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 · 301 dishes here use it

Out of onion

The base under most of this library. How you cut it decides what it becomes: thin and slow is sweetness, chunky and fast is texture. Undercooked onion is the most common reason a decent pan sauce still tastes raw.

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

10 of the 301 dishes here that mention onion list it as optional — 3% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

shallot

three shallots for one medium onion

What it gets you
The same base, sweeter and finer, and it collapses faster so a slow start gets shorter.
What it costs you
Volume. Shallot disappears into a sauce where onion still reads as texture.

Instead · 2

leek, white and pale green only

one large leek for one onion

What it gets you
The sweetness and the body, with less sulfur bite up front.
What it costs you
No browning to speak of. Leek goes soft and sweet but it will not give you the dark fond onion gives.
Not here
Anything raw. Raw leek is grassy and tough in a way raw onion is not.

Instead · 3

scallion, whites in early and greens at the end

a whole bunch for one onion

What it gets you
A workable base in a hurry, and the greens do a second job as the garnish.
What it costs you
Sweetness. Scallion has no sugar to give, so long-cooked dishes end up thinner than they should be.

What none of them do

Onion powder is a seasoning, not a substitute. It has the smell and none of the bulk, so a dish that leaned on onion for body will still be watery with a spoon of it stirred in.

Where you can just leave it out · 10

These dishes list onion 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 · 71

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

Showing the 30 shortest of 71.

Check what else is in the pan

The company onion 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 onionRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions