Kitchen & Bar

On this phone

How to get around

The bar under the name is the map. Swipe it sideways if a destination sits off-screen. On Tonight, the button pinned to the bottom cooks the lead dish.

  1. Tonight — What you can cook first, plus drinks that fit the same shelf.

  2. This week — Five dinners from the shelf, urgent things cooked first.

  3. Shelf — Edit what you actually own.

  4. Written methods — Every dish and drink with a method somebody wrote out.

  5. The pantry — Start from one ingredient: what it does, and everything built on it.

  6. Out of it — What to use instead, judged by the job the missing thing was doing.

  7. Photo review — Review a demo shelf photo and confirm every item before adding it.

  8. Flavor Lab — Pairings with a track record: classic matches and the mixology behind them.

  9. Wild cards — Combinations with no tradition behind them, only shared aroma notes.

  10. Send to Occasion OS — Prepare confirmed shelf availability for Occasion OS.

  11. The field — The gap this layer owns.

Keep it on the home screen

  1. iPhone — tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
  2. Android — open the browser menu, then Install app or Add to Home screen.

After that it opens as Kitchen & Bar, not a browser tab. Inventory stays on this device.

Substitutions · 38 dishes here use it

Out of angostura

Bitters are seasoning for a drink — the salt of the bar. A couple of dashes bind the sweet and the sour into something that reads as one thing instead of two.

Everything below is judged against that job. A swap that covers it is a swap; one that only looks similar is not.

7 of the 38 dishes here that mention angostura list it as optional — 18% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

any other aromatic bitters

one for one

What it gets you
The structural job — the drop of bitterness that stops a sweet drink being only sweet.
What it costs you
The specific spice, which is clove and cinnamon and gentian. Orange bitters go brighter, Peychaud's goes anise.

Instead · 2

a bar spoon of amaro

a teaspoon per two dashes

What it gets you
Bitterness and spice, and it is a legitimate old-fashioned in its own right.
What it costs you
Concentration. Amaro brings sugar and volume, so the drink gets sweeter and longer.

Instead · 3

a strip of citrus peel expressed over the glass

one wide strip

What it gets you
The aromatic lift bitters were providing, which is more than half of what a dash actually does.
What it costs you
The bitterness itself. The drink will taste rounder and a little flabby.

Where you can just leave it out · 7

These dishes list angostura as optional. They were written to work without it, so no ratio is needed and nothing has to be bought.

Where the swap will be tasted · 28

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes angostura a quarter of what is in the pan. Make the swap a decision rather than a repair.

Check what else is in the pan

The company angostura keeps in this library, counted off required ingredients. A swap that argues with the top two is the wrong swap, whatever a chart says.

What to make with angosturaRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions