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 · 194 dishes here use it

Out of olive oil

Two ingredients sharing a name. The cheap one is for the pan and the good one is for the finish, and pouring the good one into a hot skillet burns off exactly what you paid for.

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

38 of the 194 dishes here that mention olive oil list it as optional — 20% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

any neutral oil — canola, sunflower, grapeseed

one for one

What it gets you
Everything olive oil does mechanically: it conducts heat, it carries fat-soluble flavor, it stops things sticking.
What it costs you
The flavor, which in half this library is the point. A dressing made with canola is a dressing with a hole in it.

Instead · 2

butter, melted

a little more than one for one

What it gets you
Fat with more flavor than neutral oil, and browning olive oil cannot do.
What it costs you
The smoke point drops hard. Anything above a medium pan will burn the solids before the food is done.

Instead · 3

toasted sesame oil cut with neutral oil

one part sesame to four neutral

What it gets you
A finishing oil with a real voice, which is the actual job when olive oil goes on at the end.
What it costs you
It sends the dish somewhere else entirely. Use it when that is a decision and not an accident.

Where you can just leave it out · 38

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

Showing 30 of 38. The rest are on the ingredient page.

Where the swap will be tasted · 69

These need it and are short enough that nothing hides: 4 required ingredients or fewer, which makes olive oil a quarter of what is in the pan. Make the swap a decision rather than a repair.

Showing the 30 shortest of 69.

Check what else is in the pan

The company olive oil 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 olive oilRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions