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 · 23 dishes here use it

Out of maple

Sweetness with a mineral, slightly smoky edge that sugar does not have. It thins a sauce as it sweetens it, so something has to reduce afterward.

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 23 dishes here that mention maple list it as optional — 30% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

honey

one for one

What it gets you
The same pourable sweetness and the same behavior in a glaze, a dressing or a batter.
What it costs you
The caramel-and-wood note, replaced by something floral. Pancakes will notice.

Instead · 2

brown sugar dissolved in a little water

a heaping tablespoon of brown sugar in two teaspoons of water per tablespoon

What it gets you
Molasses sweetness with body, which is close enough for a glaze or a marinade.
What it costs you
The specific flavor, and it lacks maple's thinness on the tongue.

What none of them do

Pancake syrup is not a substitute for maple syrup, it is corn syrup with a flavoring, and in a dish where maple is meant to taste of something it will taste of nothing.

Where you can just leave it out · 7

These dishes list maple 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 · 15

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