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 · 128 dishes here use it

Out of chili flakes

Heat you can dose. Bloomed in oil they spread through everything; scattered at the table they stay sharp and sit on top. Same flakes, two different dishes.

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

51% of the 128 dishes here that mention chili flakes already list it as optional. Before you look for a replacement, check whether you are in one of them.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

cayenne

a quarter as much

What it gets you
The heat, cleanly and evenly, and it disperses through a sauce instead of sitting in it.
What it costs you
The specks and the slow release. Flakes bloom in oil and give heat in waves; cayenne arrives all at once.

Instead · 2

a fresh chili, sliced

one small chili per half teaspoon of flakes

What it gets you
Heat plus a green, grassy note that dried flakes lost when they dried.
What it costs you
Predictability. Two chilies off the same plant can differ by a factor of five, so it goes in early and gets tasted.

Instead · 3

hot sauce

a teaspoon per half teaspoon of flakes, added at the end

What it gets you
Heat and acid together, which is often an improvement rather than a compromise.
What it costs you
Water and vinegar going into a dish that did not ask for either. In a pan sauce that matters.

Where you can just leave it out · 65

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

Showing 30 of 65. The rest are on the ingredient page.

Where the swap will be tasted · 8

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes chili flakes 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 chili flakes 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 chili flakesRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions