Wide rice noodles. If you’ve ever tried to make pad kee mao (drunken noodle) with dried rice noodles you know it’s essentially not even worth it. The noodles are too important to the dish and the dried ones curl up and are just awful. My wife and I eventually figured out how to make fresh wide rice noodles and while it’s very simple to do so (rice flour slurry into a cake pan, steam it) it’s very laborious and time intensive. I’ll do some laborious stuff (bake my own bread, homemade yogurt and soft cheese, pasta and red sauce etc) but damn if one of my favorite foods isn’t too much work for all but special occasions.
Thank god we found a place a mile away that sells fresh noodles. Now we can have it whenever we want.
There’s a lot, most of which I make anyway for sake of cost/volume ratios, but in no particular order…
Tomato paste (love to use, can’t be arsed to make my own), sriracha (like it but don’t use enough for the amount I make), waffles (don’t crave them nearly as much as I used to), scotch eggs (love 'em, hate making 'em), pickled asparagus (which really sucks because they’re so good), lotus root chips (maybe if I had a fry daddy, air fried just doesn’t do it), chicarrones (lots off local places make 'em fresh and cheap), horchata (same), meat pies (there’s a local Brit shop that sells 'em), falafel (lots of local vendors), jalebi (way too much work)…
Stuffed vine leaves. I made them once for a gathering I had and they took me about 3 hours in all. Everyone loved them but for the time they took me, and how much of a pain in the arse they were to make, it wasn’t worth it. The ready made ones in tins are just fine.
Gaufre de liège. I made a very authentic version once, involving making a brioche type dough over a few days, giving time to rise and for the perle sugar to rest. Best waffles I’ve ever had, but so much trouble.
I haven’t found them outside Central Europe and miss them so much I have been thinking about making that dough again…
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