Quick Read
Summary
Takeaways
- ❖The first 'culinary crime' involved substituting beer with apple juice and whiskey with Shaoxing cooking wine, resulting in a 'salted apple' flavor.
- ❖The second case featured a 'dirty horchata' made with spaghetti instead of rice, maple syrup instead of condensed milk, turmeric and cumin instead of nutmeg and cinnamon, and goat's milk instead of cow's milk.
- ❖The final 'crime' was a strawberry smoothie with added chickpeas and white beans for protein and creaminess, which some hosts surprisingly preferred to the original recipe.
- ❖The hosts' verdicts ranged from light sentencing for accidental substitutions to 'sending them to the moon' for egregious culinary offenses.
Insights
1Case 1: The 'Beer and a Shot' Substitution
A Reddit user substituted a bottle of beer with apple juice and a shot of whiskey with Shaoxing cooking wine. The hosts tasted the concoction, noting the cooking wine's savory, aged sake-like quality.
The hosts described the mixed drink as 'savory apple juice' or 'salted apple,' with one host finding it 'not terrible' and even 'loving it,' while another found it 'ruined apple juice.' They correctly identified the original drink as a beer and a shot.
2Case 2: The 'Dirty Horchata' Abomination
A user created a 'dirty horchata' using spaghetti instead of rice, maple syrup instead of condensed milk, turmeric and cumin instead of nutmeg and cinnamon, and goat's milk instead of cow's milk, topped with a pasta 'straw'.
The hosts immediately detected a 'pasta' taste and an 'Hobby Lobby aisle' smell. They unanimously found the concoction awful, likening the cooking wine to 'green bean juice.' They accurately guessed most substitutions, including spaghetti, maple syrup, turmeric, cumin, and goat's milk. The punishment for this 'crime' was 'sending them to the moon' via a cartoon cannon.
3Case 3: The 'Strawberry Swoon' with Beans
A user added chickpeas and white beans to a standard strawberry banana smoothie for extra protein and creaminess, noting it affected the flavor more than desired.
The hosts immediately identified a 'bean' texture and taste, correctly guessing chickpeas and white beans. Surprisingly, some hosts preferred the bean-infused smoothie over the plain original, citing its 'full body' and 'thickness.' The sentencing was a 'plea deal' involving a public 'smear campaign' via tabloids, followed by a 'sexy whiplash' redemption.
Lessons
- Approach culinary substitutions with caution, as even seemingly minor changes can drastically alter flavor and texture.
- Be open to unexpected flavor combinations; sometimes a 'culinary crime' can lead to a surprisingly enjoyable, albeit unconventional, drink.
- Understand the core properties of ingredients before swapping; cooking wine is not for sipping, and pasta is not a base for horchata.
Notable Moments
The hosts' dramatic reactions to tasting the Shaoxing cooking wine straight, describing it as 'savory' and 'like aged sake' but also 'like a hospital'.
This highlights the strong, unexpected flavor profile of an ingredient typically used for cooking, emphasizing the 'crime' of consuming it directly.
The hosts' collective disgust and immediate identification of 'pasta' in the dirty horchata, especially after seeing the angel hair pasta used as a garnish.
This moment underscores the extreme nature of the substitution and the hosts' accurate, visceral reaction to such an unconventional ingredient in a drink.
The surprising preference of some hosts for the bean-infused strawberry smoothie over the original, praising its 'full body' and 'thickness'.
This subverts expectations and demonstrates that 'culinary crimes' can sometimes lead to unexpectedly palatable, or even preferred, results, challenging traditional taste perceptions.
Quotes
"Shing wine is like cooking wine. Whoa. Put in Chinese like dishes. It's not like a Chinese wine. It's you cook it to um like sort of enhance and sort of take out certain pungent flavors with like another pungent flavor."
"It tastes like a melted donut. Like a cinnamon donut. It's like when you leave the donut in the milk."
"This is a dress and the other one was a woman."
Q&A
Recent Questions
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