Secret Ingredients

Morning Glory

Obsessive cook
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Has anyone got a favourite secret ingredient that they add to make dishes taste 'wow'. I mean by secret, that people tasting it wouldn't necessarily know it had been added or if they did, might not be able to identify the ingredient. Like, for example, adding a teaspoon of instant coffee powder to a chocolate cake mixture (it makes it taste more chocolatey).

I've got a few: Dried Limes (you buy them whole and grind to a powder) and also Kaffir Lime Leaves (frozen or fresh) added to fish curry; Kewra water added to basmati rice; freshly ground nutmeg on scallops; angostura bitters in mashed swede; a touch of oyster sauce added to beef burger mixture.
 
Finish off a tomato soup with a gastric ,it's a technical word for reduced sugar and vinegar,2 tastes your Tate buds addict to ,add it to the soup which I never cream a tomato soup ,and Heinz will be after your recipe
 
Condensed milk and alcohol in a homemade ice cream when freezing stops it freezing to hard as the majority of home freezers are10 c to cold to hold ice cream
 
A cup of strong black coffee in my brownies make them devine. I use a mix and add the coffee as the liquid and take all the praises I can get.
 
My husband cooks special dishes that were his concoctions, meaning they are originals. In most of the dishes that I liked most, the common ingredient is fish sauce. He would sautee the crushed garlic and onion before pouring fish sauce and cooking it until it become sticky like it is already toasted. That mixture he will use in meat dishes or vegetable dishes and sometimes even for noodles. I know that his secret ingredient is easy to imitate if other cooks will know about it. So he is keeping mum about it.
 
Onion powder. They all hate onions, so inhave to use the powder instead. It doesn't seem to bother them when they don't know it's there
 
Onion powder. They all hate onions, so inhave to use the powder instead. It doesn't seem to bother them when they don't know it's there
Gosh! The plot thickens. 'They' hate onions and 'healthy food' (see Frappaccino thread) and you have to do things in secret! I'm getting concerned! :ohmy:
 
It's my husband's fault. His vegetables have to have sugar cooked in them like his grandmother used to do, the amount of ketchup he goes through in a sitting would blow your mind, and he has the metabolism of a bumble bee. He can eat as much as he wants, and as unhealthy as he wants and looks better for it. His picky was has rubbed off on the children. But see, here is the thing, they don't know which healthy foods they so or don't like. Their opinions are based solely on healthy or unhealthy. Feeding these people is a real challenge. I'm not picky and If I'm hungry I'll eat whatever is in front of me. But not them. My husband only wants beef, and fish maybe 4 times a year. My daughter is a fan of chicken. My son likes BBQ and spaghetti. My husband and son like hot! Habenero hot. My daughter likes mello and almost bland. So, daily its a challenge lol. My daughter has my husband's metabolism. My son doesn't. I'm just excited that one day the kids will be able to for themselves. Well, my son will. My daughter can't make Mac and cheese without burning it. Lmao
 
I forgot to post Adobo. That dish is a trademark of Filipinos and it is now popular in the US (since there are lots of Filipinos in America). The mix of chicken and pork is cooked in a broth of vinegar and soy sauce. But my husband would add a few pieces of red chili pepper, the small ones but very hot. His Adobo never fails to elicit comments for its peculiar taste. And the usual request is... more rice, please.
 
Me too I used sugar instead of a seasoning. I used it also in my tomato based dishes like in my spaghetti sauce. And for my mix vegetables sauteed in soy sauce and peanut butter and for its caramel sauce I used a small quantity of butter to make it more tastier and not to get too sticky.
 
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