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 · 46 dishes here use it

Out of cream

Fat that carries flavor and will not split the way milk does, which is why it can be reduced hard. It also flattens seasoning, so a cream sauce almost always wants more salt and more acid than you expect.

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

8 of the 46 dishes here that mention cream list it as optional — 17% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

full fat coconut milk

one for one

What it gets you
Fat, body and a sauce that thickens on reduction, plus it whips if it is chilled overnight.
What it costs you
The flavor, which lands loudly in a savory dish that was not expecting it.

Instead · 2

milk plus butter

three quarters cup milk and a quarter cup melted butter per cup of cream

What it gets you
The fat content, which covers a sauce, a soup or an enriched dough.
What it costs you
The emulsion. This will not whip and it can break under hard heat, because the fat is not suspended the way it is in cream.

Instead · 3

creme fraiche or sour cream, stirred in off the heat

three quarters as much

What it gets you
Richness plus acid, which is often the better finish for a pan sauce anyway.
What it costs you
Neutrality, and both will split if the pan is still boiling when they go in.

Where you can just leave it out · 8

These dishes list cream 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 · 19

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