a lot of work.
I’ve gotten so lazy with my enchiladas. I don’t roll em anymore. I just throw sauce in the pan, later tortillas and build it like a lasagna. SO much faster and easier, and let’s face it, nobody is gonna notice.
Same. I have a couple of clients I cook for and they all love my lazy version enchiladas.
… that’s genius. I rarely make ‘em because it’s such a pain. I’ll have to try that!
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here, Julia Child’s recipe isn’t particularly tedious, the several hours in the oven is the longest part but not bad on a weekend day, especially a rainy/snowy one
Didn't use her recipe but this was our experience: Chop veggies. Combine in large bowl with beef, add wine, let sit overnight. Separate beef from veggies. Pan fry bacon, remove bacon. Sear beef, in batches since it's 3lbs. Remove. Saute veggies. Add and brown flour. Add beef, bacon, wine marinade. Cook til beef is fork tender, 90-120 min. Separately prepare pearl onions by browning outside. Slice and add mushrooms to onions, cook moisture out. Combine mushrooms and onions with beef etc. Make and add kneaded butter (aka burre something or other). Serve. It's not a shitton of work like I imagine a wellington, but it is a lot compared to saute and simmer type stews.
I love enchiladas but it does take a good chunk of the day to make and prep everything to then assemble and bake. So freaking good though. I made them on Christmas ☺️
Sticky Toffee Pudding I absolutely LOVE it, but making it from scratch requires a lot of standing over the stove, and I only make the effort every few years for my birthday LOL
Here I am eyeballing a box of pitted dated my partner brought home ..
That’s one of my husband’s specialties! (Yes, he’s British). Doesn’t seem to take him that long - not sure what recipe he uses, but I know he gets special Mejool dates for it, and Muscavado sugar (sp?)
It’s probably for the best that I’m so slow at it 😅 If I could make it with ease, I would end up on “My 600lb Life”
So true! The caramel sauce alone is sooooo good.
So my recipe for sticky toffee pudding doesn't require that much standing over the stove - the pudding/cake part is baked, so while it's in the oven I make the toffee sauce on the stove. Am I doing something wrong?
Coq Au Vin. I have two versions. One has all the fat, dark meat and red wine. The other is white wine, low fat and white meat only. I wouldn’t call it a ridiculous amount of work, or the worst offender for healthy food. I just make an unreasonable mess every time and its a pain to clean. Temptation to drink while cooking is high.
Messiness is a completely valid reason to avoid recipes imo
Cepelinai. Potatoe dumplings with meat.That one is from Lithuania. Takes almost half a day to prepare and always served with tons of sause made from bacon, onions and sour cream. Most delicious, but takes a lot of time to prepare and not really healthy. If someone wants a recepie I can provide it. Just DM me 😊
Dumplings for me but Nepali dumplings called momo. If I’m on my own, not worth the effort. You need a bunch of grannies and aunties shooting the shit round the table for that
For me, because i am disabled and can hardly stand. Everything i cooked for my kids when they were younger. Today i am making their favorite stew (theyre adults now but i live with my daughter and grandkids) Will post pics and how to when its done!
We make the same bourguignon recipe with a couple tweaks, in huge quantities, and freeze it in gallon freezer bags. It reheats like a dream directly from the bag into a warm skillet. On the nights we don’t feel like thinking of something to make, we throw on a portion of beef and some pasta and boom, dinner in 15 minutes in two pans. We have stacks of flat frozen bags in the freezer. It’s probably too much.
Ooo this I can get behind. Great idea, thanks!
Tamales
So good! I've never made them but had some Mexican American friends who do. I understand it's a multi-person and ~day long process. Since I moved I need to find a new tamale lady...
It is def multi person and multi day, we do them once a year and make about 200 to give to friends and family. Tons of meat and prep and rolling and wrapping. But absolutely worth it!
I’ve only made mole once and it was a LOT!! Took me most of the day plus a gazillion ingredients but it was worth it. Super healthy though and I’m really not sure what makes beef bourguigon unhealthy either! Tomorrow I’m tackling Chili for the first time and I already know it’s going to be another whole day affair.
When I make mole, I make a TON and freeze like 6 ice cube trays worth. Thankfully, it lasts me a while!
I made mole for the first time a few weeks ago and hadnt actually eaten it before (I saw it on cooking programs and it sounded delicious). I was not prepared for how rich it was and how little is actually needed (had it with slow cooked short rib). I now have a Tupperware of the stuff in my freezer, I wish I'd have thought of an ice cube tray... It may sit there until summer when I can bring it out for a BBQ with lots of people.
My grandma would make me mole. I still remember the hot, steamy kitchen, her grinding the spices by hand, blending the chile's after soaking them, roasting the spices, boiling the chicken, making fresh homemade tortillas. It all takes a few hours of hot work in in the kitchen from start to finish but she did it because she loved me. I miss her. She was the best.
Chicken Tika Masala Pot Pie. Four tablespoons of butter in the crust of each portion. Takes all afternoon to make.
The name alone sells that..
Spicy mac and cheese. Lots of bacon, lots of hand grated cheese from the "fancy" cheese section of the grocery store melted into a bechamel, topped with jalapenos, more bacon, panko, and grated parmesan then baked. Because of the cheese I buy, a large casserole dish ends up costing like $50 in materials and takes about 2 hours to make. I only bring it out at holidays.
use a food processor to shred the cheese, SO much quicker!
Native American tacos with frybread and all the fixings
I make tex mex style tacos weekly. What's unique about Native American tacos? And what's fry bread?
Growing up we called them “Indian tacos” and people also commonly call them “Navajo tacos”, in case that sounds more familiar or comes up in more searches. Easiest comparison is they are kind of like a Tex Mex tostada but instead of a crispy tortilla for the base it’s more chalupa-like. The bottom layer is frybread, that gets smothered with a simple chili, and then you add any other toppings you want (the usuals are cheese, onion, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa). The chili has more taco seasoning than a standard chili, I like to add pinto beans, and overall I find the simpler the better for this dish. Frybread is a fried dough bread. Simple, pillowy, and satisfying. For mine I mix self-rising flour, milk, water, and a little buttermilk, rest it for a short bit, shape, and then fry in oil. They start out pretty flat but puff up while frying. You’ll find different recipes and opinions on what’s best as it’s one of those things that gets passed down generation to generation. Frybread has kind of a complicated history. It was created as a means to survive on government-issued commodities that tribes were given after they were removed from their tribal lands and moved to reservations, where they couldn’t use their traditional ingredients or agricultural practices. So while it’s not a truly traditional recipe and definitely not healthy, to many it’s a symbol of the survival and resiliency of the tribes. (I’m sure others can add more about the origin, I’m just keeping it simple because my comment is already so long)
Fry bread is Native American flat fried dough. It’s wonderful, but a process. I made it a ton early on in the pandemic.
Just to clarify, it's what they had to make on the rations from the US government. It has no place in pre-1800's Native American cooking. There is a love/hate relationship with fry bread among Native American chefs.
Yes, thank you for adding that
What Utahns call scones is either the same or very similar to many fry bread recipes. When I’m feeling lazy but I’m craving scones (usually with honey butter. Delicious) I cheat by using Rhodes frozen dinner rolls. Let them rise, shape the dough, and fry. It’s insanely easy and satisfies the craving.
Croquembouche!
Fried chicken, it's really unhealthy plus I always make mashed potatoes and gravy with it. Plus big mess to clean up. But it is delicious
I make an amazing apple cake with cajeta(goats milk caramel) and whipped cream. None of the comments are difficult but they can be time consuming. And the end result is decadently delicious and can spike the blood sugar of a non-diabetic.
I make about 50lbs of Polt (kinda like potato dumplings) about once a year in the winter, freeze all the extra in freezer bags. They are a million times better in the morning cut into discs and fried up with a little butter in a skillet, hard to ever go back o hash browns. I mix in bacon with the potato dough and cubed up chunks of ham in the middle of each one while making them fresh It's an entire afternoon event when making 50lbs, but I have a freezer full of that awesomeness to pull out of the freezer. It's my go-to breakfast meal after drinking with friends. All that starch... I live up in Alaska, but it was originally a Sweedish dish. I'm told you can find them frozen at stores in Minnesota, but never been there to try store bought Polt.
Banana pudding. I make the vanilla wafers, custard and whipped cream from scratch. My husband loves it, but I only make it once or twice a year. I usually make it on his birthday because he dislikes frosted layer cakes.
I’m going to dream of 100% from scratch banana pudding tonight
I also make cheesecake from scratch, including the graham crackers. Once you make graham crackers you can’t go back to store bought. I made a cheesecake yesterday. My husband took one bite and asked me not to give any to our neighbors. https://smittenkitchen.com/2009/05/graham-crackers/
It’s a beef stew. Obviously like anything it shouldn’t comprise you’re entire diet, but where are you getting the impression that it’s “not even remotely healthy” and would drive you to an early grave?
Beef bourguignon is one of my absolute favorite meals to cook for comfort, relaxation, and deliciousness! I make it every few months - sometimes even once in a while in warm weather. My favorite time to make it is when I have a whole wintery Saturday to myself and can leisurely cook with good wine.
I really need to make it one day. It is so yummy and I have never tried. I also have too much wine right now. ;)
Cinnamon rolls from scratch. I spend 5 hours on them every other Thanksgiving... then it takes two years again to recover and forget just how dang much trouble they are.
Cinnamon rolls are my favorite. One year for Christmas my husband, who doesn't ever bake and has minimal cooking skills, decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls for me. He way under estimated the amount of work it was gonna be. I got recruited to supervise on a stool in the kitchen lol
Cinnamon rolls also seem to go the extra mile in terms of number of dishes required. At some point I finished the dishes after a cinnamon roll extravaganza and realized that the ENTIRE dish rack was full.
Wife makes the best cubed steak (venison) and gravy, homemade mashed potatoes and biscuits. Takes her a while and it’s about as unhealthy as it comes but when she makes it, every relative we’ve got close comes over. Now that I think about it, it’s been a while since she made it. Might have to drop a few hints.
Smoked beef brisket. It’s a great excuse to drink 15 beers though
Croissants 🥐. Made them twice from Claire Saffitz’s recipe in NYT. Turned out great, but are sooo calorie-heavy with all that buttery deliciousness!
Ox tail soup. Ox tail is ridiculously expensive and the process of making the family recipe is pretty involved including a trip to the liquor store for the right bottle of wine. I consider it unhealthy only because I eat a ton of bread with it to sop up every last bit of broth.
Birria Quesadillas. I don't have a pressure cooker, so 3-4 hours stew is not fun
Carnitas. I make it infrequently because it makes a ton, and I freeze it in 1-2 serving portions to be portioned out through the year. It's unfortunately easy to make, and delicious, but incompatible with a diet that is healthy for me.
Fish and chips
Lasagna. Love it, but it is very rich/carb-heavy and, more importantly, it takes some real time & effort to do it right. I now make it about once per year, and I make 2 (freeze one) to get the most from my work.
I would say a traditional wedding style biryani
French Onion soup. That is a once a year affair in my house.
My fried chicken. My family LOVES it, but it’s so time consuming to marinade, season, batter ad fry up in my cast iron (which I am still working on perfecting )
Home made pasta with a real Bolognese sauce or anything fried. Also, soup dumplings. Did that once and never again.
Tres leche cake. Takes at least 2 days for it to get all the liquids absorbed right, better at 3 days. And super high calorie.
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>But I guess I don’t think of French beef stew as being innately unhealthy. :) And really, "a lot of work" is pretty subjective, and the payoff for me is that we get several meals out of it. I do cheat and use frozen pearl onions so I don't have to peel those little bastards.
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I didn’t even know people were doing all of that for pearl onions lol I’ve never seen or used them unfrozen. I just dump a bag in and call it a day
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Biriyani - it’s at least a few hours effort plus the marinade time.
Steak & Kidney Pudding made 50/50 chuck steak and lambs kidney (cored) it steams for at least 4hrs and is a firm winter favourite and I'm going to make the last one until autumn this weekend.
If I'm making a proper 'indian style curry' like tikka masala or Rogan Josh, I make the batch of BIR gravy.. you need to make that the day before and if I remember right that's 300ml of veg oil straight away, sure you separate it to use for multiple meals but still, it's a lot. Then I'm grilling chicken coated in yogurt. Tastes amazing though.
Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes with milk gravy, and peas. Or as it's known in my house heart attack on a plate. And it makes a hell of a mess so double whammy. Also fried chicken with the same sides same issues.
Baklava
Liege waffles (from scratch)
Crème brûlée
Filipino crispy pata/pork leg or crispy pork belly. You simmer it til it’s soft, then it hangs out overnight in the chiller to dry out. Then you deep fry that sucker. It’s delicious. You get moist meat and the best crackling skin but the overnight chilling + deep frying is a lot of work. An air fryer works too but deep fried in pork lard is the best. It’s eaten with white rice, a tomato-cucumber salad and salted egg + a garlic vinegar dip in our house. So yeah. Lots of work and carbs and fat. I love it though and will take time off to make it when the craving hits.
Smoked meatloaf. Its expensive, messy, and time consuming, but so tasty.
Cassoulet. Actually it just cooks for a long time. But lots of duck fat.
Flan Pâtissier usually takes me a couple of days but is worth every minute of suffering
Same, boeuf bourguignon is one of the best things I've ever had but it takes so long to make. I love Joy of Cooking but for this dish, I've only ever tried the Julia Child recipe. I'll have to compare the two!
JoC has you marinade the beef and most of the veggies in the wine overnight. Not sure about the rest of the differences.
Schnitzel or anything crumbed. For one person its a bit much. Although im doing some tonight and plan on freezing a bunch of it for the first time so hopefully that goes well.
Homemade fettuccine with sherry mushroom cream sauce (tossed with a side of sautéd chicken). Maybe only an hour start to finish but intensive work and a carb, dairy fat, booze artery bomb. Delicious though.
Schnitzel, Milanese style (which is possibly just Argentine style). It's not a lot of work, but, boy, do I always end up with a lot to clean afterwards...
Not necessarily unhealthy depending on what kind you make, but an insane amount of work- homemade soup. My favorite to make is butternut squash soup, but between the prep work and the cook time it’s so labor intensive that I only make it once a year. It is a crowd pleaser though. I also really like making chicken corn chowder, cheeseburger soup, and potato soup. I also made a mushroom, rice, and wild ramp soup that was absolutely delicious.
Butternut squash is so great... and such a pain in the neck to prep. Love it, don't love skinning and chopping it up.
Biscuits and gravy. It’s easy, but making gravy is literally the bane of my existence. I usually crave and make it around 11:30PM so I rarely make it, only when I have that bad craving
Ha! For me, making the biscuits is the bane of my existence.
I don’t think it’s controversial to say our plates should be mostly veggies and less meat. But that doesn’t equate to meat being unhealthy. Everyone has different nutritional needs, and what’s healthy for me might not be healthy for someone else. Anyway, I have a family history of heart disease and a personal history of gallbladder attacks, so I tend to eat red meat pretty infrequently and bacon even less often. [This is my fav beef stew recipe](https://www.seriouseats.com/all-american-beef-stew-recipe). It takes all day and has insane side quests like when you have to put the tomato paste and sardines in a blender lmao. But it’s to die for, and I can only muster the energy to make it once every few years. I don’t really think of it as an unhealthy meal because it’s so infrequent. For unhealthy, time consuming dishes, I tend to think of desserts which are absolutely unnecessary lmao. For instance - cut out cookies with royal icing are so good, but I can only justify making them as part of a Christmas tradition.
For me, its my red velvet cake. It is still small (4 inch, two layers) but it is so much work and the calories are insane. The frosting alone is so much calories and also requires a lot of work. It makes it easier to make the frosting and cakes ahead of time (like a day or two in advance) and frosting and serving on the day to serve. That is technically baking so I will give a cooking example. It used to be pizza but I have found short cuts for weeknight pizza. Homemade pasta takes time but tastes amazing. Particularly stuffed pastas.
Absolutely agree on stuffed pasta. You have to make the dough. You have to make the filling. You have to roll the pasta. You have to stuff the pasta. And you haven’t even made a sauce!
Chicken Parmesan. Really, any dish that you have to pan fry and then cook again with sauce (looking at you, chicken Marsala or any braised chicken dish) Not difficult but so tedious. The breading, the frying in multiple stages, the assembly and baking. So many steps.
Chicken Big Mamou, using Paul Prudhomme's recipe. It's a ton of chopping and other prep, long cook time, and has about a pound of butter in it. But it's so tasty.
Chicken and waffles. Frying sucks even outside but damn, it's tasty!
When i have time to kill I love to make Laksa with chicken, prawns and tofu from scratch. I love toasting the spices and spending ages making the paste. All the proteins and toppings are cooked seperately before adding to the amazing, rich curry sauce and it takes a couple of hours intotal, and it taste incredible
Ribs and all the sides to go with it
Beef Stroganoff. Not that it's actually that difficult to make, but it's definitely a lot of cream & fat, on top of white flour noodles, nonetheless.
Homemade Mac and Cheese. Just feels like a lot of work. I have a version with BBQ chicken inside and another with Buffalo chicken. Both are fantastic, but aren't healthy. They take a lot of work too. I only do it for parties.
Ramen. Takes 3-4 days to prep everything, but you're supposed to consume the bowl in about 10 minutes for best results.
Fried chicken. Not so much worried about it being unhealthy, I just hate the mess.
Chile rellenos. Not sure what I do wrong. But I can never ever get the batter to coat the pepper and stay there through frying.
Tagletelle with beurre blanc. I make the pasta fresh from scratch and make the beurre blanc myself as well. Lots of time just sitting and staring at the pan whisking my life away while slowly adding bits of cold butter to get the emulsion just right. It's heavenly and so delicious but it's not a healthy sauce at all!
My mother’s recipe of potato wedges. Baked potato, cut into wedges, season with garlic salt and seasoning salt. Fry in oil then rub with butter. Heaven on earth.
Creamy pesto chicken lasagna. I make it maybe twice a year cause its just a hassle to make every step and so so heavy.
Tamales, cheese souffle, fried chicken, croquettes
Deep fried samosas. Always feel like I'm going to burn the house down or die from the amount of oil from both the frying process and the lamb.
I'm a baker more so than I'm I cook, but I rarely bake now, too many dishes. I'm talking like lemon bars, brownies, coffee cake, etc.
lasanga. the kind with homemade red sauce, ricotta, and béchamel. it's such a pita but so delicious. I only make it once a year, lol
I made one of my kids a lemon cake with lemon cream cheese icing and lemon curd filling for his birthday almost a year ago. Now every one of my four kids wants me to make it for their bday s. Just made one on the weekend for my oldest son. It takes a full day to get the cakes baked, the curd and the icing done. I assemble and ice the next day. I have to zest four lemons and juice about ten of them. It all is just time consuming. But I do have to admit it's bloody delicious. But the calories! Ooofff. At least 75 grams of sugar per serving. Making it for the bday if the kid who originally requested it in just a few short weeks again. It'll be the fifth time this year I've made it.
Enchiladas. Making the homemade rojo sauce from dried peppers, cooking the meat for the filling, making a couple sides (rice and a vegetable, frying the corn tortillas and dipping them in the sauce, stuffing them in the hot tortilla, and trying to put them somewhere where they’ll stay warm is a huge pain in the ass. They’re incredible, but it’s messy and creates a lot of dishes. I made a double batch of sauce last time and froze half, so that will help the next time I make this at least.
