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 · 8 dishes here use it

Out of sumac

Sour without liquid, which is a genuinely useful thing to own — it brightens a finished dish where a squeeze of lemon would make it wet. Also crimson, so it doubles as color.

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

1 of the 8 dishes here that mention sumac list it as optional — 13% of them. In those, the correct substitution is nothing.

What to reach for

Instead · 1

lemon zest plus a pinch of salt

the zest of half a lemon per teaspoon

What it gets you
The bright, sour, dry finish sumac gives to a salad or a piece of meat.
What it costs you
The color, which is half of why it goes on last, and the fruity astringency.

Instead · 2

amchur, or a pinch of citric acid

half as much

What it gets you
Dry acid that can be sprinkled, which is the mechanical trick sumac performs.
What it costs you
The depth. Citric acid is sourness with nothing behind it.

Instead · 3

za'atar

twice as much

What it gets you
Sumac, along with the thyme and sesame it usually travels with.
What it costs you
Any dish where the herbs are wrong, and the sesame changes the texture.

Where you can just leave it out · 1

These dishes list sumac 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 · 1

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