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 · 16 dishes here use it

Out of kale

Tough enough to need help. Cooked it wants longer than spinach; raw it wants to be sliced thin and rubbed with oil and salt until it softens, and skipping that is why raw kale has a reputation.

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

3 of the 16 dishes here that mention kale list it as optional — 19% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

collards or chard

one for one by weight

What it gets you
A sturdy green that braises long, fries in oil and takes garlic and chili the same way.
What it costs you
Chard cooks in half the time and collards want twice, so the timing moves either way.

Instead · 2

cabbage, sliced thin

one for one by weight

What it gets you
A brassica that survives dressing, roasting and long cooking, with more sweetness.
What it costs you
The leafiness and the mineral bitterness that a kale salad is actually built on.

Instead · 3

spinach

one and a half times the weight

What it gets you
A green in the pan in ninety seconds.
What it costs you
Everything structural. Spinach cannot be massaged, cannot be dressed ahead and disappears to nothing.

Where you can just leave it out · 3

These dishes list kale 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 · 5

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