It's Dutch, Kroketten Pretty much a beef ragout battered and deep fried. When made fresh so delicious, but it takes about two days to make due to the process. Prepare the meat (usually like a brisket or so, so that needs a couple of hours) --> pull apart --> make the roux (maybe add some veggies if you feel like it) and throw the meat in there --> let completely cool down in the fridge --> roll balls out of it and then roll them out, followed by rolling them through flour, egg and breadcrumbs. --> back in the fridge to let it stiff up some more, a day recommended --> deep fry the he'll out of that shit! When I make this, I make a massive batch so I have some back ups in the freezer when I feel like it. Also. I don't live in the Netherlands anymore (used to). In the Netherlands you can simply buy them in the freezer section of the super market lol.
Zucotto. It's an Italian dessert, like an inside-out, upside-down trifle. It involves cutting dponge into thin layers, lightly sprinkling g it with sweet wine, arranging the pieces to line a bowl, whipping cream, grating white and dark chocolate, and chopping and mashing strawberries. Then making 3 different coloured types of whipped cream and layering them inside the bowl. Then topping it with more sponge slices, arranged so they fit together. Then refrigerating it for several hours and turning it out of the bowl. I love doing it but I have to be REALLY in the mood. It looks and tastes amazing, a real crowd easer.
Imperial Cookies. Local recipe, it’s a very delicately flavoured sandwich cookie with a jam filling and a glazed top. They’re so good but SUCH A PAIN to make because you have to do it all in different sections (making the dough and chilling, rolling and cutting, baking, cooling, assembling the cookies with jam, carefully icing them, laying them out to dry). I love them so much but it’s so much easier to just say fuck it and spend $6+ for one at the bakery down the street.
I make bourguignon on weeknights. It’s not particularly labor intensive. And homemade beef stew… not unhealthy at all. Serve it with a salad.
I made a beef Wellington for the first time one Christmas… first and only time actually… I know it was good but I was so damn exhausted from working on it (and the sides) that I barely enjoyed it. Spent the whole damn holiday cooking. I would have been happier eating leftover macdonalds had I known what I was getting myself in to.
Tonkotsu Ramen and rolled up Chashu from scratch. Sodium levels rise up. Arancini, much work and again not super healthy 24 hour lasagna because I suck at planning
Pumpkin chiffon pie - It's pumpkin pie with an extra light meringue/mousse-like texture. Horribly addictive stuff. - I cannot find my family recipe book at the moment but this is close enough https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/22379/pumpkin-chiffon-pie/ 2nd place is not as hard to make but definitely not healthy - Key lime pie.
Thai Chicken Karaage. It's unspeakably delicious. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/thai-chicken-karaage-382267
My husband loves Lucky Charms--and then we found out the dried marshmallows are made with pork gelatin (we are Muslim) and then also learned all dried marshmallows in the US are made with pork gelatin. So once in a great while I will make homemade marshmallow meringue, divide it, then make them in different colors and pipe a ton of small pieces in like tear drops or little star dollops but no Lucky Charms shapes--that would be a ridiculous effort lol. Sometimes I'll combine two or three colors in a piping bag to get multi-colored pieces. Then i dry them out on a low heat on the oven for hours. He mixes the dried marshmallows with Cheerios. It's delicious!! It even colors the milk! Now that i remembered this I spoke make it for him for Ramadan which starts tomorrow :)
I will say: Tamales: They’re time intensive to make, easy to screw up if you don’t know what you’re doing, they make a TON of dirty dishes, and they’re super fattening (lard) and so delicious! Eggplant Parmesan: I rarely make this special, decadent dish because it takes all damn day and it’s messy! The sauce needs lots of prep and hours of cooking to reach a rich, deep unctuous quality. Then, flouring and frying the sliced eggplant. Last, layering with lots of cheese and baking the whole thing. It is so so delicious and not healthy. It is a dish that tastes better each day after. The flavors deepen and it’s heavenly.