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 · 60 dishes here use it

Out of sesame oil

A seasoning, not a cooking oil. Toasted sesame smokes and turns bitter in a hot pan, so it goes in at the end by the teaspoon, off the heat, where it reads as nutty rather than burnt.

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

22 of the 60 dishes here that mention sesame oil list it as optional — 37% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

toasted sesame seeds ground into neutral oil

a tablespoon of seeds warmed in three of oil, then strained

What it gets you
The actual flavor, made rather than bought, and it takes about four minutes.
What it costs you
Intensity. Bottled toasted sesame oil is pressed from a great deal of seed and a homemade version is a quieter thing.

Instead · 2

peanut or walnut oil

one for one

What it gets you
A nutty finishing oil in the same register, doing the same job at the end of a stir fry or on top of a bowl.
What it costs you
The specific smell, which is the one people are looking for. This reads as a good dish rather than the dish they expected.

Instead · 3

tahini thinned with water

a teaspoon of tahini in a tablespoon of water per teaspoon of oil

What it gets you
Sesame flavor and body together, which suits a dressing better than the oil would.
What it costs you
The clean gloss. This clouds a sauce and it can seize if it goes in hot.

Where you can just leave it out · 22

These dishes list sesame oil 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 · 10

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