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 · 14 dishes here use it

Out of raisins

Sweetness with acidity underneath, and a texture that stops a soft dish from being uniformly soft. Soaked in something warm for ten minutes they plump and stop stealing moisture from the dish.

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

71% of the 14 dishes here that mention raisins already list it as optional. Before you look for a replacement, check whether you are in one of them.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

dried cranberries, cherries or chopped apricots

one for one

What it gets you
Sweet chewy fruit in the same place, plumping in the same warm liquid.
What it costs you
Neutrality. Cranberries are tart and apricots are floral, so both are more visible than a raisin.

Instead · 2

dates, chopped

one for one

What it gets you
More sweetness and more body, and they dissolve into a sauce or a tagine in a way raisins do not.
What it costs you
The shape. Dates go soft and disappear, which is sometimes the point and sometimes a loss.

Instead · 3

fresh grapes, halved, for a salad

twice the volume

What it gets you
Sweet fruit bursts, cold and juicy, which suits a chicken salad or a slaw.
What it costs you
The concentration and the chew, and they water the dressing down.

Where you can just leave it out · 10

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

Check what else is in the pan

The company raisins 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 raisinsRank what I can actually cookAll substitutions