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 · 81 dishes here use it

Out of potato

Waxy holds its shape, floury falls apart, and almost every potato complaint is the wrong one for the job. Salted from cold water, not seasoned after — it is the one vegetable that will not take salt at the end.

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

9 of the 81 dishes here that mention potato list it as optional — 11% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

sweet potato

one for one

What it gets you
A starchy vegetable that roasts, mashes and fries in the same time frame.
What it costs you
Neutrality and structure. Sweet potato has more sugar, so it browns sooner and burns sooner, and it holds together less well in a soup.

Instead · 2

celery root, turnip or parsnip

one for one

What it gets you
The body in a mash or a soup, at half the starch, and celery root in particular makes a better puree than potato does.
What it costs you
Fluffiness and any chance of a crisp edge. These roots go silky rather than floury.
Not here
Fries, roast potatoes, anything where the point is a crust.

Instead · 3

cauliflower

one head per pound

What it gets you
Bulk in a soup or a curry, and it takes a roast well.
What it costs you
All the starch, so nothing thickens. A soup that relied on potato to be a soup will be a broth with cauliflower in it.

Where you can just leave it out · 9

These dishes list potato 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 · 32

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

Showing the 30 shortest of 32.

Check what else is in the pan

The company potato 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 potatoRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions