Oops, I am missing an crucial ingredient.

[Lostvalleyguy]

I was all geared up to make my young niece and nephew pizza as it is something they like and we could go out and choose toppings they wanted - within reason. We get home and I am about to start making the dough when D'oh! I haven't any yeast in the house. I didn't have enough butter to make a pie crust but I managed to improvise a thin crust that was akin to an thin unsweetened cookie. It worked out pretty well and the kids devoured the pizza.

What do you do when you are missing a necessary ingredient? Do you improvise or do you prefer to change gears and cook something else?

 

[OhioTom76]

Supposedly you can make a pizza dough with just yogurt and flour (and I think some baking powder). The blog posts and reviews about it online swear that it works really well. I attempted it once though and it was a disaster - I didn't even try to bake it. I think in my situation though, the problem was that I used Greek yogurt which is much thicker. The mixture would barely form into a dough ball it was so dry, and I just gave up on it, and tossed it.

I like to keep some packets of pizza dough mix on hand when I am in a pinch and craving some pizza but don't want to run to the store to get all the ingredients. They are super cheap, only about 60 cents each, and I often have enough ingredients on hand to make the pizza. I can turn some canned crushed tomatoes into a great pizza sauce in no time, and I almost always have fresh peppers in my fridge to use as a topping. For the cheese, I often make it with Romano instead of Mozarella anyhow, and I always have Romano on hand.

 

[crimsonghost747]

I don't make my own dough as anything to do with baking is not my thing. But generally when I find myself missing an ingredient, I just improvise. I might leave it out all together if it's possible or I just replace it with something similar.

 

[Jade]

I'd try to replace it, but as much as possible, I'd try to go out and get the right ingredient or just make a different dish altogether if there are absolutely no other alternatives. I think replacing ingredients may be alright sometimes, but if the missing ingredient is just too important to the overall dish, then replacing it might just make my dish taste like second best.

 

[Food4thought]

It depends on the ingredient, but most ingredients can be substituted. If you can't find any suitable substitute then I agree that it's a good idea to adapt. You can start cooking the ingredients you have but to make someone else with them than first intended. I have done this several time after starting to prepare my ingredients, only to discover I had actually run out of something I was sure that I had stored.

 

[Verity Darkwaters]

Majority of the time if I'm already halfway through making it I'll improvise. If I hadn't even started I'll probably be making something else. This happens to me all the time to be honest. I've actually made some really awesome recipe from improvising ingredients. But if something just can't be substituted I don't even bother.