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 · 31 dishes here use it

Out of fish sauce

Salt and deep savoriness, and it smells far stronger than it tastes once it is in something. A teaspoon disappears into a dish and takes the flatness with it.

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

6 of the 31 dishes here that mention fish sauce list it as optional — 19% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

soy sauce plus a little rice vinegar

one for one on the soy, a few drops of vinegar per tablespoon

What it gets you
The salt and the glutamate, which covers most of a stir fry or a marinade.
What it costs you
The funk, and the specific savory length that makes a Vietnamese dipping sauce work.

Instead · 2

worcestershire

one for one

What it gets you
Closer than people expect — it is anchovy, tamarind and vinegar, which is fish sauce with a British accent.
What it costs you
Sweetness and spice it brings along, and it is thinner on salt.

Instead · 3

a mashed anchovy fillet

one fillet per tablespoon

What it gets you
The fermented-fish depth at full strength, which is the part nothing else does.
What it costs you
The liquid, and it needs to melt into hot fat or it stays a lump in the pan.

Where you can just leave it out · 6

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

Check what else is in the pan

The company fish sauce 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 fish sauceRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions